Undergrads is a marketplace that connects businesses with college students. We give businesses access to an underserved talent pool while providing students with an easy way to work around their class schedule.
Co-founder @ Undergrads | #7 fastest growing business on the Fast50
It’s race day!
👑 When serving royals and Fortune 500 executives, quality matters. So, how do you maintain quality across hundreds of staff all over the country?
We follow a few basic principles.
1️⃣ Be a leader - lead by example and others will follow
2️⃣ Be kind - look out for others and be patient with their needs
3️⃣ Have fun - enjoy the experience and make the most of it
It’s not rocket science.
Because our Undergrads work these events for side money instead of a career, they haven’t been burnt out by unpleasant experiences or seasoned tenure in hospitality. This leads to a more friendly face willing to go above and beyond, with a great attitude!
Working in the premium locations provides students with an unforgettable experience and an opportunity to network. Also, who doesn’t love getting paid to have the best seat in the house!
That’s just us though. What are your basic principles?
We’re back, Austin, TX!!
The biggest weekend ever just kicked off in Austin, Texas with hundreds of Undergrads facilitating the F1 race at COTA!
Which driver should we root for?
Co-founder @ Undergrads | #7 fastest growing business on the Fast50
Biggest weekend ever! 🏎️ 🏈
With Formula 1 pulling in close to 500,000 attendees per day and UT Austin (1) playing Georgia (4) in football on Saturday—Austin, Texas is rocking!
We are thrilled to play a key roll in making the “Biggest weekend ever” hopefully the “Best weekend ever”. We kick today off in Austin, TX filling hundreds of bartender and server positions with our Undergrads at the US F1 Grand Prix! 🎉
If you’re in a premium suite this weekend, your drinks and food service will be brought to you by Undergrads🤵
This will mark our second year being the primary provider of premium food and beverage staff. Having completely redesigned and rebuilt premium structures, COTA really stepped up their game for the 2024 Grand Prix!
With a 3:30 AM call time for check-in this morning, hearing the terms “fully staffed” this before sunrise never fails to get the team pumped up ahead of the big weekend.
Now we need a bandwagon driver to support while we’re here. Who’s your favorite F1 driver that we should root for?
🎉 Big news! We’ve just hit 1,000 Google Reviews in our Charlotte, NC market! 🎉
We kicked things off here in 2020, and it means the world to us when we read these reviews and see the positive impact we have made on our community over the past few years—not only on our customers but also the students! Our team reads EVERY review, across all markets, good or bad.
Huge shout out to our amazing customers—we wouldn’t be here without your support, recommendations, and referrals. Your trust keeps us moving (pun intended) and we’re so grateful for each and every one of you.
🫡 Equally so, huge shout out to all the Undergrads in the Charlotte, NC market who made this milestone possible!!
Here’s to many more moves and happy customers. Thanks, Charlotte! 🚚💪
#UndergradsMoving#CustomerLove#1000Reviews#CharlotteNC#ThankYou#UNCC#JCS#CPCC#JWU
🐎 🎉 Big news from Undergrads! We're thrilled to be part of the 150th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Racetrack staffing nearly 1,000 premium roles!
From starting with a simple Craigslist ad to now playing a significant role at one of the world's most famous horse races, our journey has been a rollercoaster.
Thanks to our dedicated team of college students for making this possible for the thousands of patrons at the historic 150th Kentucky Derby 🏇
Even better, we get to root on fellow Clemson University alumni Brook Smith and his horse Sierra Leone during the “Run for the Roses”!! Makes our horse selection pretty easy 😅
Read more through the most recent press release from one of our favorite national publications, Sports Business Journal!
https://lnkd.in/e3__DJhA#KentuckyDerby#PremiumUndergrads
🎉 That’s a wrap for LIV Golf Miami with Former President Donald J. Trump in attendance at our VIP suites staffed by Undergrads! 🇺🇸
When Chris Dyer and I started Undergrads, serving former presidents, heads of state, and world leaders at high profile events was never on our roadmap—but it’s something we’ve gotten really good at doing! We’ve been incredibly fortunate and grateful for the opportunities along the way and the team to make it all possible.
With high profile clients in your suites, you don’t want just anyone off the street representing your brand and being the face of your organization. You want Undergrads!
