Peninsula Students Launch Job App for High Schoolers
SAN MATEO COUNTY (BCN) -- With the touch of a button, high schoolers can now locate dozens of employment opportunities in the Bay Area, and it's all thanks to the work of two teenage entrepreneurs from San Mateo County.
San Carlos resident Evan Ajuria and Aiden Appleby of Atherton are co-founders of the job recruiting app, Grindstone.
By setting up a profile with their name, location and qualifications, Grindstone users can find job descriptions and pay rates from local employers looking to hire.
As recent graduates of Carlmont High School and Design Tech High School, Ajuria and Appleby said they were inspired to create Grindstone after noticing a lack of job listing spaces for students. Now the pair hope to grow the app during a post-high school gap year.
"One of the main problems is that there is no real way for students to find meaningful opportunities in the community," Appleby said. "The only way is through word of mouth, hearing from parents or from bulletin boards at school."
Although any business can reach out to the Grindstone team, Ajuria and Appleby encourage employers to post jobs tailored toward the experience and skill level expected of high schoolers. The app is free of charge to employers and job seekers alike.
"We wanted to streamline the whole (job hunting) process and make an app that was built for high schoolers, by high schoolers," Ajuria said.
Since the app's launch in February, more than 2,000 Bay Area residents and employers have used Grindstone. Ajuria said the app is constantly being reviewed and updated to ensure employers and students are able to find and communicate with one another.
"We want to create a job network for this next generation of workers," Ajuria said. "That's our North Star."
San Jose resident Taylor Brandenburg said she acquired the "perfect" job when she downloaded Grindstone in June.
Passionate about handwriting, Brandenburg said within a few days of using Grindstone she found a job writing cards to clients of Compass, a local real estate company.
"This job is exactly what I was looking for, and it came at the right time," Brandenburg said.
Brandenburg, a recent graduate of Waldorf School of the Peninsula, said Grindstone makes it easy for students to find unique jobs that they wouldn't have found browsing through Google.
"Sometimes as a teen it's difficult to find jobs and reach out to people in the community by yourself," Brandenburg said. "Grindstone is a great platform to find everything you need in one place."
