Silicon Valley startups tap a new talent pool - pandemic-weary college students

San Francisco

TO many college students, the prospect of a year of school during a pandemic - with virtual classes, restricted movements and no parties - is a huge bummer. Some Silicon Valley startups, hungry for young talent, see it as an opportunity.

Over the past few months, several companies have presented an alternative to school: a remote internship, aimed specifically at young people looking for alternatives to a dismal school year.

Dozens of Silicon Valley startups are looking to hire interns, according to a list assembled by startup accelerator Y Combinator. This month, venture firm Neo organised a virtual career fair for 120 students and a range of startups, hoping to match pairs for internships during the upcoming academic year. And venture firm Contrary Capital is offering to invest US$100,000 in five teams of entrepreneurs if they take a gap year from school to build a company.

Such arrangements allow interns to get paid and learn on the job, while avoiding paying tens of thousands of dollars for Zoom University. It also means that companies willing to improvise on hiring and gamble on younger workers may get new access to fresh talent.

Big shift

Ali Partovi, Neo's chief executive officer, said the firm surveyed 120 students who are part of its mentorship programmes and found that 46 per cent of them are interested in taking a gap semester and 21 per cent are interested in taking a gap year.

"There's a potential for a big shift right now," said Alexandr Wang, the co-founder and CEO of Scale AI Inc, a startup that helps people train computer vision. He said Scale would hire up to 10 gap-year workers if they found the right people. For many students he talks to, school this year seems like a "sub-optimal" option, he added.

Companies have varying approaches to what gap year hiring would look like. Food-delivery service Postmates Inc said it is considering extending the tenure of the summer interns in its robot-delivery team to allow for those who want to take time off school. Lumos, a six-person web security startup, is offering around US$80,000 to four full-time "fellows" to work on different projects during the academic year.

Students, meanwhile, are trying to make sense of a dizzying array of choices, as on-campus options lose their appeal.

"Everyone is uncertain," said Evani Radiya-Dixit, a rising senior at Stanford University who is considering taking a gap year, and who recently interned at X, Alphabet Inc's research and development lab.

Stanford made it even more confusing last week, when it abruptly announced that it was ending most on-campus housing for students for the autumn quarter.

"I've heard people say Stanford is going to be like a prison," said Victor Cardenas, a Stanford sophomore and computer science major, now debating taking time off to build a company. "You're only allowed to be in your dorm, and someone not in your dorm can't be there. You have to eat six feet (two metres) away from everyone."

Startups are particularly well-positioned to capitalise on Covid-19 campus jitters. Bigger companies often do not want to take on the legal hassles of bringing on students beyond regimented internship programmes, said Scale's Mr Wang, who is 23 and has been working in tech since he dropped out of college.

"A lot of students are thinking about it, and hopefully a lot of companies are willing to take a risk on these students," Mr Wang said. "If you'd hire them a year from now, you should be willing to hire them now."

Access to star students

Nimbler startups willing to experiment could gain access to star students who might otherwise have wound up in summer jobs at giants like Facebook Inc, Alphabet or Apple Inc, managers said. "Usually you would fight to get on the radar with people, and here people are reaching out," said Emmanuel Straschnov, the co-CEO of Bubble, an app design service. Compared with regular recruiting, he said, "It's like night and day."

The ultimate pay-off is not just the student labour. "With recruiting you always play the long game," said Nick Schrock, CEO of Elementl, a developer tools startup that is planning to hire three gap-year workers this fall. "A great intern who has a great network can often yield compounded returns later down the line."

Students are assessing the trade-offs critically, and trying to decide if what they are getting from schools is worth the cost, especially if classes happen virtually.

Levi Villarreal, who will be a senior at University of Texas at Austin, is open to the idea that his disrupted school year could lead to something new and interesting, but he also wishes things were not so upside-down. "I really want to have one normal year in college before I leave," he said. "That's my hope." BLOOMBERG