This post contains both copy and links to three articles featuring QuickHire co-founders Deborah Gladney and Angela Muhwezi-Hall. They appear in the order they were published.
September 28, Wichita Eagle: Need a job in service or manufacturing? Wichita sisters made an app for that
September 28, Wichita Business Journal: Wichita sisters launch app for skilled labor hiring
October 16, Wichita Business Journal: QuickHire founders stress need for representation in venture capital
Wichita Eagle: Need a job in service or manufacturing? Wichita sisters made an app for that
By Megan Stringer
When the coronavirus pandemic began to spur massive layoffs in March, two sisters from Wichita had an idea to help: an app, set up like a dating app, that can connect job seekers with open positions to be drivers, grocers, packers or manufacturers.
Just about six months later, Deborah Gladney, 33, and Angela Muhwezi-Hall, 30, launched the QuickHire app. While the idea was born years ago, they knew when the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. and Wichita that it was the right time to introduce their business. They hope it will help people impacted by severe layoffs in industries like service, retail and hospitality. Almost 1,000 people have downloaded the app so far.
QuickHire’s design might look familiar to some. After job-seekers create their profile, they can swipe left or right on job postings in their area, similar to a dating app. QuickHire will ask candidates various onboarding questions to pair them with a job that could be a good match.
In recognition that some workers might not have a resume, they can also record a 30-second introductory video for the profile.
“Millennial workers need technology they’re used to,” said Gladney.
Job offerings and the app itself are still evolving, after the official launch earlier this month. But you won’t see white-collar office jobs that are otherwise found on common employment websites. The sisters chose to focus on jobs that might not require a college degree, such as those in manufacturing, service or retail.
The job search process in those fields isn’t always as uniform like it is in more traditional employment settings, Muhwezi-Hall said. Sometimes workers have to go in-person to ask if a company is even hiring. They aren’t as likely to see a posting for a server at a restaurant on LinkedIn as they are to hear about it by word of mouth. The app aims to change that and build more respect for service-sector jobs along the way.
Gladney and Muhwezi-Hall both grew up in Wichita. The app has grown so much since March that QuickHire is now Muhwezi-Hall’s full-time job. She currently lives in Los Angeles, but is preparing to move back to Wichita soon to work on QuickHire with her sister and devote more attention to its growth.
You don’t have to live in Wichita to use QuickHire in your job search, since you can enter your zip code to find openings in your area. But the sisters are looking to partner with local educational institutions and some larger Wichita companies. Those conversations are ongoing.
While the app’s services might be needed during the ongoing recession, it’s not easy to start a new business because of the economic climate. Gladney and Muhwezi-Hall said they’ve had to jump through some extra hurdles to find investment capital and have ended up largely self-funding their project so far. It’s pushed them to get creative about marketing and growing.
“There were certainly concerns launching during a pandemic, but there was an opportunity, too,” Gladney said. “Companies had to pivot, and so did people.”
For now, the app is just in its initial phase. When the team rolls out updates, they plan to add a 48-hour turnaround time for job seekers to hear back from employers, even if the message is that they’re still under consideration. Muhwezi-Hall hopes this will encourage candidates who otherwise might not hear back after applying for a position.
For the sisters, QuickHire is about more than just connecting people with work. Their parents immigrated to the U.S. from Uganda and supported their family of seven with these types of jobs, Gladney said. It’s about bringing dignity and respect back to the jobs that help keep the economy running, but aren’t always in the spotlight.
“We wanted to build a community for these workers,” Muhwezi-Hall said. “Because COVID-19 has shown us how essential they really are.”
Workers and employers can download the QuickHire app in either the Apple or Google Play store on their smart phones.
Wichita Business Journal: Wichita sisters launch app for skilled labor hiring
by Daniel McCoy
Seeing a need to help technology connect employers and job seekers in the trades and other traditional blue-collar industries, two Wichita sisters have launched an app called QuickHire.
Deborah Gladney and Angela Muhwezi-Hall say they had had the idea for the app for some time, but the onset of job losses earlier this year due to Covid-19 accelerated their efforts to bring the platform to the market.
That spurred a 4 a.m. phone call between the two in March, when it was decided, Muhwezi-Hall says: “Now is the time.”
QuickHire is essentially targeting jobs that do not require college degrees — including an emphasis on manufacturing and logistics — an employment sector the sisters say has lagged when it comes to technology-aided hiring.
Using a swiping interface familiar to the online dating world, QuickHire helps employers and potential employees learn about each other and quickly connect when there is mutual interest.
“This is technology they are used to,” Gladney says.
After beta testing in August, QuickHire officially launched earlier this month and is available for download in the Google’s Play Store or the App Store for Apple.
“The response has definitely been great,” Muhwezi-Hall says, noting the platform already has nearly 1,000 users. “Now we really want to implement those features that are critical to the success of QuickHire.”
That includes notification within 48 hours of an employment offer — or if one will not be made or accepted — and others like video introductions, all while building out users on both the applicant and employer side of the platform.
And still to come, they say, will be more additions that make the platform a pipeline to connect people to training and other resources to help them navigate an entire career — not just initially landing a job.
“The jobs portion is just one part of our vision,” Gladney says.
Wichita Business Journal: A Need For Representation
QuickHire founders stress need for representation in venture capital
By Daniel McCoy
Most tech founders don’t look like the founders of QuickHire.
Wichita sisters Deborah Gladney and Angela Muhwezi-Hall, the daughters of Ugandan immigrants, founded QuickHire earlier this year.
The hiring app leverages swipe-left-or-right technology familiar to the online dating world to match employers and job seekers in sectors like manufacturing — where that type of technology has lagged behind.
But getting to this point — the app launched in September and now has more than 1,000 users — the sisters say, has been a lesson in the unfortunate power of implicit bias.
“Growing up as Black women … this is something we have faced all our lives,” Gladney says. “But I think being the children of immigrants, we never used it as an excuse. I work hard and I let my work speak for itself. But I feel like this is the first time no matter how hard I work, I can’t get something.”
Where that’s come through the clearest, they say, has been in their pursuit of venture capital.
“There have been so many times Deborah and I have done presentations with major VC firms and they want an extra set of proofs, extra validation,” Muhwezi-Hall says.
As an example, QuickHire was up for a national accelerator program and the sisters were told for several rounds they would be a perfect fit.
Then, they were eliminated because they were told QuickHire was in too competitive a space — something they feel would've been apparent from the start.
“They say these are the requirements to get certain access to capital and if you’re checking all these boxes, you can’t help but wonder if some of these underlying biases come into play,” Gladney says.
The sisters know they’re trying to disrupt the market with their product — which has a growing number of real-world users as the truest form of validation.
But they are disrupting it as well.
“They’re not used to seeing two Black women build a labor marketplace,” Muhwezi-Hall says.
When someone on a panel tells first-generation Americans who, like many of their peers are also the first in their family to go to college, that they should go to friends and family for the $200,000 they need, the sisters say the disconnect is obvious.
It wasn’t lost on them that no one on that panel looked like them.
And that, they say, underscores the importance of representation.
“If there were more of us in those spaces, they would know and would be able to give us more useful advice,” Muhwezi-Hall says.
QuickHire
Founders: Angela Muhwezi-Hall and Deborah Gladney
Year founded: 2020
Platform users: More than 1,000