For Vernon Howard, the influence of a single piece of paper on his life, a less than laudable high school grade report, has been immense. The report shaped his past as it now does his future. Howard is from Rochester, New York, a town where the high school graduation rate sits at a faltering 43 percent, just 42 percent for African American students in relation to 58 percent for white students. Even less attend college.
"I really consider it one of my greatest accomplishments," Howard told DC Inno.
Years removed from the halls of Rochester's public school system, Howard's uncle, a man who similarly found a document constricting his ability to find work, needed to entirely redraft his resume. Once again, the power of paper dominated before the university or, in this case, an employer would ever evaluate an applicant's personality; their intangibles.
Today, Howard, an alum of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and a senior associate for Capital One's capital markets division, has co-founded a startup called Clinchr that aims to change the way millennials both apply for jobs and are recruited by employers.
Clinchr has developed a video-centric cloud-based software platform, where users submit a different kind of "resume." At the core, it involves a specific, 1-minute video message/pitch by the user to be tagged alongside a more traditional, skills tree document.
The user base is two part: applicants and employers. For applicants the service is free. For employers the sales model currently offers a cap on available interview "invites" depending on the purchased plan. The goal for Clinchr is to make what has typically been a startup pitch competition requirement (a brief but convincing pitch about the business) into a preferred application method.
Background
As with so many personal stories, an epiphany changed the direction of Howard's life.
After graduating from high school, he was unsure about going to college. The proposition didn't appear immediately appealing and a poor GPA weighed heavily on his chances of being admitted to a reputable institution. The answer was a job with the United Parcel Service (UPS). It was a short term stop gap, undoubtedly, but a job he knew could help pay the bills while his mother lobbied for a higher education degree.
Howard's attitude and moreover, his career with UPS, would change drastically after less than a year with the national package delivery franchise.
"One day at work my manager in his usual manner yelled at a few of the employees including myself to hurry up with our task. The difference between this day and the many other work days was that I spoke up for the team, saying he shouldn’t speak to us in that manner."
"After my bold performance, my manager told me that I would never do anything with my life but work here at UPS. I quit that day and I went to VCU a month later."
The computer information systems degree from VCU didn't come easily either. Howard was allowed to matriculate into the university's computer science program only if he received a 4.0 GPA average over the course of two semesters as a part-time student. Then, and only if he performed up to par, would he be accepted as a full-time student.
"And the rest is all history. I believe that if I had not been judged off a piece of paper [resume or GPA] my story would be much different. The fact that I drove from Rochester with no idea if I would be accepted or not might have shown them [the university's admission office] a drive and passion for achieving," said Howard.
During his studies as a student, Howard would be recruited by Capital One to join the financial company at its McLean, Va.-based headquarters. His first position would be in the Technology Development Program as a quality automation engineer.
"A year later I was in the handful of new hires promoted and I shifted career tracks to being a legitimate hacker for Capital One, focusing in on application security. While in this role of app sec, I self-taught myself how to trade stocks through a vigorous reading program ... which prompted me to want a role in this [capital markets] environment."
The shift from security to financial tech would eventually lead Howard to being placed in Capital One's capital markets division, where he supports derivative trading and helps with recruiting efforts through the D.C.-based Howard University, among other things. Clinchr's co-founder and CTO is Phillip Bauman, a data analytics software engineer at Capital One.
The company
Clinchr is in the process of raising a seed funding round and has been entirely bootstrapped to date. Howard and Bauman have put a combined $20,000 into the venture. "Most of which was taken from rent money, work bonuses, or my 401k," Howard told DC Inno.
The Clinchr platform took 6 months to build while both co-founders were working full time with Capital One. It's entirely web-based and there is no smartphone app at the moment. After New Years, Howard and Bauman hope to work full-time on the startup dream they've just embarked upon.
Clinchr fully launched last week with version 1.0. Several demos have been completed with Fortune 500 companies, Howard said, some of which are committing as customers. Current potential clients include "top Ivy league schools" and several universities that hail from the DMV area as well.
"Clinchr aims to get candidates a foot in the door to get to that interview, being that currently a machine is scanning resumes and canceling out good candidates simply because of buzz-words. And I know since I lead STEM diversity recruiting for Capital One," he said.
There are currently 450 pre-sign ups on Clinchr's beta demo list.
Only 13 percent of millennials are utilizing LinkedIn, Howard explained, while roughly 94 percent of of job recruiters use the professional social media network in some facet to gauge the available talent pool. Clinchr hopes to cater to this demographic.
Howard said that his first goal will be to attract a substantial group of career-focused millennials and college grad users to effectively get feedback on his system.
