1 of 2
2 of 2
What do I want to be when I grow up? It's never an easy question to answer. And never have the stakes been higher: With tuition costs skyrocketing and the job market for new graduates ever more cutthroat, the pressure on young people to make smart decisions about their educational and career-development paths is at an all-time high.
That's where a Brentwood-based education technology startup called YouScience comes in. A few years back, company co-founders Richard Patton, who owns the investment firm Courage Capital, and his partner, Betsy Wills, were researching for-profit education; they were taking into consideration the evolution of both the educational market and the job-search process, since online networks like LinkedIn and keyword searches are playing an increasingly important role in how and where young people enter the workforce. Patton and Wills discovered that more than 50 percent of people ages 25 and under with a college degree are either unemployed or underemployed'an overwhelming societal problem,” says Wills. With YouScience's new service, Latitude, they aim to solve that problem by combining research-based aptitude testing with career guidance in one groundbreaking package.
Debuting now in the Nashville market, Latitude will offer users an online assessment that tests for 14 natural abilities, including numerical reasoning, spatial visualization, and associative memory. To be taken from home (or any other quiet, distraction-free location), it requires about two hours to complete, after which the test-taker's results are 'mapped” to job options that best fit his or her set of natural abilities. A follow-up phone session with one of YouScience's trained career guides caps off the experience, allowing the test-taker to ask questions and fully digest what the assessment's feedback means from an educational and career standpoint.
not like other "Personality Tests"
If this brings to mind the Myers-Briggs Type Indicatorand other personality quizzes that populate the Internetthink again. Anyone can 'game” those tests, says Wills. By contrast, the Latitude assessment can't be studied for or manipulated. That's because natural abilities are hardwiredthey're 'the way your mind works,” says YouScience chief marketing officer Brad Miller.
In its broadest definition, Latitude's testing and counseling services will offer what the YouScience team likes to call a 'handrail” to help guide a student to make better-informed decisions by giving answers to some sticky questions: Do you have the ability to do your dream job with ease, or will it be a struggle? What is the educational path for a given career? Where are these jobs located? What classes should you take during your first year of college?
For the first time, a natural-abilities assessment will be available online; paired with career information, it's a service not currently offered by anyone else. Through what Wills describes as 'the serendipitous confluence of a lot of circumstances and the right people coming to us,” she and Patton have been able to license a natural-abilities assessment from the Ball Foundation, which has longstanding personal and professional ties to the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation.
'This is where the world is going: Data is the driver for decision-making, but you have to make the data mean something,” says Wills. 'You can't really do that unless you have a valid way of getting that data from people. It's not guesswork. And right now, the state of career development is a lot of guesswork.”
finding the right career path
Since its launch in 2012, YouScience has grown to 26 employees and raised $8.5 million in capital, largely through local private investors, says CEO Philip Hardin. Its initial target demographic is students ages 15 to 27what the founders point to as the 'critical decade,” when some of life's biggest decisions about education and jobs are made. But the service could presumably help anyone at a fork in the road, Wills points out. 'We're all going to change careers in our lifetime,” she says.
For example, Wills, who has worked in adult education, has met a lot of unhappy, middle-aged lawyersindividuals who made all the right moves academically and professionally yet find themselves restless and dissatisfied mid-career. It would be irresponsible for a career counselor to suggest that such a person quit her job. But what if, earlier on, she had chosen to go into a particular branch of law that better fit her natural ability for spatial relations, such as patent law?
Or, Wills suggests, taken mid-career, a natural-abilities test might prescribe the salve of an avocation or special interesta course in poetry or woodworking, perhaps. Our natural abilities, Wills says, can be like 'itches you have to scratch to bring greater personal satisfaction. If you're not utilizing them, they can be your worst enemy.”
For now, Latitude has its sights set on those looking to maximize their educational investment: college-bound kids (and their parents), like 21-year-old James Anderson, a Nashville native and junior at the University of North Carolina, who was feeling a bit lackluster in his studies and took a year off from college last year.
'I felt like I was taking classes just to get through the day,” he recalls.
Wills, a family friend of Anderson's, suggested he try the assessment. His results showed that he could excel at research and would fare better as a specialistperforming tasks that allowed him to probe deeply into a specific subject areathan as a generalist. He decided to switch his major from political science, which seemed too broad, to economics, which he sees as 'more centralized.” The test also suggested he had an aptitude for learning languages. 'I never really thought about that before,” he says. As for a career? Anderson isn't sure yet, but he says he's glad to have the perspective as he moves forward. And he knows what not to do: 'The test said I'd be miserable as an accountant.”
Hardin, whose background is in technology development for healthcare companies, is excited by what YouScience's rapid growth and warm response from investors mean for the promising future of Music City's tech sector.
'Nashville has always been a great entrepreneurial environment, and it's becoming a great technology environment,” he says. 'The availability of people and capital continues to improve. We're proving it.”
At launch, Latitude will be available for $29 for students, with a variety of options for parents as well. See youscience.com for more information.