People of all ages are faced with a huge question: “Who are you?” When you’re six years old, you can answer that question without any hesitancy. But when you get older, high school and beyond, the answer to “who are you” gets more important.

That’s the philosophy behind Higher Ground Neighborhood Development Corporation (NDC) and spikeview’s goal to help young job applicants prepare themselves for landing a job after high school or getting ready to attend college. Potential employers and college admissions personnel want to know who you are in real life.

Higher Ground (HG) is a multi-service nonprofit designed to provide elementary education and supportive to schools, districts and county offices of education throughout the East Bay. HG acts as an information storehouse on school/community-based service coordination for youth and the organizations that serve them.

HGs mission is to provide services that address intellectual development of young people by providing comprehensive after-school programs; career to college workforce programming and professional development, among other services.

The spikeview platform was created for young people to own their own narrative and maximize their potential. The centerpiece of spikeview is a portfolio that helps teens organize their interests and accomplishments.  Employers and colleges are using spikeview to evaluate teens, rather than resumes and essays, because spikeview demonstrates soft skills that are impossible to present in old formats.

“Although most applications always ask for a resume, over 90% of employers say they don’t care about what’s on a resume,” said Khariyyah Shabazz, HG’s Workforce Development director. “What employers are actually interested in are answers to: what inspires you; how do you interact with a team; how do you treat people around you and what kind of things are you learning.

“Ours is an important mission in the development for youth. Kids are learning skills and becoming better members of their community. And our partnering with spikeview helps to document their learning journey and organize their interests, skills, and experiences.”

“Youth unemployment doubled in 2020,” added Shabazz. “An astonishing number of high schoolers are looking for skills training, internships, and tips to get into college. School is winding down, and time is of the essence for teens. Partnering with spikeview will help young people hear ‘Yes!’ from colleges and employers. It’s an online platform that shows the whole person behind an application.”

“Teenagers need to get a jump on this,” said Ekta Sahasi, founder and CEO of spikeview. “They need a way to catalog their interests and experience in a way that they can create focused stories about themselves.”

Sahasi is a mother of teenagers and wanted to be sure they had a secure way to organize their data without sacrificing privacy. She added, “Our users control their data, and we’ll never sell personal information to third parties.”

“At spikeview, we say ‘Own Your Narrative,’” continued Sahasi.  “That means taking control of the type of questions related to ‘who are you.’ Don’t let your personal story be defined by some random social media posts or boring resume. We want to help youth organize their thoughts so they will be able to present themselves professionally when pursuing work of educational opportunities.”

The spikeview platform is free to use.  It’s available in the Apple Store, Google Play Store, and was a web app.

For more information on Higher Ground, visit their website at www.highergroundndc.com or call 510.415.9271. For more information on Spikeview, visit https://spikeview.com/.

Isabelle Price

Posts by Isabelle Price