Wayup

WayUp operates a digital job marketplace specifically designed for college students and recent graduates in the United States. The company was founded on September 1, 2014, by Liz Wessel and JJ Fliegelman, who met as students at the University of Pennsylvania. The initial idea stemmed from their shared frustration with the inefficient process of finding internships and entry-level jobs. After gaining corporate experience at Google and McKinsey & Company respectively, Wessel and Fliegelman launched the platform, originally named Campus Job.

The platform functions as a two-sided marketplace. For students and recent graduates, it offers a free service where they create a detailed profile showcasing their skills, experience, and interests. An algorithm then matches these candidates with suitable job and internship opportunities, ensuring they only see positions for which they are qualified. The company's business model generates revenue from employers, which range from startups to Fortune 500 companies. These clients pay to post job listings and to access a suite of tools for reaching, engaging, and recruiting early-career talent. The platform provides employers with targeting technology to filter candidates based on specific criteria like major, university, and graduation date, and offers analytics to track recruitment campaign performance.

Significant milestones for the company include several rounds of funding, starting with a seed round in 2014, followed by Series A and Series B rounds that raised a total of over $28 million. In 2017, WayUp acquired its competitor, Looksharp. A major strategic development occurred in July 2021, when WayUp merged with Yello, a recruitment software company. While operating under the Yello legal entity, WayUp has maintained its independent brand. This merger aimed to create an end-to-end recruitment platform, combining WayUp's sourcing capabilities, particularly its large, diverse candidate pool, with Yello's recruitment CRM functionalities.

Keywords: early-career recruitment, college jobs, internships, graduate jobs, student employment, HR tech, recruitment platform, talent acquisition, campus recruiting, job marketplace, entry-level jobs, diversity hiring, DEI sourcing, recruitment software, Yello, Liz Wessel, JJ Fliegelman, student job board, career services, recent graduate jobs