I-Corps L: ET-CONNECT: Employer-Talent CONNECT Pathways for Long Term Employment for Innovative and Motivated STEM Workforce

大学毕业生接受优秀的正规教育并获得学位。 但在他们开始工作之前，他们从未接受过正式的指导和培训，以过渡到劳动力市场。因此，雇主和雇员之间的不匹配经常发生。 根据《华尔街日报》最近的一篇文章，超过50%的劳动力无所事事，陷入他们不喜欢的工作中。因此，该项目的动机是国家需要在各个STEM领域为应届大学毕业生提供有意义的带薪项目实习机会。该项目开发了一种模式，提供正式的指导，积极主动的辅导，有效的指导和支持性的职业网络机会，否则是应届毕业生无法实现的。因此，应届毕业生能够更好地了解情况，并准备根据指导和真实的生活经验来决定某个领域或公司是否是成功且有回报的职业生涯的正确选择。为了满足上述国家需求，该项目为应届大学毕业生（学习者）和企业创造了一个交流平台，以分享共同的兴趣，并为双方提供了一个探索最佳匹配和增长潜力的机会。该团队创建了一个基于云的系统和门户网站，允许学习者和行业合作伙伴共享和交换数据，并促进数据搜索，以匹配和调整学习者和公司，此外还为学习者和公司提供“即时”资源。预计该项目将产生深远的影响和效益。在科学和技术领域，它建立在STEM研究发现的基础上，并展示了实施这些发现以造福社会的最佳技术方法。在社会和商业领域，它很好地服务于最近的大学毕业生和小企业。应届大学毕业生有机会：（1）探索基于项目的工作。提供一个工作储备对于那些代表性不足的人、妇女和缺乏联系和社交网络的少数民族尤其重要，以促进他们进入就业市场;（2）探索多种职业途径，选择最适合的职业。同样，该项目通过减少招聘费用和负担为公司提供了同样好的服务，特别是那些没有资源进行传统招聘流程以寻找合格员工的小企业和初创公司。

College graduates receive excellent formal education and earn a degree. But they never receive formal mentoring and coaching, before they embark on jobs, to transition to the workforce. As a result, mismatches between employers and employees often happen. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, over 50% of the workforce is disengaged and stuck in jobs they do not like. This project is, therefore, motivated by the national need of providing recent college graduates with meaningful paid project-based internship opportunities in various STEM fields. The project develops a model that offers formal mentoring, proactive coaching, effective guidance, and supportive career networking opportunities that are otherwise unattainable by recent graduates. As a result, recent graduates become better informed and prepared to decide, based on both coaching and real life experience, whether a field or a company is the right choice for a successful and rewarding career or not. To fulfill the aforementioned national need, the project creates an exchange platform for recent college graduates (learners) and companies to share common interests and provides an opportunity for both to explore each other for the best match and growth potential. This team has created a cloud-based system and portal that allows learners and industry partners to share and exchange their data and facilitate data search for matching and aligning learners and companies, in addition to providing "just-in-time" resources for both learners and companies. The project is expected to have profound impact and benefits. In the scientific and technological area, it builds on the STEM research discoveries and shows the best technological methods to implement them to benefit society. In the societal and commercial area, it serves recent college graduates and small businesses well. Recent college graduates are provided opportunities to: (1) explore project-based jobs. Providing a job pool is especially important for the underrepresented, women, and minorities who lack contacts and social networks to facilitate their entry to the job market; and (2) explore multiple career pathways and select the best fit. Similarly, the project serves companies equally well by reducing their hiring overhead and burden, especially small businesses and startups that do not have the resources for the traditional hiring processes to seek out qualified employees.