New York Tech Week

Interviewer is now Wayfaster.  And we've raised a $2.6M seed round led by Slow Ventures with participation from South Park Commons and one of our earliest customers, the Atlantic Group Most early-round interviews are dreadful for everyone. Overworked recruiters repeat the same questions, while candidates endure slow, uncertain processes. Enter Wayfaster. Using advanced voice AI, we’ve built agents that replicate human interviewers, automating everything from question selection to conducting and scoring interviews—while ensuring standardization and a human touch. Evaluation is the biggest bottleneck for the $1T labor staffing industry which runs out outdated software and phone calls. And interviewing is just our starting point. We've already conducted thousands of interviews monthly since our beta launch this summer, with a team of just three. If you’re struggling with hiring high-volume labor or want to help us accelerate and build the future of labor email me at varun@wayfaster.com Want to also thank our angels, advisors and earliest helpers:  Scott, Sri, Dylan, Aditya, Finn, Ben, Ruchi, Arian, Ian, Pardha, Adrian, Sean, Adam, Sean McCann, Jordi, Dylan, Alan, Basil, Jeffrey

Who did Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, say makes the best hires? Athletes. Their drive, discipline, and teamwork make them great employees. Want to hire some of the world’s best athletes? These Olympians are active on LinkedIn: Kelsey Bing is a former Olympian in field hockey and now works as a GNC engineer at Joby, an electric aircraft company. Canyon Barry, an Olympian in 3x3 basketball, holds a degree in nuclear engineering and works as a systems engineer at L3 Harris Technology. Justin Best transitioned from early morning wake-ups as an Olympic rower to late nights as an investment banking analyst at Union Square Advisors. Peter Chatain is an Olympic rower turned ML engineer at Ello, with a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford. Sunny Choi, a Wharton graduate, competed as one of the inaugural Olympians in breakdancing and now works as a global creative operations analyst at Estée Lauder. Luca Cupido was a water polo Olympian and spent three years as an investment banking analyst at Bank of America. Meghan Musnicki, OLY, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in rowing, now works as an HR data specialist at Equinix. And lastly, Kristen Faulkner, an Olympic cyclist, is famously known for her time as an analyst at Bessemer Venture Partners. So if you’re not using Interviewer for your candidate pipeline, you can always cold DM an Olympian on here. :)

You’ll never guess the hottest new marketplace category (hint: it isn’t food delivery or selling used products…) Travel nursing is absolutely ripping post-COVID. Most COVID hiring trends have reverted, but travel nursing is the exception. Despite being only 2% of RN hiring in the US, it's grown significantly beyond pre-pandemic levels, creating many new marketplaces. Here's a quick primer: 1. The travel nursing market is projected to reach $8.5B by 2025, with an 11% annual growth rate, up from $5.2B in 2019. 2. 58,000 travel nurses are now in the US, up from 45,000 in 2019. 3. ICU and ER demand dropped by 22% from 2023 to 2024, while oncology and mental health demand increased by 15%. 4. Average weekly pay for travel nurses is now $2,100, 32% higher than the pre-pandemic average of $1,600. 5. 41 states have now adopted the Nurse Licensure Compact, up from 34 in 2019, easing interstate practice. Oh, and 73% (!!) of healthcare facilities now use AI-driven staffing platforms for travel nurses, up from 25% in 2019 🙂 Clearly, travel nursing is not just a trend—it's a booming industry that's here to stay. #TravelNursing #HealthcareStaffing #NursingTrends #Staffing #Hiring

Imagine being told in a job interview that the company you want to join is 95% likely to fail… That’s what happened to me when I interviewed at a Series B startup (which is now a thriving unicorn). The best hiring managers don’t just sell candidates on the vision for what the company can be. They’re transparent about the real risks and challenges outside a candidate’s control. It’s crucial to have employees fully aligned with the risk/reward profile of their work. As a hiring manager, here are essential topics to discuss with potential hires: 1️⃣ What are the market conditions of the sector the company is in? 2️⃣ What are the chances the company will switch its core strategy in the next few months? 3️⃣ How important is the product you’re working on to the company? 4️⃣ How many people will be staffed on what you’re working on? 5️⃣ How much competition is emerging around the company? 6️⃣ Why is growth actually slowing? 7️⃣ What’s the company’s burn rate? Transparency is key. And remember, even 95% doomed startups can turn into unicorns.

To all my fellow Academy of Television Arts & Sciences members in the emerging media space - please consider nominating Crypto: The Game, one of the most innovative ideas of this past year, spearheaded by Dylan Abruscato. If you're not familiar, Crypto: The Game is like Survivor meets HQ Trivia (where Dylan was a client of FCA (Fonseca Chan + Associates), natch). Contestants buy in with 0.1 ETH to play, participating in various challenges from arcade games to scavenger hunts, and vote others off the competition. The last one standing wins the buy-in pot! Season 2 had 800 competitors, with the winner taking home 80 ETH. That's over $268,000 for those of you who don't know the current exchange rate (I had to look it up). You've got until 1am EST (June 25th). Let's make it happen!! #emmys #cryptocurrency #cryptothegame #emmys2024 #emmynominations #ethereum #eth https://lnkd.in/dhxzy9Ev

Crypto: The Game is “the first native onchain project that’s been placed on an Emmy Ballot.” First they ignore you Then they fight you Then you’re placed on an Emmy Ballot Then.. 👀 

Excited to share that Crypto: The Game has been acquired by Uniswap Labs. These past six months have been the highlight of my career, and I can't wait for you all to see what we have in store.

Walmart x Pawp 🐶

Exclusively part of Toronto Tech Week, I'm doing a keynote titled: 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗼 (& 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳) It's an introspection of my journey so far with Daybreak Studio. A space for me to share all the joys and pains of starting + scaling a studio. An outlook into what's allowed Daybreak to thrive so far. May 14, 6:15PM, Daybreak Toronto HQ Would love to see ya'll there: https://lnkd.in/gQ8xZkbs

gm! I’ll be speaking at #Consensus2024 on May 30th to discuss all things Crypto: The Game. LMK if you'll be in Austin. We can go to Veracruz 🌮