Ladan Davia Blazes Her Own Way Through the Tech Industry With Beeya
As either a current or future job-seeker, you may already use a job board site to find a career, or will at some point. In fact, many job board sites such as Monster or Indeed have become instrumental resources for job hunters to get a clearer picture of what opportunities are available. But at the age of 24, Ladan Davia, Founder and CEO of Beeya, discovered the lack of effort many popular job board sites put into the process of matching candidates with their ideal jobs. So, she sought out to improve the system with Beeya.
Beeya uses a unique A.I. technology that provides applicants with what Ladan calls, “a true match.” This means Beeya uses your preferences, resume, and other details from your profile to match you with jobs you are best suited for. Another unique aspect about Beeya is it attempts to eliminate the natural bias most of the popular job board platforms use. In other words, employers aren’t able to see certain identifiers that would form an implicit or explicit bias like a candidate’s name, address, gender, and so forth. The employer is only able to see what matters: your qualifications.
Creating Her Own Opportunity
Ladan began her career in the entertainment industry. After attending Chapman University as a Broadcast Journalist major with a minor in Political Science, she entered the workforce in hopes to become a TV show host. But something she witnessed in college always stuck with her. Many of her peers, who were fully qualified based on courses and experiences, could not find work. Ladan referenced a specific example in which one of her brightest friends could not find a job in finance, but she was offered a spot due to connections despite her not having any experience with it. She made the connection that the “job hunting game” was not an equal playing field, and she sought to fix that. Her mission was to create a job board site where your resume doesn’t go into a black hole, but instead actually matches you with jobs that pertain to your resume.
Ladan surrounds herself with a team of marketing and engineering experts who are stationed in Florida and Los Angeles respectively. Her daily tech call includes discussions about ways to make the site more user-friendly, discussing site-generated data, and developing work plans to make the website faster and smarter, etc . Because the Beeya website uses A.I., the entire system had to be built from scratch, which is unique since platforms like WordPress make website building easier. Ladan’s marketing team focuses on analyzing strategies to increase traffic to their website which can be done through intentional advertisements that draw in potential new clients.
Girl Boss Pro Tips
Ladan has helpful advice for young people, specifically young women who are looking to be their own boss and start their own business. She claims her biggest mistake includes hiring friends. “It never works out,” Ladan states. She went on to say that your friends may not take the job as seriously as you and those high expectations you may have as their boss could ruin the relationship.
She also admits it’s okay to say no sometimes. As someone new coming into the business scene, you may want to say yes to every opportunity. However, it’s important to know your worth–not everyone is going to value your time, so be mindful of that. From a business standpoint, some of Ladan’s worst critics were very opinionated. Instead of taking their criticisms personally, she addressed concerns about her website not being the best, and made improvements to the A.I. As a result, those critics became her best customers.
Many of Ladan’s inspirations regarding how to be a successful businesswoman come from Sarah Blakely, founder of Spanx, and Bethenny Frankel, founder and CEO of Skinnygirl. These two women represent trailblazers in a career that is very male- dominated, an issue that is still present today. She’s had to set several boundaries with individuals who tried to take advantage of her newness. But she has had many who have helped her along the way, one being a publicist who pointed her in the direction of a website that may advertise your business for free. Help a Reporter Out, or HARO, connects anyone willing to pitch their story to news outlets.
Ladan enjoys her job because she is helping people. “You won’t feel happy or fulfilled if you don’t feel like you’re making a difference,” Ladan stated. Finally she said, “Remember your ‘why’ when in high school and college. Sure you’re there to have fun, but make sure to put effort into things that will stay with you: networking, finding mentors, and joining clubs.”
