CASES is a professional social network for creative industries, bringing together graphic designers, marketing and IT specialists as well as other professionals.
The community helps creative professionals to exchange ideas, communicate, and assists companies in finding the necessary specialists in this field. In addition, CASES is also an EdTech that creates opportunities for learning and career development.
What was the challenge?
87% of businesses are in constant search of specialists. On average, hiring one specialist takes about six months. Over time, the talent shortage problem leads to significant profit losses.
On the other hand, there are many professionals on the market who are looking for work, however, their skills do not meet the employers’ expectations.
And therein lies the second problem, that is strongly connected to the previous one. Education in the creative industries is not integrated into the labor market, so often after graduating people do not understand what to do and how to start a career.
According to sad statistics, only 20% of graduates work in their respective field. This is the result of a gap between education and an actual career, that not everyone is able to overcome on their own. The goal of the startup is to bridge this exact gap and create an ecosystem where educational and working processes will interact with each other.
In addition, the war only exacerbated both problems. Numerous businesses lost income, staff downsizing took place. People were left without work, and in many cases their existing skills did not allow them to overcome the fierce competition that formed on the market and find a new job.
What is the solution?
So at some point, we realized that СASES could be a platform for both young professionals and businesses. And over time, an ambitious idea to create a social network with an EdTech component was born.
The goal of education is to create solid specialists. Courses from CASES are in fact a verification of certain theoretical knowledge or skills. For instance, a person could add working with Figma or Webflow as a skill in their resume. But is it really so? The courses are a means of confirming that this person does, in fact, possess said skills.
And having a set of skills attests to mastering an entire profession. And thanks to this, we can quickly find candidates most relevant to the employer’s request in the student base.
That is how the startup develops the employment market.
Furthermore, all these processes are part of the social network. It is similar to how LinkedIn profiles work. People and businesses register, create their own profiles where their history is recorded. Every course, every job, every portfolio work.
Professionals and businesses can be subscribed to and followed. All participants also get a platform to promote their services and blog.
What are the final results?
An important indicator for the startup is the number of users of the platform. At present, there are almost 100 thousand of them, 69 thousand of which are students. So far, 10,000 of them have already received certificates of completion. There are also over 1,400 registered businesses on CASES. And the community is growing each day.
What’s next?
In the near future, СASES is planning to bridge the gap between the Ukrainian market and customers from abroad.
To do this, they continue to create new courses so that people can enhance their skills even further. The startup’s goal is to combine educational opportunities and a freelance marketplace in a single interface, where students can immediately find work. CASES are moving confidently in that direction and have already started processing the first trial contracts. We hope that soon people really get the opportunity to apply their talents almost immediately after studying.
About this Show Case
