Goalee Courts Professionals Like Online Dating For the Business World

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Name: Goalee

Quick Pitch: Find other professionals with whom you share more than a similar field.

Genius Idea: Connect professionals and students from similar fields to each other.

Think about your experience dating online. Now think of your experience job-hunting online — where they overlap is what Goalee has created. The new network allows employers and prospective employees to court each other in a similar way one would on a dating site.

Co-Founders, James Brown and Chris Sturgill, created Goalee when they noticed graduates turning to alumni rather than strangers in similar fields. LinkedIn may put you in touch with a vast group of professionals, but it lacks the intimacy, and often the references you need to get the job. They don't see themselves as a competitor with LinkedIn, but saw something the network was lacking, and wanted to fill that gap.

"Networking sucks. It's an awkward experience. It is harder the younger you are, it can be very intimidating and scary — it's scary to reach out to someone you've never met before. It's scary to put yourself out there in that way," Brown told Mashable. "A lot of graduates turn to alumni, but why aren't people using LinkedIn more and leveraging their third and fourth degree connections? LinkedIn is difficult to build a network, but better for retaining your professional network."

Goalee doesn't just match professionals based on their experience and education, but through their interests, which contributes to sustaining professional relationships. The network works by linking your LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook if you chose to do so. From there, its system sees what your interests are, where you're from or what schools you attended and matches you with people who have those things in common. If you attended a state college, only other people who attended that school would be able to see that on your profile. The same goes for all other things you may have in common with other professionals.

"By bringing people together with common backgrounds, they're more comfortable reaching out to one another. And by making connections that fit your goals and with people who share thing in common with you mean they're more likely to respond to you," Brown said.

While Goalee is still in beta, they're reaching out to schools across the United States to help graduates create the professional network they'll need to find a job. The network isn't just for students though, and they hope that leaders in their respective fields will join and act as mentors to those new to the workforce.

Would you use Goalee? Tell us in the comments.

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Series presented by Microsoft BizSpark

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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible byMicrosoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives software startups three-year access to Microsoft software development tools, marketing visibility to help promote their business and a connection to the BizSpark ecosystem, giving them access to investors, advisors and mentors. There is no cost to join, so if your startup is privately owned, less than three years old and generates less than U.S. $1M in annual revenue, sign up today.