The staff had an awesome time at Trump National Doral, Miami during our second LIV Golf event this year. The weather was incredible and we had a near perfect 96% attendance rate on the entire week—putting us well above the industry norm of 70%!!
In our industry, no-shows happen and people have lives outside of work. We make it extremely easy for Undergrads to work around their schedules and to call-out if something does come up. This direct line of communication helps improve fill rates with replacements and decrease no-shows.
We also like to keep it fun. The Undergrads had a blast as always and even got to hold the trophy! 🏆🚀
LIV Golf Miami kicks off tomorrow with Thomas Mumford and Jacob Gardina both on-site @ Trump National Doral, Miami! This now marks the second LIV Golf event in the US, with both having their premium VIP staffed entirely by Undergrads!!
Excited to keep everyone updated as the event unfolds with nearly 100 staff being provided daily!
Stay tuned as Thomas Mumford keeps us updated on the day-to-day of the tournament 🎉
Co-founder @ Undergrads | #7 fastest growing business on the Fast50
🎉 Just wrapped up our pre-event walk-through for LIV Golf Miami @ Trump National Doral, Miami!! Another day, another nationally recognized event made possible by Undergrads! ⛳️
We are so excited to be out here in #Miami, not only displaying the scalability of our service as we continue to expand into multiple markets across the US, but also continuing our partnerships within LIV Golf!
This now marks two out of two LIV Golf events in the US this year, all having their premium staff fulfilled entirely through Undergrads!!
We have allowed all other vendors to stay focused on their core service offering, while handling the hardworking and friendly faces inside the #VIP suites & #concessions. Nearly 100 each day of the tournament!
👇 Here are just some of the little things Undergrads does to separate ourselves from other #staffing providers:
1️⃣ Pre-event walk-through and logistics dry-run day before the event to understand the layout and see the venue in the eyes of the staff! This is critical for communication, yet very few providers do this!
2️⃣ On-site leadership at check-in to make sure questions are answered and everyone is where the client needs them. This is CRITICAL for retention the next day. Especially if someone has a poor experience, you want to be able to address that day of.
3️⃣ We over-communicate any logistics, parking, and event expectations to the staff so there is zero confusion. Just show up on time and you are good to go!
4️⃣ Lastly, we heavily rely on automations (shout out Zapier!) to allow for real-time updates and communication - keeping our staff happy and allowing us to meet our clients always-changing needs on event day!
Looking forward to kicking this event off tomorrow with the Behind the Scenes Catering and Events team!
Stay tuned!! 🚀
🌅 Day 2 at #TPC Sawgrass for THE PLAYERS Championship!! Fun fact about Undergrads, we have a lucky morning ritual on EVERY large event where we listen to “We Didn’t Start The Fire” by Billy Joel on our ride into the event.
It’s a tradition started by Chris Dyer, Jackson Smith, and Jacob Gardina that has stuck through all of our past events. Around 4:30am in the darkness of the morning, we load up the car for check-in. Before the car leaves the lot, the song must be started. Added “luck” for increased volume when necessary!
When the sun hasn’t come up yet, you’re running on 2 hours of sleep the night before (or an all nighter during Formula 1), and you’re feeling the excitement for the day ahead—this lucky charm helps get the adrenaline flowing for check in.
It’s something silly that has grown to be apart of our culture and at this point feels second nature.
Two “We Didn’t Start The Fire” listens down, two more to go! 🚀
🎥 Undergrads was just the sole provider of nearly 300 premium VIP food and beverage servers/ bartenders for the LIV Golf tournament in Las Vegas! 🎉
Ever wonder what makes these large events tick? A lot of hours, tons of teamwork, and a mountain of trust in the students on the Undergrads platform.
We were given just 40 days to stand up a team of nearly 300 event servers, bartenders, bussers, runners, and concessions for LIV Golf—that just happened to be the three days before The National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl in Las Vegas, that we were already staffing hundreds for.
Going into the LIV Golf event, our main priority was to not over extend ourselves with The Super Bowl on our schedule. Doing LIV was an operational risk we were transparent with our client about going into it, and ultimately talked through to all feel comfortable moving forward. Huge shout out to Behind the Scenes Catering and Events for trusting in us on these two massive overlapping events.
