Creating the Tinder for jobs

Alexander Florio and his sister Stephanie, founders of Swob, at a stand promoting their services
Image from Swob
Alexander and Stephanie Florio next to a sign that says Pitch Day
by Alexander and Stephanie Florio
8 April 2019

Finding a part-time job as a student can be a difficult process. But the work experience gained is also vital in building transferable skills that help in later life.

Alexander Florio and his sister Stephanie, founders of Swob, set out to make finding part-time work as a student easier…

We remember being students and looking for a part-time job. Back then, it involved walking through malls and restaurants, handing in resumes when we weren’t sure if businesses were even hiring. This was a tiresome experience that often wouldn't lead to success.

Despite the difficulties in finding work, we realised how valuable having a job while studying could be. It teaches you to be organised, how to communicate, good time-management skills and gives you real life experience in money management.

At the same time, our father worked in the restaurant industry and was finding existing recruitment methods to be inefficient and time consuming given the high turnover rate of student staff.

We knew there had to be a better way.

And that’s where the idea for Swob came from. We developed it in conjunction with students and employers to make both sides of the hiring process more efficient.

From speaking to students, we discovered that they felt there was a lack of resources and tools to help them find part-time work. The full-time, professional job market has resources such as Indeed and LinkedIn but nothing existed for students who needed to find casual, part-time shift work. Instead, students had to spend time printing out resumes and then take the time-consuming journey around the malls handing them out.

Meanwhile, businesses had a similar problem. Traditional recruitment methods don’t work long in industries with a high turnover rate such as restaurants and retail. Employers needed a solution that would enable them to hire staff much quicker, without having to spend a significant amount of money advertising roles.

Promotional image for the Swob app
Image from Swob

So we developed an app for students looking for part-time work. It uses a similar swiping function to many others in the app store, students simply swipe for a job (hence the name Swob). This is an interaction that we knew users would be familiar with and feedback we gained from students confirmed that they liked how easy it was to apply for jobs.

For employers, we built a website to make their search for employees as efficient as possible. Through their dashboard they can easily see the details of applicants and can target people based in a specific region or a set distance from their location.

We’ve now worked with companies such as McDonald’s, Virgin Mobile Canada, Tim Hortons and The Source to help them find suitable employees for their part-time roles. Through doing so, we’ve helped hundreds of students find meaningful employment and build their skills.