Meet Chris Keenan, Co-Founder and CEO at Recruitment Talent Platform: Unibeez

Unibeez is a groundbreaking talent platform making the invisible, visible. We connect ambitious, bright and motivated emerging talent with forward thinking businesses to turbo charge their growth with access to “in demand” skills.

Launched in 2021, Unibeez bridges the gap between education and employability for emerging talent.

Our platform matches candidates with a network of employers, looking for early talent. From Python and UX to data, marketing, sales and more, candidates build digital profiles, rather than CVs. Rich in skills, hard and soft, they apply directly for roles on Unibeez.

Startups and scaleups as well as corporates like Sky, Informatech, JustGiving and Savills are using the platform to access tens of thousands of today’s career starters. University success is now measured in part by how many students improve their social mobility by finding high-skilled work. Our emphasis on showcasing skills helps students overcome the classic “experience” conundrum of traditional recruitment.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
I saw first-hand my son’s frustrations with navigating the fragmented graduate recruitment market. I was shocked to see that it hadn’t evolved since I was a graduate.

I knew there must be a better way to match young people and businesses in a time of chronic skills shortages. My co-founder James Parsons has vast experience in founding and scaling global recruitment businesses and foresaw the opportunity and efficiencies that Unibeez could bring to market. We shared a passion for democratising opportunities for young people and removing the recruitment barriers, regardless of background.
 

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

 
The benefits to the UK of students finding properly paid, skilled work – especially now, in the midst of a cost of living crisis – is obvious, but our model also allows employers to embrace a more skills-based but personalised approach to building their talent pipeline.

Even for large employers, invested in university milk rounds and cherry-picking from the UK’s Russell Group universities, I question whether assessment days and psychometric tests give you as rich a picture of the candidate as actually working with them. That’s our sweet spot – businesses have the option to hire “on-demand” and test their mettle before deciding to go full-time.

Our AI also helps eliminate hiring bias, matching primarily by skills regardless of race, gender, background or location.
 

What can we hope to see from Unibeez in the future?

 
We’re on a mission to get one million students into high-paying, high-skilled work by 2025. Unibeez is a recruitment solution that delivers well beyond the outdated traditional model and enables students to create a profile that promotes and highlights their ability to deliver on live projects.

We believe in the potential of young people to change the world.