EdTech with Jailany
From cleaning ovens and scrubbing dishes at a local pizza shop to building an edtech startup focused on fixing the student-career pipeline
Jailany Thiaw is the Co-Founder and CEO at Connect UPskill, an edtech startup focused on fixing the student-career pipeline. Before launching the company, Jailany was an undergraduate student at Princeton University studying Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
We would love to hear about your journey. How did you initially get into EdTech? How has the journey been since?
From the beginning, this company has been rooted in my personal journey and the mentors that have made the difference for me. After immigrating to the US from Senegal when I was 4, I grew up with my two sisters and a single mom. I went to a regular public high school and got a blue-collar job as soon as I could: cleaning ovens and scrubbing dishes at a local pizza shop.
I’m proud of where I come from, but my upbringing had its setbacks which were especially apparent when I got into Princeton. I was quickly acquainted with the recruiting frenzy that exists on college campuses across the country and the feelings of intimidation that come with it.
I was lost. What made the difference for me though, was a few seniors who I happened to meet and who were able to coach me through the treacherous internship landscape. They answered questions I had like “What programs should I look at?”, “How should I dress?”, and overall were able to give me insights into college recruiting which I would not have been able to understand without their help.
My path deeply familiarized me with the gaps in upward mobility which exist in the US and how those gaps begin to form even in college. We’re building Connect UPskill to change that by making it possible for students everywhere to achieve their dream job, regardless of your background or whether or not you have an existing network.
What do you spend your time on these days? What’s top of mind?
The beginning of my week I work at a local coffee shop to pay for my nearby apartment. I wake up early and knock out some emails and business items, then pour lattes from Noon until 5pm.
On the weekend, though, it’s grind time on the startup. My co-founder Areeq Hasan and I get together with our whole team and set aside the weekend to focus purely on the company. This includes mapping out team goals and initiatives, strategizing around potential future opportunities, and building out new features on our product: Connectupskill.com.
What is UpSkill and what made you choose interview prep focus? What’s your big vision?
Today in society people in elite circles get elite jobs and those who aren’t, don’t. This results in an unequal division of job opportunities, widening wage gaps, and the suppression of upward mobility across the country. The hiring craze on college campuses is a reflection of that.
Connect UPskill is focused on fixing the unequal distribution of opportunities by creating an even distribution of the networks and resources which contribute to those job offers. Today, students can log onto the site, set up time to talk with a coach, and land a job that could change their whole life’s trajectory. This fall, we’ve already placed students at McKinsey, Bain, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, as well as others, and created a total value of over $200K for students working this coming summer.
For me and my co-founder, our passion, as well as intimate familiarity with this problem, is what drove us to focus on this space in particular. We envision a world where anyone, anywhere can see and access their dream regardless of who they know.
What’s been hardest about disrupting the way college students recruit and prepare for interviews?
What’s tricky is that, like me, it’s hard for students to realize what opportunities are out there and what the impact of these internships can have on your life. This means students often overlook opportunities because they didn’t think to look into them on their own.
We’ve worked with students from many backgrounds, and most of them have no idea that having quality internship experience may be the strongest determining factor in them getting a job after school, getting into a masters program, or meeting a mentor that changes their perspective about what they want to do with their life.
Not to mention the difference a high-paying internship with housing, health benefits and visa sponsorship can have, especially for low-income students or those fighting to stay in the country. You can’t be what you can’t see and we are dedicated to a future where everyone can see the best possible version of themselves and be equipped with the network to fully pursue it.
What are the main trends in EdTech and recruiting today and what is still on the periphery that you think holds a lot of promise?
What’s most quickly changing right now are the practices within elite professional industries such as consulting, finance, and tech. On campus, recruiters are setting earlier deadlines to apply - some as early as 13 months before the summer in which the student would actually work. What’s more, a lot of these firms are trying to pull students in earlier in their college careers. Some programs are even placing freshmen at some of the top banks and giving them enticing salaries - a lot of these jobs also often lead to full-time offers.
While on one hand the push to hire talent sooner gives students awesome opportunities early on, they should be cautious of being single-tracked before they have time to truly explore their interests.
Another major trend which is sweeping the company in most industries is the push for talent from a broader array of backgrounds. Reports such as those published by McKinsey show how more diverse companies outperform their homogenous counterparts - that coupled with a rally for social justice has made diverse recruiting a top priority for HR strategies going forward.
The trick now is for employers to back up their ambitions with the networks and resources that allow diverse talent to best display their abilities through the application process. They must also develop ways to support that talent throughout their career journeys even post-hire.
What do most people get wrong about preparing for interviews?
What we observe is that students instinctually rely on good grades and academic achievement to determine how competitive they are as a candidate. Maybe at one time these were good indicators, but today, it is much more about what you’ve created outside of the classroom and who you know.
We’ve seen a lot of students with lower GPAs but who are involved in many co-curricular activities be the ones the land jobs. They stand out more in a stack of resumes, they’ve developed stronger leadership qualities, and they often bring with them a level of experience working with teams that allows them to adapt better to their future work environment. The point here is that as a student you need to get out there and join a student club, become a leader on campus, start that blog, or audition for that group - all of these things will make you a much better candidate than just your GPA. If anything, the GPA is often just used as a heuristic to determine how much you can grind - not how great of an overall candidate you are.
The other piece is finding the right people to talk to who will guide you through your interview process. Sometimes it may be that you need that referral and connecting with a full-time employer will help, sometimes it’s talking to friends also applying to see how they’re thinking about things, and often it’s about knowing a student who applied and got in and is willing to share their advice on all the little things. Whatever it is, you want to make sure you understand what you’re applying to, how the application process works, and all the social cues you need to be aware of to crush it in an interview.
10 years from now, what do you want to see happen in the field?
I envision a world where anyone anywhere can have a real conversation with any professional about what they do - what they really do in their day to day job - and it doesn’t require a series of annoying and tedious networking calls or emails to do so.
It’s time to level the playing field and when we do, expect to see a huge increase in diverse representation as well as new and innovative value being created across every industry.
What is something you have always wanted to try but haven’t had the chance to get around to?
I’ve always been one of those people who loves to take things apart and put them back together - it’s part of what made me study engineering. Now that I’m working at a coffee shop, I’ve also developed a serious interest in espresso machines. So now, I’ve decided to take a swing at building one myself. Once my schedule frees up this is the first thing on my list!