Bridging the Gap: EduPolaris AI Empowers Trade Students with Eddie Jobs

For June Han, students entering the job market are competing with many different factors that make it a challenge to find a first job, and she wanted AI to provide a competitive advantage to job seekers rather than worry about AI taking jobs.

The education technology company launched a new platform, “Eddie Jobs,” that serves as an AI-based employment platform to complement its first program, which is focused on college admissions. The employment platform addresses an area that is underserved – trade and technical jobs. These are jobs such as nursing, auto mechanics and others that have traditionally been filled through word-of-mouth referrals from family and friends.

“Students are ready for a job, but the last mile to a job placement is a structural challenge for almost all of the schools,” said June Han, chief executive and co-founder of Pasadena-based EduPolaris AI.

The product is treated as a business-to-business transaction, with schools and state workforce commissions subsidizing the product for their students. It provides a service while allowing the schools to modernize and track job applications, which can then provide data on the return on investment for postsecondary education.

Organizations can pay per user or through a flat fee at a systemwide level. Students can use the platform for free to generate a resume and get job matches up to a certain number but then pay a monthly fee to continue using it.

“The job placement system needs to be modernized. We focus on hyperlocal and skill-based job market. We built a tool to fill in the gap to help students who have no idea how to create an impactful job application and tailor a resume to a job posting, prepare for interviews and negotiate a job offer,” said Han.

The company was founded by Han and Chen Li, a UC Riverside professor of engineering. The pair raised $1 million from family and friends to build its AI platform and plans to raise additional funds to support growth. It has customers in several states across the country. The technology is compliant with strict data privacy protections at the federal, state and local school level. It is the only guidance platform featured as a presidential AI resource. Han noted that regulations regarding AI are constantly changing, and there are statewide and local disparities in policy readiness.

Education technology companies are frequently focused on the coursework, but EduPolaris AI was founded to provide guidance and outcomes beyond the classroom. Han worked as a Harvard Business School admissions interviewer, where she saw firsthand that students needed help with college applications and admissions, but the number of counselors available had declined. The solution was to apply AI technology to provide personalized support to postsecondary pathways. That could be four-year colleges or other pathways, such as trade schools, that ultimately lead to the job market.

“High school students are at a pivotal stage to face life decisions. Students need guidance from counselors, but guidance needs to be personalized. That’s how I decided to build this product with the goal of providing AI-agentic-powered student collaboration with counselors,” said Han.

Information for this story was provided by EduPolaris AI.