Ex-ManPower exec says he's creating the 'Uber of recruitment' in Raleigh

Jeff Stocks has spent most of his life in what he calls the “human capital space.”

The CEO of executive recruiter the Nautical Group and a former top exec at staffing agency Manpower, it makes sense that Stock would create a startup all about jobs.

“We plan to be the Uber of recruitment,” he says.

The company, appropriately called EmployUs, aims to address what Stocks called the “inefficient, antiquated business model” behind the traditional recruitment process.

Read: EmployUs, others tapped for new Citrix Accelerator in downtown Raleigh

The story starts at North Carolina State University. There, Stocks, chair of the board behind the Poole College of Management, met an entrepreneur by the name of Ryan O’Donnell.

“I was impressed with his intellectual capacity, his drive,” he says.

O’Donnell had some interesting resume tidbits – such as winning the Guinness record for the most food raised during a can drive – more than half a million pounds.

O’Donnell created his own company, Pennies 4 Progress, which raises money for local public schools. And the two pooled their collective intelligence on EmployUs. “I had this concept in my head,” he says. “The best employees in the world come from referrals, from connections.”

So he and O’Donnell decided they’d build a platform around that fact.

EmployUs connects job requirements with people who might know someone who could be a perfect match. It’s not targeting the employees – but the referrals.

“They’ll get paid a percentage of the placement fee,” he says. And an additional 10 percent of the placement fee goes to the charity of the referrer’s choice. “There is so much talent that is not being leveraged in the market place. This is a way to leverage that talent.

He gives an example – what he calls the best employee that falls into that category: “It’s a professional female who left school, went to the market place, worked one to five years, left to go back, to have their family, one to four kids, then they want to go back to the work force.”

Referrals could help it happen, he says.

He serves as chairman of the firm, with O’Donnell in the CEO role. And EmployUs is already getting attention – even though its planned launch isn’t until January. EmployUs was one of the first companies picked for the new Citrix Accelerator in downtown Raleigh.