Matching potential employees with employers: it was one of those big categories of companies that a lot of the startups I looked at fell into. Perhaps the biggest category, actually.
A long list of startups are trying to find a better way to learn people’s motivations, skills, work preferences (e.g. collaborative vs. competitive), and personalities, and then match those up with the right job and the right company. Some do it through screens and assessments; others by other means, such as a game.
I’m picking one that you may not have heard of to show off its product in San Diego, where I’m moderating a session about startups (Clinch and Mya have been selected so far) that represent different aspects of the future of talent acquisition. What’s different about it is that it’s targeting an age group that isn’t getting a ton of attention.
Vocatio has a name that may conjure up flashbacks to your high school wood or metal class. But it’s not specifically about vocational school. Vocatio aims to learn about liberal-arts students early, find out what career may work for them, and then in turn match them with a job that’s a fit within that career.
A “job fit report” shows the “key traits” someone has with a left/right scale like you see in the image. Then, a “descriptive review” 
provides more of a narrative: “he exhibits good self-discipline and control, which can be an asset under hectic or stressful conditions.”
The employer gets interview questions, like this one from my report:
Susi will be steady and controlled rather than hurried and spontaneous. She can, however, be adequately responsive to reasonable production demands in task-oriented lines of work. Once she knows the ground rules, she can focus on important routines and manage his assignments independently. Ask Susi: Juggling and controlling many activities can often be a challenge. How have you managed this in the past?
Again, Vocatio is just one of many companies trying to make better matches. The sweet spot is what’s less common: a 16- to 24-year-old. It’s a site that’s not just about jobs and assessments but actually about careers.
Patrick Jones, the founder, says the company’s “initial six beta customers are representative of Fortune 500, Inc 500, and startup-size companies.”
Jones says the goal initially is to help place students in internships in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Austin, Cincinnati, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., New York, and Atlanta. It just launched a pilot with Miami University, in Ohio.
More in San Diego.
image from bigstock