How WayUp is helping recent graduates find jobs amid COVID-19

Job site WayUp matches college students and recent graduates with employers based on the candidate's interests and skills. WayUp Co-Founder and CEO Liz Wessel joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move panel to discuss.

Video Transcript

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ADAM SHAPIRO: Welcome back to "Yahoo Finance on the Move." A lot of people looking for jobs. That includes college graduates. And let's invite into the program Liz Wessel. She is WayUp co-founder and CEO. She's joining us now to talk about the ways that the current crop of recent college graduates can find jobs in the middle of a COVID pandemic. I want to ask you about all of that, but I've got to imagine the new emphasis on more inclusion and equality is having an impact on the work you do to help people find these jobs.

LIZ WESSEL: Absolutely. And thank you for having me on. You know, it's interesting, because I think a lot of companies have always thought of early career recruitment, college graduate recruitment, as being a great way and to be frank, an easier way to bring diverse candidates into your funnel. Because there's a lot more black and Hispanic talent or female and tech talent that is easier--

--if you will, to find at the college level than if you're looking for a VP of Engineering who's a woman at the executive level, because maybe they've already been held back by the system at that point. So it's definitely shining a light on this even more. But I will say that college recruitment has always been a really great way for companies to bring in diverse talent into their funnel

JULIE HYMAN: Liz, it's Julie here. It must be a really scary time for new graduates, right? And so I'm curious what you're seeing on your platform, both in terms of numbers and how they might have changed from last year at this time. But also, how many of them are getting jobs?

LIZ WESSEL: Absolutely. So it's always felt, and this isn't just for college students, this is kind of for everyone, like you have to apply for 10 jobs in order to hear back from just one. But now we're hearing from college students on other platforms, that they're feeling like they need to apply for even triple that to hear back from one. And that so many jobs that are currently live and up on the internet are not actually recruiting, they're just building funnels, and that these are companies that, to be frank, are just kind of on hiring freezes.

And so we're definitely seeing from college, it's actually why we've built out a feature and launched a feature this past month where you hear back, we guarantee any job that's on WayUp is a live job, is actively recruiting, and that you'll hear back within 24 hours. And we're I think, the only platform that says that. But that's one of the reasons. So colleges are absolutely graduating in a difficult time. And one of the things we keep hearing over and over is, I feel like I'm applying for so many jobs and just not hearing back.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Liz, it's Brian Cheung here. It seems like the discussion on college focuses on either those entering college for 2020 in the fall or those graduating right now. But what about those that are in the midst of college right now? Obviously, internships are something that they think a lot about during the summer, with the summer having just begun. What have you seen on the trends for internships? Have you seen a lot of companies suspend those programs or suspend the pay for some of those programs? How do you, [AUDIO OUT] the trends have you seen on WayUp?

LIZ WESSEL: So on my app, about 20% of our company clients, employers, have had to unfortunately, cancel their internships, most of which are for just the sake of the health of the students. Some, of course, for financial reasons as well. Internships are not, they cost money to hold for a company. And then I think Glassdoor reported that in their perspective, it's been as high as 35% of companies unfortunately having to cancel internships.

I will say, some of our clients have not only kept their internships, but have done pretty incredible things with them. So Citi, Citigroup, one of the largest employers of college students in the world, they're one of our clients, and they actually gave every single intern this summer who completes their internship successfully, a full-time offer. And so a lot of students are going to be graduating pretty happy at the end of that, or sorry, completing their internship pretty happy. So there are definitely some companies who are doing some pretty incredible things as well.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Liz Wessel is the co-founder and CEO of WayUp, and you can find WayUp wayup.com. We'll be right back after this. Thank you, Liz.