“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” It’s a famous African proverb, and one that today still rings true. For the budding next generation of working professionals, there are limits to how high a person can typically climb on the career ladder while relying solely on their own skill sets. Eventually, establishing a productive wider company culture, continuing to pursue education or ongoing workplace training, or leadership skills facilitation for budding managers, each need to be developed in order for individuals to achieve their ultimate career aspirations.
Courtney Brand is the Founder & CEO of TheLighthouse, a New York City Founder Institute portfolio company that connects young professionals who are ready to take the next leap forward, with fellow professionals with the experience of having made similar career moves. TheLighthouse’s growing online marketplace helps professionals that are hungry for advancement to connect with positive and experienced experts. CEO Brand explains,
We are a peer-to-peer marketplace that connects young people with a network of young professionals who offer them personalized and experience-based career advice and support.
In the U.S. the average annual raise is around 3%. That is not even covering changes to cost of living in most cases, which is just one of many reasons why the most hungry young professionals choose to seek new opportunities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employee Tenure Report, the average tenure in a role for employees aged 25-34 is 2.8 years. For employees 35-44, it was closer to 5 years; and for employees 45-54, the tenure average is around 7.6 years.
There is a lot to be gleaned from the data, such as that older or more experienced professionals may be more likely to stay within a role, due to having achieved the satisfactory level of career growth they had wanted—but there is much more to the story.
Older generations are often confused by Millennials’ perceived tendency towards job-hopping, but the reality is that with raises hovering around 3% each year, younger employees especially are seeking greener pastures and higher pay, which too often don’t result simply from company loyalty. CEO Brand recently spoke to Forbes about employee sentiment, and what motivates the best workers: Around 70% of employees often feel disengaged - and when this happens, are more prone to be recruited elsewhere.
Hungry Young Professionals Seek Engagement, Skills-Building Opportunities
TheLighthouse tackles both of these issues in two ways: supporting businesses and their employees, as well as working directly with career professionals. On the B2B side, TheLighthouse helps provide employees with desirable skills that lead to growth, which results increased employee engagement, and an employee who is likelier to stay onboard.
For individual professionals, TheLighthouse provides connections to experts and mentors that can help career-climbers to focus their efforts on everything from taking the best profile photo for their LinkedIn account, to the best ways to prep for an interview. Whichever the goal—getting a raise, advancing to a leadership role, or finding a new position entirely—TheLighthouse has an extensive marketplace of insiders to coach professionals through the entire process.
Beyond the marketplace itself, Brand, too, has an extensive background in working with hungry professionals. In just under five years working with PwC, Brand empowered teams and organizations to be as strategic and efficient as possible. Working with the likes of Alibaba, top German automotive brands, and the World Economic Forum, Brand has an established track record with some of the top-performing professionals in the U.S. and China—with TheLighthouse leveraging the power of its professional network at scale, career-climbers continue to unlock value from their fellow peers’ experience. 
Graduates of the Founder Institute are creating some of the world's fastest growing startups, having raised over $1.75BN in funding, and building products people love across over 200 cities worldwide.
See the most recent news from our Grads at FI.co/news, or learn more about their stories at FI.co/journey.
