While it has always been free for students, the service provided by QuadJobs at Quad-Jobs.com, an online marketplace that connects employers to local graduates and undergraduates seeking work, this fall went free for employers, too, and will remain so until 10,000 jobs are created, its owners have pledged.
At present, the year-old Greenwich-based business has facilitated 5,100 hires. But these aren’t your average partor full-time positions.
QuadJobs, unlike most of its job search competitors, caters exclusively to busy learners enrolled in collegiate and postgraduate institutions who need to work but can’t squeeze 20 to 40 regular hours into their already hectic and ever-changing weekly schedules.
While she wouldn’t call them “odd jobs” per se, QuadJobs co-owner and founder Bridie Loverro agreed that postings on her site are certainly “flexible.” They’re contracts, as it were, and Quadjobs’ student-users are the contractors.
“They’re basically on-demand jobs,” she said, “like ‘Help me design my company logo’ or ‘I need a short-notice babysitter.”
QuadJobs serves the tri-state area. Wilton, Loverro said, “has really come on the map, creating a lot of jobs in the area.
Since there’s such a good base of students in Wilton, it’s great that employers are posting.”
When a college student needing to work looks at his or her curricular and extracurricular schedules and finds only five hours open each week, a part-time gig is out of the question, let alone a day job.
“With QuadJobs, however,” Loverro said, “if during a certain semester you only have five hours per week free, you can easily fill those hours and make some money.”
To give an idea, a quick browse of QuadJobs.com’s latest employment posts revealed the following opportunities: “Help elderly parent understand how to use her new iMac, $20/hour,” “Brand Ambassador needed to pass out healthy snacks at N.Y.C. events, $10/hour,” “After-school babysitter needed for three children in Westport, $15/hour.”
As can be seen, the way QuadJobs works is similar in most respects to the way job search engines like Indeed and LinkedIn do. Employers post jobs that students can browse through and apply for.
Up until this October, however, those employers had to pay membership fees, but QuadJobs has for a limited time done away with its subscription model. According to Loverro, the purpose behind the shift is twofold.
“We think of our business as a mission,” Loverro explained. “We’ve got 7,000 students in the area looking for jobs through the site. We feel very connected with them, and we feel a responsibility toward them to help them find work. They need jobs.
“We also really wanted to get the word out and keep employers using our site.” More employer-users now means more business for QuadJobs down the road, when membership fees are reintroduced, though it should be noted that Loverro and her fellow co-owners are considering different payment methods for the future.
Some might find it interesting that QuadJobs uses Quadjobs, so to speak. Not only does the business source from its own website, its owners use the service for their more personal needs as well.
“Of the hires we’ve made, 99% have come from our own site,” Loverro said. “We use ‘QuadJobbers’ for photography, financial accounting, and for pretty much every marketing effort across the board.”
Recently, QuadJobs even brought on one of its more active former student-users — a 2014 graduate of Fairfield University — as full-time marketing coordinator.
“Personally,” Loverro said, “the three of us [co-owners] are mothers with small children. We use QuadJobs a lot for babysitting and house jobs. Just this week I hired someone to help me address my Christmas cards. It was only two or three hours, total, but that’s what the site is for — it saved me three hours of work.”
On the topic, Loverro added that the merits of QuadJobs are especially beneficial to employers now during the holiday season, when many people’s to-do lists are backed up with simple yet tedious tasks, such as present wrapping, light hanging and card mailing.
“Students are eager for this kind of work,” Loverro said. “As the New York Post put it in their article on QuadJobs, ‘you can hire your own Christmas elf.’” In Loverro’s opinion, the overarching plus that Quad-Jobs affords both employers and students is the non-necessity of commitment. Students need the flexibility, but employers can take advantage of it, too, perhaps to garner temporary extra hands and aid through busy stretches.
Underneath that umbrella there are other, more specific bonuses, Loverro said. For students, she explained, Quad-Jobs can be a powerful résumé builder; student profiles on QuadJobs are basically digital work histories. For employers, QuadJobs makes it possible to tap into an “otherwise inaccessible” local work force.
“It’s such a busy time of year, and right now the service is totally free. It’s a great time to try it,” Loverro said.
Information: QuadJobs.com.