Art Oleszczuk With SkillPointe

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by onpay Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Art Oleszczuk. And he is with skillpointe. Welcome art.

Art Oleszczuk: [00:00:34] Hi Lee, thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about skill point. How are you serving, folks?

Art Oleszczuk: [00:00:42] Sure. Well, Skill Point is a relatively new venture where one year and since we launched February of last year, so we’re actually just celebrating our one year anniversary and we are a service, an online resource to help job seekers and current students in high school and the trade schools and colleges find the best careers that don’t require a college degree. So skills based careers and health care or construction or manufacturing and a whole bunch of other industries that are very high growth and high demand?

Lee Kantor: [00:01:19] Can you talk about kind of these unintended consequences that a lot of folks have been kind of almost forcing their kids to take a college path when that may not be the best fit for them? Is this where your kind of service comes into play?

Art Oleszczuk: [00:01:34] Absolutely. You know, the harsh reality is that we have millions of kids pursuing four year degree pathways right now, and it may not be the best pathway for them. Two out of three high school seniors pursue a four year degree, but unfortunately about half of them wind up dropping out within two years. And they have no credentials and no, no work certificate or license to do a kind of a new career that’s that’s going to be a high paying opportunity for them. And furthermore. A lot of four year college grads wind up being underemployed, even if they do get a degree that that percentage is a staggering forty five percent. So. So, you know, there’s a lot of folks who who are unaware of a lot of amazing opportunities and skilled trades and various tech or health care professions that don’t require a four year degree. And there’s millions of these jobs that are open and huge scarcity, you know, in terms of workforce supply. So that’s where skill point comes in is to kind of help people identify these amazing opportunities and help employers and schools pull more people into into their programs.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:55] Now is are the folks that are kind of using the platform or exploring the platform. Are they people that you just described that maybe have gone through college and are now frustrated and they’re looking for other opportunities? Or are they the parents of young people that are saying, Hey, this path may be a better path than they’re kind of trying to get ahead of that rather than go down a wrong path that could cost them, you know, student loan debt of tens, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in some places.

Art Oleszczuk: [00:03:25] Yeah, we you know, it’s it’s the reality. We kind of have both, right? We have three primary audiences using our platform. One is what we call the new skill of people who are just getting new skills into a new career. And they’re often maybe leaving military or high school grads, and they’re just trying to decide what to do with their life. Then we have folks who are reskilling who are who are potentially degreed already right to your point, and they come in all ages, right? We have folks using our platform who even out of retirement age, who may want to do something new. And then we have a group of people who are what we call up. They may be in a great career path right now. They they are well rewarded and they’re happy, but they just need to get a bit more training to get that next level of opportunity. So I would say all three have find very useful content and guidance on skill point.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:35] And can you talk a little bit about the genesis of the idea, what was kind of the spark that led you all down the skill point path?

Art Oleszczuk: [00:04:45] Yeah, thanks. You know, Skill Point was initially founded by Todd Wilson, who was the CFO at NASCAR for many, many years. And Todd essentially heard a very similar story from all of the various NASCAR sponsors over the years, and these organizations are well known, obviously well-known brands within the Fortune one hundred, and they all said more or less the same thing that one of our top barriers to growth is lack of skilled workforce supply. You know, and these companies would have a lot more marketing money, frankly, to spend on NASCAR sponsorships if they if they could, you know, if they would have only more more people in these various skills based professions. So it really was a huge barrier to growth. And the more he looked at what is out there that helps organizations attract top talent and what is out there to help colleges and trade schools grow enrollment, Todd realized that, you know what, there’s really not a national comprehensive solution that that does both of those things in the same platform. So he he came up with the concept to kind of create a better job search engine and a new training search engine, which is really an industry first to to help people not only find the best jobs that don’t require a college degree, but find the best training that empowers them to get that job. And, you know, and that that process we’ve simplified compared to kind of the legacy ways which have been very difficult for people to to find.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:30] Now, one of the challenges of creating these kind of marketplaces is the chicken and the egg. How did you go about, you know, kind of building it up from both ends of the balloon there in order to get the engagement you needed to serve both?

