Sam Altman–backed Mentra aims to match neurodivergent jobseekers with ideal jobs | TechCrunch
techcrunch.com
Neurodivergent individuals often have a harder time finding jobs than their non-neurodivergent counterparts. Unemployment for neurodivergent adults runs

Due to confidence issues and difficulties interviewing, neurodivergent individuals often face higher unemployment rates than their non-neurodivergent counterparts. However, they may possess specialized skills that can enhance team productivity by up to 30% in suitable work settings. A startup backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman aims to help these job seekers find suitable employment opportunities, leveraging technology and assessments to match individuals with roles that best align with their abilities and skills. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from TechCrunch:

Enter Mentra. The Charlotte, N.C.-based startup, whose three co-founders are all autistic is building what it describes as an AI-powered “neuroinclusive employment network.” Specifically, its tech platform leverages artificial intelligence to help large enterprises hire employees with cognitive differences such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The startup’s unique premise caught the early attention of OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, who first invested in the company with a $1 million pre-seed investment in February 2022 through his venture firm, Hydrazine Capital. Mentra also won an AI for accessibility grant from Microsoft. Shine Capital led its $3.5 million seed round this year, which also included participation from Altman’s fund, Verissimo, Full Circle, Charlotte Fund, as well as angel investors including David Apple and Dawn Dobras.

What sets Mentra apart is its approach to job fit, maintains Mentra co-founder and CEO Jhillika Kumar. The startup goes beyond keywords in resumes to match employers with talent, she said, considering factors around a person’s neurotype, aptitude, environmental sensitivities. To date, its one-year retention rate has remained at an impressive 97.5%. […] One way Mentra uses AI is to parse through job descriptions to make sure they are cognitively accessible and broken down in a consistent format that is not exclusionary. “Then we are able to use an algorithm to go through the jobseekers on our platform to identify who’s the best fit based on mostly neuro type,” Kumar told TechCrunch. “One person might be extremely good at hyper focusing, very detail-oriented, very process-oriented or very strategic, and you have specific skills that map to their strengths in the role.” Over 70% of the data Mentra collects is not collected by an Indeed or a traditional job-finding platform. It uses that holistic data to make the match between the job and the individual.

The startup’s current revenue model is free for neurodivergent jobseekers, and it charges an annual subscription for enterprise companies to access the platform. It is also building out a neuroinclusion marketplace for service providers such as consultancies and training firms to provide hands-on services to companies that accompany Mentra’s core platform. “In the future, we plan to have a similar marketplace available for neurodivergents to access tailored services as well throughout the life of their career such as bootcamps and job coaches,” Kumar added.

Credit: https://slashdot.org/story/418786

  • shiroininja@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    It’s cool and all, but fuck Sam. His ai fears he stokes with his meetings with congress is so he can build a walled garden and keep out competitors.

    And his world coin is a privacy nightmare that is doing some immoral crap in the third world to get people to sign up. Taking advantage of the desperate.

    • RobotToaster@infosec.pubEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      That’s my feeling about it too, fuck him with an anchor, I don’t want anything to do with ClosedAi.

  • taladar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    I feel the main problem for neurodivergent job seekers is not just the job itself but often also the standardized learning and especially testing environments that come with parts of our education and job education systems, at least here in Germany. A few years ago I had a co-worker who did alright at a (reduced hour but otherwise relatively standard) job education until her anxiety made it impossible for her to handle the final exams, both written and oral.

  • pavnilschanda@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    This is what I’m looking for: AI to assist the neurodivergent. There’s so much potential given that AI is now capable of human understanding more than before. Of course there may be some work here and there, but I’m sure that the devs have that in mind. Another app that I can think of is goblin tools. Definitely useful to sort out thoughts and communication.