We usually see about 15% of staff drop off between being onboarded and the event start, because life happens. To get our 100% fill rate (which we did for LIV 🤩), we forecast depending on the market and over staff based on expected show rates.
We also utilize automated notifications to keep everyone updated on changes to make it easier to show up. Where to park, where to check in, what to wear—you name it.
Most people don’t know that parking for staff is RARELY ever on site for large events. Usually you park 20-30 minutes away and shuttle in to the check-in site. For large events there are usually 2,000 - 4,000 staff working to make things run smoothly without guests noticing!
When you get to check-in, you battle day of changes and callouts, where careful planning the day before goes a long way. Automations are crucial to track and plan around last minute callouts and no shows to pull in backups! Zapier is a lifesaver for this!
Lastly, during the event you need to get everyone to the correct locations. For golf, imagine telling someone whose never been to that golf course where to go—nearly impossible. Check-in is usually before the sun rises so it’s pitched black if it wasn’t already hard enough! Pre-made digital direction-packets help get everyone out to the correct locations to deliver that unbeatable Undergrads customer service!
The hardest part of large events is getting staff to the event and checked-in, as smooth as possible. Minimizing those callouts every way possible with automations and communication is crucial.
We pride ourselves on standing up our teams and taking care of large events with just a months notice (although a little more notice is always appreciated 😉)
Overall, LIV was such an amazing experience from start to finish, and we’re looking forward to providing staff for LIV Golf down in Miami in April!!
Stay tuned as we take on THE PLAYERS Championship this week, providing the VIP staff to the premium suites and tents lining the course 🏌️♂️⛳️
Co-founder @ Undergrads | #7 fastest growing business on the Fast50
🗞️ Excited to announce Undergrads was just featured in the Charlotte Business Journal for our involvement in The Super Bowl and LIV Golf!🚀
For anyone that knows Chris Dyer and I, PR and marketing are definitely our personal weak spots. It just doesn't come naturally to either of us. We are both engineers - we live by data and numbers!
It has been incredible seeing the traction this story has pulled and the overwhelming support from those around us. Hoping someone over at Forbes or Entrepreneur Magazine will take interest in our journey from Craigslist to The Super Bowl 👀👀
🎥 We have an awesome #LIV Golf recap coming out soon and working on the #superbowllviii recap video so everyone can get a glimpse into our day-to-day while on-site. It always takes some time after these large events to get your feet back under you from going non-stop for 17-20 hours a day over the course of a week.
With these two large events in the rear-view, we now take aim at The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass down in Jacksonville, FL where we will be headed in March to provide staff for their VIP tents lining the course! ⛳️
Does anyone have large event recommendations that we should tackle next? We are thinking Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Racetrack, Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACL) festival in Austin, TX, or the US Open in NYC. Would love to hear suggestions!
https://lnkd.in/gBtEP-AY
🎉 We're going to The Super Bowl!! 🎉
Stay up to date with our Super Bowl journey by following our TikTok!
tiktok.com/@undergrads.com
We will be posting updates daily with an in-depth recap after the event! 🚀🎰
Co-founder @ Undergrads | #7 fastest growing business on the Fast50
🎉 Excited to announce that Undergrads landed its largest contract in company history…The Super Bowl in #lasvegas!! 🏈🎰
Will will be out in Las Vegas this week providing hundreds of staff for #superbowlLVIII at Allegiant Stadium, and additionally the LIV Golf tournament at The Las Vegas Country Club over the next three days!
🤐Chris Dyer and I have been holding back this announcement for quite some time now, partially because we couldn't believe it was actually happening and we didn't want to jinx ourselves. Funny enough, many of the people we brought on to work the event couldn't believe it was real either!
The entire team has put in countless hours over the past 4 months to make this special #nfl event a reality for the thousands of people attending in person and the millions of people watching back at home.
There are always challenges to staff 100,000+ person premium events, and The Super Bowl is no different! Our team has absolutely crushed it from start to finish, with coordinating logistics, managing last minute changes, and communicating to hundreds of staff leading up to the event! We could not be more proud of everyone who helped pull this off! 🙌
We can't wait to keep everyone updated over the next few days and to recap the entire experience afterwards. 🎉
(I also had a crash course in TikTok last night to make this video! Have so much respect for anyone who edits videos and thanks to the many patient people who helped throw this together)
