College graduation is right around the corner, so the influx of “fresh meat” in the workforce is only a few weeks away. And where will most of these college grads end up looking for jobs? One could assume trendy tech companies like Google will see their fair share of applicants, but what about start-up companies with no street cred? Will these companies also see an influx of newly minted college grads?
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If you’re the fake company “Hub,” you’ve already seen a wave of applicants applying for positions, but Hub is just that—a fake company! How disappointing to the people who actually applied to work there!
According to Business Insider, John Chirikjian, a former Microsoft intern and Yale student, launched a new device that’s slightly similar to Amazon Echo or Google Home. The device is shaped like a hockey puck and apparently doesn’t do anything, but that didn’t stop Chirikjian from creating a video to help launch the GoFundMe-style campaign to raise money for its conception.
Business Insider reports, “that at no point does anyone actually say what the Hub is, or does, or that it doesn’t actually seem to be for anything … Or that when they talk about ‘SmartListen’ technology, the Hub doesn’t actually do anything.”
And yet, the hubbub over Hub took the Yale campus by storm, and students were applying for jobs at the tech start-up left and right. Chirikjian claims he thought people would understand that it was a joke, but instead, it went to a whole new level when a Yale student e-mailed Chirikjian and offered suggestions on how to improve the device.
Chirikjian quickly offered the student a job as chief strategy officer for Hub. “From there, we thought, ‘this is hysterical,’” Chirikjian said. Chirikjian and his friends then sent out an e-mail to the entire computer science department at Yale with job listings and internship opportunities. Chirikjian was adamant people would figure out that it was a joke … He was wrong.
Business Insider reports, “They started getting e-mailed résumés, texts, and calls, all looking for a job with Hub. And all of them had their own ideas, again, about what Hub would do. Some thought it was a router, some thought it was an Amazon Echo-style assistant. Nobody really knew what was up.” And at that point, Chirikjian didn’t even know what they were selling anymore.
Chirikjian and his friends may have been able to fool the Yale campus, but the rest of the Internet was not so easily swayed; at the time of this writing, Hub has only received $354 out of the $10,000 it needs to do whatever it is the Hub does! And no word yet on what happened to the student who received the title of “chief strategy officer.”
 Melissa Blazejak is a Senior Web Content Editor at BLR. She has written articles for HR.BLR.com and the HR Daily Advisor websites and is responsible for the day-to-day management of HR.BLR.com and HRLaws.com. She has been at BLR since 2014. She graduated with a BA of Science, specializing in Communication, from Eastern Connecticut State University in 2008. Most recently, she graduated in 2014 with a MS of Educational Technology. |