Art Oleszczuk: [00:06:45] Yeah, we’re serving the needs of job seekers and students and serving the needs of employers and colleges, really. And it’s a great question. What we decided to do, first and foremost, is invest in authoritative but easy to digest content. So we we did not spend a single dime on advertising to grow the brand. We what we did is we developed a database of of jobs, the most comprehensive database of open jobs that don’t require a college degree. We developed another database of all the training programs, over sixty thousand programs so far collected, and we’ve written thousands of articles and written and developed videos and created infographics that help people explore all of these careers. And that content and those tools have attracted a very sizable audience so far. We’re just one year in and we have almost one user, so one million users use the platform so far and our organic search visibility is off the charts. We have, you know, ninety five percent of our traffic is just from organic search, meaning people discover the content while performing, you know, searches on Google or Bing or what have you. And they see skill point come up to the top of the results. So it’s a, you know, and we talked to a lot of agencies and SEO experts and stuff like that, and a lot of them say the same thing that they have not seen such such organic growth of a of a website yet. And you know, and they’ve looked at a lot of websites.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:32] And then is the revenue model like, who pays? Is it the the trainee that wants to find these opportunities? Is it the company that wants to find employees or is it both

Art Oleszczuk: [00:08:46] The the consumer, the job seeker or trainee pays nothing. It’s a completely free resource to to users. The revenue model is based on revenue primarily from two streams the employers who are promoting their opportunities on skill point and the various training providers, the colleges and trade schools who are promoting the programs, the training programs and we. We see healthy growth in both of those categories

Lee Kantor: [00:09:16] Now from the trainee or the student perspective or the person looking for the opportunity. Can you share a story of maybe somebody who was frustrated, an individual that was, you know, kind of maybe in a rut and frustrated about their career path? And then they find a skill point and all of a sudden now they have a great opportunity and maybe something you know more than they imagine could be possible.

Art Oleszczuk: [00:09:42] Yeah, we have dozens, if not hundreds of them. Honestly, we we have, you know, one one person that one story that sticks out in my mind is a the person who wrote a very nice note to us, basically saying, you know, I grew up at the end of the dirt road and I forget what what state? Maybe Nebraska or Arkansas, somewhere in the middle of the country? And he said, you know, growing up at the end of the dirt road in in in central, you know, Nebraska or whatever, right? I I never thought that I would wind up welding the components for the space capsule, you know, like a rocket. He’s basically working on rockets. So he went from, you know, he went from working unskilled jobs and then went through a welding program and, you know, just super smart guy who wound up getting a job at SpaceX. So that’s that’s one story. And there’s dozens more of, you know, we also help a lot of folks with funding their training programs. We have a nonprofit side to our organization called the Skill Point Foundation. And every month we get thousands of applications and we award many scholarships to people who may not have the capability. You know, the financial resources to to attend these training programs. And we get letters and videos from them all the time saying how you know, they they are finally able to kind of. Get to that next level, thanks to not only the tools that silicone provides, but also the the funding that’s the School Point Foundation provides. So, you know, skill point is is not only a great tool, but I think also just a great organization for being able to help change a lot of people’s lives.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:51] Now what’s been the most rewarding part of the journey for you to get involved in an organization like this that is really making a huge impact in a couple of different areas?

Art Oleszczuk: [00:12:01] Yeah, you know, it’s a very rewarding path. You know, my my background is in building online solutions and in automotive and in finance in, you know, having worked in many, many big brands. And you know, this is this is different because we’re not just moving metal, we’re not just selling car loans. We’re we’re helping people find a better future. We are. We are, you know, our our vision at skill point is to create a future where skills based careers are celebrated and rewarded. And, you know, to to kind of shine a big spotlight on a lot of these opportunities. And you know, the Todd, our founder, Jim Franki, our CEO and myself and the rest of the team all could be working on various other things. But the passion behind skill point really is is doing good and helping people and we we all share that.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:05] Now, what do you need more of? How can we help?

Art Oleszczuk: [00:13:09] Well, you know, we we always can use more more folks coming to the platform, you know? I would say one million is not enough. We’re on our way to two and three and four million. So any chance we get to to just raise awareness with with people who are exploring these options. That’s we always want to get the word out. But you know, we’re also looking for partners. You know, we’re looking for college partners, employer partners, potential strategic investors and organizations who are like minded as skill point. And we’re always forging relationships with with like a Union state organizations, even federal organizations and and have had some tremendous success in various states. So, so anyone who kind of feels that you know this, this is a nationwide crisis that needs fixing. We’d love for you to kind of take a look at skill points, see what our solution looks like and connect with us to, you know, to learn more.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:14] And if somebody wants to learn more, what’s a website?

Art Oleszczuk: [00:14:18] It’s skill points, and that’s point with an E. And if you go on there, you can check everything out and there’s a contact us form. You can you can just reach out via email. And you know, my profile is also on LinkedIn and Twitter and all of that good stuff too.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:36] Well, art, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Art Oleszczuk: [00:14:42] Thank you so much for being thanks again for having us on.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:44] All right, this is Lee Kantor Lusail next time on the Atlanta Business Radio.