These sisters launched QuickHire app to help service workers find

On Feb 9, 2022

The launch of QuickHire was spurred by the pandemic, but it’s really been years in the making.

Angela Muhwezi-Hall, 32, first thought of the idea in 2017 when she was working as a college and career counselor for high school students in Los Angeles. She had plenty of resources to offer to those bound for college, but few for students headed to service or skilled trade jobs. Roughly 108 million people, or 71% of the labor force, work in the service sector. Surely, there had to be a better way to set young adults up for success other than helping them fill out paper job applications.

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, she saw tens of millions of Americans like her students losing their essential jobs during the pandemic — disproportionately Black, Hispanic, Asian, Indigenous, female, non-degree-holding and low-wage workers.

Muhwezi-Hall tapped her sister Deborah Gladney, 34, and got to work on a solution: a hiring platform that would connect historically overworked and overlooked people with solid jobs in the service and skilled-trade economy as it recovered from pandemic lockdowns. Muhwezi-Hall moved into Gladney’s basement in Wichita, Kansas — an underserved market in the tech scene — so they could build it together. (Muhwezi-Hall has since relocated to Chicago with her husband.)

After two trying years, the QuickHire founders and their users are coming out ahead.

Underserved workers get their due

Gladney and Muhwezi-Hall spent the summer of 2020 taking their idea from pitch to product. The beta version of their app launched in the fall — “it’s like someone hearing their song on the radio for the first time,” Muhwezi-Hall says of its release — and officially to the masses by April 2021.

The positive response was swift: People were securing their first jobs since losing work during Covid, landing positions within a day and getting their families back on their feet.

“We were helping people find the right fit, where they could stay with and grow with that company. That was just such a proud moment to hear,” Muhwezi-Hall says.

Over time, especially through the Great Resignation of 2021, they saw that once abundant job-seekers were becoming scarce. Applicants could be more choosy. They were looking for better pay, yes, but also health insurance during a global pandemic, and more predictable hours to be able to plan their lives outside of work.

“Gone are the days of thinking you’re just going to have endless amounts of people applying to your positions,” Muhwezi-Hall says. “People think differently about their careers now. They have more power than ever. This is how it should have always been — people should always have felt like they have power over their career and what they really want to do.”

‘Employers are needing to step up their game’

Today, QuickHire matches more than 11,000 job seekers with jobs at 60 mid- to large-size service industry companies including Fuzzy’s Taco Shop and Homewood Suites by Hilton. They’re concentrated in the…