You know how rock bands tour around in those huge, tricked-out buses? Imagine that same bus plastered with the logos of 26 tech startups, driving around the country from university to university looking for young, talented programmers. That's the concept behind Hacker Tour 2012.
Hacker Tour is the brainchild of ReadyForce, a startup in its own right. Anna Binder, vice president of client services for ReadyForce, describes the company as a sort of dating site that aims to match students and potential employers.
"The idea is that people get jobs that they're excited about, that change their lives," Binder tells Mashable.
The site itself is still in beta, but it has generated palpable interest. Since the beginning of Hacker Tour at Cornell University on Sept. 12, more than 120 new companies joined the ReadyForce marketplace, and some 2,000 students created profiles on the site.
For Robert Wagner, a senior computer science major at Virginia Tech, it was the bling of the "tour bus" that caught his eye. "They rolled up in a big van with a bunch of logos on it," Wagner tells Mashable.
After signing up for a profile, Wagner connected with 15 tech companies, which he parlayed into six phone interviews and one face-to-face interview.
"You can prove to the companies that you're worth talking to, rather than just filling out an application that doesn't give them a sense of who you are," he says.
The 26 companies that sponsored the tour range from small to more established, such as StubHub, Etsy and SoundCloud.
"We're looking for talented Internet developers," SoundCloud's head of brand Mark Dewings tells Mashable.
But it's not just the user base that's growing. Dewings says SoundCloud's own employee roster has roughly doubled in size to 150 over the past year. With that kind of growth, which is not uncommon in the current tech industry, it can be hard for a small startup to find the talent it needs to keep the company humming.
"It's difficult for a startup; we have lots and lots of things to do," says Dewings.
Corbett Morgan invited Hacker Tour to stop at Ohio State, a visit that occurred on Sept. 19. Working for the university's commercialization office, Morgan says he tries to help students with great ideas form startups. With nearly 60,000 enrolled students generating ideas, Morgan believes Columbus, Ohio could someday develop into the tech hub of the midwest, like New York and San Francisco on the coasts.
"So many students have great ideas, but they just have no idea where to start," Morgan tells Mashable. "An opportunity to work at an early-stage startup is probably the best way to learn to build your own startup someday."
Hacker Tour can help lead them in the right direction, amidst an increasingly competitive market.
Binder gives an example of the tech industry's "war for talent," mentioning how aggressively Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is seeking out employees for his newer startup, Square. Even though Square is part of Hacker Tour, Binder says Dorsey has been attending so many career fairs alongside ReadyForce that they joke he has his own mini hacker tour.
"There is extreme demand for talent," Binder says.
ReadyForce finished up the eastern leg of Hacker Tour 2012 on Oct. 13 at Carnegie Mellon University. The western leg began Oct. 16 and goes through the end of the month. Due to positive early results, ReadyForce is already planning on another Hacker Tour, as well as tours linking students to companies in industries other than tech.
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