The U.S. is suffering from “Brain Waste”, and it’s expensive.
It’s probably not what you think. It’s not the TV or video games or cell phones rotting our brains. “Brain waste” refers to an inefficient application of the hard skills within our existing labor force. This most often references immigrants unable to translate their existing hard job skills to the economy of their new home.
This is a big issue for foreign-born military spouses coming to the United States with their service member. It’s also a huge issue for Afghanistan refugees and their families who might have come to the United States after working with US forces as an interpreter. Many of these people have higher education degrees and years of experience with hard skills in the STEM fields and other in-demand jobs, but they’re unable to find work in those fields. Many are working as Uber and Amazon delivery drivers.
This doesn’t just hurt them. When they could be working a high-demand job short on workers, it hurts all of us.
The US sees an estimated $40 billion in lost wages annually due to brain waste.
That works out to roughly $10 billion in taxable income, to say nothing of what effects the wages might have on local economies across the country. And it’s not like these are jobs going to native-born citizens instead, these jobs largely remain unfilled as the United States experiences labor shortages. It benefits all of us to get immigrants with needed job skills working in their field of expertise.
James Schlauch and Apply are working to address the issue for both job seekers and recruiters.
James' Army National Guard Experience
James’ mother immigrated to the United States from Korea at age 13. When she was an adult, she joined the Army and met her future husband and James’ father. James was born at Fort Lewis (now Joint Base Lewis-McChord). His parents transferred to the Army National Guard to raise their family, and James eventually followed suit, joining the day before his birthday in December of 2002. He jokes his recruiter mother was short on her quota one month.
In 2005 James deployed to Afghanistan, where he served as a petroleum supply specialist, establishing fuel points at FOBs and help with hot refuels. His unit lost a helicopter halfway into the deployment, and he volunteered to serve as a door gunner for the remainder of his tour as part of the replacement crew. He was back stateside in 2006, and finished his contract with the Nevada Army National Guard in summer of 2011.
Entrepreneurial Spirit
As a civilian, James has spent over 8 years working as a recruiter for roles in enterprise technology. He’s recruited people face-to-face, over the phone, and especially since Covid, over webcam. Almost three years ago, James started customizing his own digital tools using generative AI to source, qualify, and improve the candidate experience at various enterprise organizations. While the tool was useful for optimizing the talent acquisition process, James quickly realized how useful his tools could be in the hands of applicants struggling with the current state of job seeking.
In late 2022, he started working on his own version of an app for job seekers. It wasn’t long before he partnered with Luke, his roommate and coworker, and Gary, Luke’s professor. Gary has extensive experience in strategic thinking, marketing, operations, sales, and management, coupled with a global perspective. Together they branded the app as HiApply, and thought it’d be smart to target transitioning veterans as an early test market. He presented the app at the Veterans Beer Club. He met a number of people who suggested interesting communities to serve as use cases for the app, but HiApply didn’t seem to be acquiring users at the rate James had hoped.
Connecting With Bunker Labs
James’ Mother Working In The Amy National Guard Recruiting.
Given his success at Veteran Beer Club, James thought he’d browse veteran entrepreneurship programs and see if they could help his app gain some traction and get in front of more veterans. James discovered Bunker Labs just this past winter in 2023. When he saw we had a program cohort specific to the Asian American and Pacific Islander experience, he applied to our Breaking Barriers program and joined the 24A cohort’s AAPI group.
James really enjoyed the fellowship of Breaking Barriers, where he could relate to fellow participants and many of the guest speakers on their shared experience as veterans and members of the AAPI community. One speaker, Joelle Choe, made a real difference for James, helping him realize it was time to pivot to a much more hyper-specific audience. Another speaker, Greg Stroud, made fantastic contributions to the user experience.
James also met Bunker Labs Transition Podcast host Mike Steadman, and they had a conversation about branding that led James to pivot to support underserved groups in the American workforce, including foreign-born military spouses, foreign-born students, and immigrants. This was personal for James, as the struggle these job seekers face echoes what his mother went through during her post-military career. Refocused and motivated, and backed up by the veteran and military spouse entrepreneurial community, James and team got to work.
You hear about the support of the veteran community, but it’s different seeing it. There’s no icebreakcing, right? There’s no cold calling for help. It’s just ‘Hey, I need some help.’ And you instantly hear back ‘Hey, I’ll help you.’ It’s not a competitive community like you might expect, and just talking with other veteran founders that have already been in my place and want to see me succeed is just an invaluable resource.”
Helping People Help People
During their pivot, James and his team realized just how much more difficult everything in the job seeking process was for those who were still learning English. They worked with Google Translate to create their own practice interview bot that supports multiple languages. This means if a candidate wants to use English for their practice interview, but receive feedback in their native language, they can. That’s a game-changer for helping applicants get up to speed and into a new workplace.
The current version of Apply uses generative AI technology to turn a few minutes’ worth of information into professional resumes and cover letters, as well as feed information to an interview bot to help them do practice interviews. Even more, the information matches up with job descriptions available from recruiters, creating immediate job prospects.
Further, their actual customer has shifted from the job applicant to the agencies and support groups working to connect underserved job seekers with employers looking for them. Having these agencies get their app into the hands of the job seekers is a business model breakthrough, and as the product refines and grows, James is interested in expanding to work with organizations that help transitioning military, parolees, and other immigrant groups.
Version two of Apply is launching soon, and James and team have been on a hiring spree the past year to fill key technical positions. James is also pursuing other avenues to help job seekers, working on his blog, The Candidate Experience.
It's Your Time
Bunker Labs Veterans in Residence
Launching a business can feel like a monumental effort just to get that first sale, let alone grow. What would happen if you dedicated 10-weeks to focus on the fundamentals need to launch and move forward? What would happen if you joined a community of like-minded veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs also working to take the next big step to launch a business. Don’t wait another minute and get started below!
Breaking Barriers in Entrepreneurship
Breaking Barriers in Entrepreneurship is a virtual workshop series that facilitates business growth and support within AAPI, Black, Latinx, and female veteran and military spouse communities. The eight-week workshop is designed to create an immediate impact for early to growth-stage businesses by providing access to business tools, resources, capital opportunities, mentorship, and a stronger peer network!
Bunker Labs is Now Part of IVMF
As of January 2024, Bunker Labs is now a part of Syracuse University’s D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF). In addition to ongoing Bunker Labs programming, we’d encourage you to browse IVMF’s deep wealth of entrepreneurship programming, much of it available virtually or at locations across the country. Find the program to help your business take the next step today!