The Boulder Colorado Job Fair (a.k.a Boulder.me)
TravelFli has had the opportunity to join 17 other Boulder technology companies in the first ever Boulder Colorado Job Fair also known as “Boulder.me”. The idea is that we get 15 to 20 companies to all kick in $5k and we use that money to fly in 100 of the best developers from across the country and put them up in a nice hotel, wine/dine them, and convince them to move to Boulder. Luckily for us, Boulder is not a hard sell…
On Monday, I learned a few interesting facts about Boulder that I was completely unaware of despite going to college here and being a Boulder business owner for almost 10 years:
1) Boulder has over 300 days of sunshine annually (I actually knew that one, it’s kind of hard not to notice).
2) Per Capita, Boulder has the most advanced degrees (PHD, MBA, etc.) than any other city in the country.
3) Per Capita, more residents are employed in the technology industry than anywhere in the U.S.
I know I lead off with “per capita”, so I wanted to make sure everyone knows that with a population of 120,000 residents… Boulder isn’t huge, but it’s not exactly a farm town either. Which another reason most people love Boulder. It’s big enough to have amazing restaurants and a great social scene, but small enough that you don’t have a ridiculous commute or any of the other “Big City” negatives (crime, pollution, etc.). Plus it’s a mecca for cyclists, runners, skiers, and almost any other sport you can imagine. So, we have an entire week of interviews and fun around Boulder in the hopes that we can find some “Kickass Developers” that want to live in one of the most prominent and fastest growing technology markets in the country.
Now that I’m done pitching Boulder, I wanted to say that we’ve had a great time so far. We interviewed almost 30 candidates in two days and have another 30 yet to interview. The quality of the candidates has been incredibly high and their resumes are unbelievably impressive. The way the job fair was organized allowed all of the companies to screen the applicants and narrow it down. Collectively, the companies were able to accomplish what would have taken probably 3 months for us to do internally and would have cost way more than 5k.
At the rate the tech industry is growing in Boulder, I am expecting this to become an annual event and I’m interested to see if this model pops up in other smaller tech communities outside of The Valley.
-Austin Veith
Co-Founder
