Laura Truncellito already had her hands full with her language services business, Language Scholars, when the pandemic hit in spring of 2020. Suddenly, she found herself helping friends who had been laid off search for new jobs. “I had a really good friend who was struggling,” she recalls. “He just kept getting rejected by companies, and I knew he was so capable and talented. I thought, Is there anything I can do to help people out?”
Truncellito, a machine learning engineer specializing in natural language processing, had an idea. “I started thinking from a data perspective about how can we collect info and extract intelligence, and guide job candidates through the job market,” she says. “With so many job postings, how do you really know which companies work for you? I wanted to find a more efficient way to help everybody out.”
In a case of excellent timing, Truncellito had recently been awarded a fellowship from the WomenTech Network and was chosen by the Founder Institute Silicon Valley to participate in the Founder Institute accelerator. While she originally had planned to continue her work on Language Scholars at the Institute, she decided to switch her focus. And that’s how her second company, Enployable, was born.
Using the latest technology in artificial intelligence and natural language processing, Enployable serves both job seekers and startup companies looking to fill open roles. Job seekers can join the candidate portal, where they’ll find community and resources that help them narrow down their personal job preferences. The idea is that they’ll be better able to navigate a career path that matches their personality, values, and what matters most to them.
For the startup companies who work with Enployable, the company’s AI makes the hiring process more streamlined and foolproof by taking specific attributes into consideration, such as special requirements, or the ability to be nimble or handle high-pressure situations.
“A company may have 2,000 résumés they’re looking at,” Truncellito says. “By combing the data, we’ll help them sort through them, rank them, and suggest the top 10 candidates to interview.” Enployable will also offer recommendations on where a company should focus its future recruiting efforts.
Enployable helps job candidates and hiring managers find the right match between the values and needs of both, so that candidates find a job that they truly love and enjoy long-term career growth, while employers benefit from increased retention rates.
There’s a spirit of getting out there to do what you truly believe in, and that really is what I believe in as well. It’s that spirit that really differentiates WeWork from other coworking spaces.
Laura Truncellito, founder of Enployable
“Currently the job search process is one-sided, focusing on how a candidate can meet the employer’s needs,” Truncellito says. “Enployable’s approach looks at both the employer and the candidate and seeks a mutually beneficial match between them.” The concept has struck a chord: Since its founding in late 2020, Enployable was accepted to NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center’s prestigious 12-week Milestone Circles program, and was also recently showcased at the virtual DC Minority Innovation Weekend in July.
Enployable’s headquarters are at WeWork 1775 Tysons Blvd in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, where Truncellito has been a member since the building opened in 2017. She is inspired by WeWork’s mission to revolutionize the way people and companies work, and sees a synergy with Enployable’s mission.
“There’s a spirit of getting out there to do what you truly believe in, and that really is what I believe in as well,” Truncellito says of WeWork. “The community managers are helpful. Before the pandemic, when we were all there, you’d get to know other members just through chatting—and sometimes you might find a new business partner. It’s that spirit that really differentiates WeWork from other coworking spaces. It’s not just a place you go to work—it’s much more than that. It resonates with Enployable’s belief: You should love what you do.”
Melanie Mannarino is a writer, editor, digital strategist, and author of several books, including The (Almost) Zero Waste Guide.
Lily Juhasz is a rising senior studying communications with a minor in business and economics at Rutgers University—New Brunswick. This summer she worked at WeWork Labs as the WeWork Labs intern. At WeWork, she had a great time helping support the startup community at Labs.
Rethinking your workspace?
