Abode

We are excited to announce that Matchstick Ventures Fund III has completed an investment in Scholars. Scholars is a tool that empowers employers to better engage and retain early-career talent from offer acceptance to start date. Background: While more than 80 percent of companies say they will continue to hire early-career talent, such as interns and recent graduates, virtually for the foreseeable future, this makes it more difficult for organizations to build connections and loyalty with their candidates, many of whom receive offers well in advance of their start dates. Without a good way to engage those candidates, it’s possible to see how 10 percent of early-career hires renege on accepted offers entirely, and 70 percent of them leave within two years on the job. Minimizing these instances of early-career turnover is one of the toughest challenges recruiting teams face. For companies hiring several of these candidates every year, it can become quite costly in terms of the time and money spent recruiting, interviewing, and selecting new hires who may never show up for their first day. Unfortunately, companies don’t have the tools to keep these people engaged between the time they accept their offer and their start date. As hiring becomes more competitive and early-career candidates continue to receive multiple job offers, this is a problem that seemingly will only get worse. Company Specifics: Scholars powers an online tool employers can use to increase the retention of early-career talent and reduce the number of reneges, no-shows, and back-outs from candidates. By providing HR teams with the ability to set up campaigns, Scholars empowers companies to send engaging materials to their early-career hires in between their offer acceptances and start dates, keeping them excited and involved with their job opportunity. Not only does this engage new hires, but it also better prepares them for their work to improve performance once they reach their first day. Scholars also offers powerful analytical tools that can be used to track how each early-career hire is interacting with the campaign, providing insights into which candidates are most engaged. By showing which candidates have low engagement, it gives HR teams an opportunity to reach out proactively to those most at-risk of reneging or not showing up for their start date. These can also be used as early data points for employees, and allows HR teams to tailor their campaigns to what works best. With nearly 20 customers, Scholars is already showing decreased rates of reneges, with increased engagement and performance from early-career hires. They estimate they save recruiting teams an average of 30 hours a week, and anticipate higher retention numbers for early-career hires over time. In the future, the team plans to continue to build out their suite of tools for the period between offer acceptance and start dates, as well as expand their timeframe to as early as when candidates apply through their first days of work. We met the team at Scholars through our friends at Range Ventures. Based in Boulder, they are also active in the local startup community and we are excited about the opportunity to work with them.