Koru: Immersive program with 85% job placement

For college seniors, nothing is more daunting than the reality that — despite receiving a college degree — over 25% of college grads ages 21 to 24 are unemployed or underemployed.

In order to combat this problem, business executives Kristen Hamilton and Josh Jarrett joined forces to create Koru, an intensive program that prepares and connects recent college grads to real-world careers.

“There are about 4.5 to 5 million open jobs in the country currently, many of them entry-level, but they’re having a hard time finding people who are graduates who have the right skills and are ready to hit the ground running,” says Hamilton, the current CEO of Koru. “We fit in-between those college grads and those employers and try to embody what the employers are looking for.”

To achieve this, Koru accepts applicants from college seniors and recent graduates across the nation to participate in an intensive four-week program. This program puts the Koru member inside the walls of a large company in order for them to learn skills, practice networking and work in a fast-paced environment that is usually not experienced during college.

And the best part about it? Koru guarantees that every participant will get a job interview by the end of the program.

“We expect that [Koru participants] will be able to land a job within the next 4 months [after finishing the program],” says Hamilton, who says there is an 85% placement rate for Koru graduates. “We’re holding ourselves accountable in that way, but we’ve also been tracking our placement metrics so we know how long it’s taking to land. We have 30 employers and we work very closely with these employers, so they hire many people from us, not just one or two. “

So how can Koru be so confident in their turnover rate? Let’s break it down.

The students

Koru’s goal is to find motivated, hard-working seniors or graduated students who have the desire to get a job, yet lack the skills that they need. In order to find these young professionals, Koru looks beyond GPA or status of applicants and instead searches for key characteristics that employers are looking for, such as grit, analytical rigor and the ability to demonstrate ownership.

Additionally, Koru understands that many recent college graduates struggle with money. Therefore, despite the Koru program pricetag of $2,750, participants pay for the program only after they’ve landed a job.

“People graduating from college are saying, ‘Gosh, you know what, I’ve done everything I was supposed to do, I chose something to study that I have a passion for, I got a great education but my job prospects are really daunting’,” explains Hamilton. “We hear these stories over and over again — people say they submitted 40 resumes last week and heard nothing back, because they’re submitting to some inanimate machine that doesn’t understand who they are and what they’re capable of. So we really want to address that problem, and we empathize with our applicants by saying, ‘If you’re good enough to get in to Koru, we’re going to put you through this program, we’re going to help you land in a job and then, only then, will you pay us back.’”

The partners

Koru partners with both business employers and universities to ensure that the program meets the needs for all who are involved. While the employers provide resources for students to gain hands-on experience in their company, the universities provide support and outreach to students.

Companies such as LinkedIn, Yelp, Julep, REI and Care.com have been involved in the program, allowing students to take a step inside their world of employment and learn how the company works in a hands-on environment.

Additionally, 17 universities from all across the country, including Brown University, Georgetown University, Colorado College and Bates College have teamed up with Koru to expand the Koru vision to students across campuses.

“We’ve pulled together these colleges in a community of practice," says Hamilton. "We have quarterly meetings with them and it’s a chance for them to share with [and learn from] each other, then they come visit programs themselves . Then, our content lives back in their career centers so they’re able to integrate information in how they’re serving students on campus."

The program

Once a student is accepted in the Koru program, he or she sets off to the city where the program is being hosted for the immersive curriculum. 

“Each program has a feature employer. At the program we just ran in San Francisco, the feature employer was LinkedIn. So everyone went through LinkedIn, everyone worked on the challenge and then at the end everyone was guaranteed an interview at LinkedIn,” says Hamilton. “So they got to know LinkedIn — which is just great experience — and then some of them will get hired at LinkedIn. If they don’t like LinkedIn, we work to connect them with other companies.”

Hamilton continued to explain a typical day-to-day routine of the Koru participants, which includes office tours, networking opportunities, guest speakers and career fairs.

“The ability to learn by doing has been integrated into the Koru vision,” says Hamilton. “That has led to this motto that we use that says ‘the best way to learn is to fail fast and fail cheap.’ It’s just really hard for people to make that transition from college because of course we’re trying to avoid failure when we’re in college and so it’s a mindset shift that’s really important.”

For students who cannot commit their full time to Koru, there is a different program called KORUx, which is "For the busy student or professional who can’t dedicate four full-time weeks," according to the website. "Start and finish the program through our collaborative online workspace, plus an intense 1-2 week session, in-person. The whole program takes 3-4 weeks but the first and last are on your own time. While you're with us live, you’ll go inside our employer partners and work alongside senior execs to solve their business challenges. KORUx ends with a guaranteed job interview."

The coaches

In addition to receiving guidance from the employers, Koru participants also receive guidance from a multitude of Koru coaches and guest coaches, including author Tony Wagner and rapper Nas.

“We’ve been totally honored by the interest in these professionals who want to help people,” says Hamilton. “They’re guiding through their experience from aside, and they’re correcting and giving a ton of feedback in the moment.”

Currently, Koru only has programs open in Seattle and San Francisco, and they are launching a new program in Boston this January. Hamilton says the company is going to continue to expand to cities where college grads have the desire to live.

Despite where Koru expands to, the experience is one that sticks with the student far past the end of the program.

"When you become part of Koru, you’re part of the Koru community for life,” says Hamilton.

Kristin Musulin works for USA TODAY College while studying journalism at University of Maryland. Follow her on Twitter @kristinmusulin.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.