Football Alum Geno Miller Leading the Way in Diversifying the Work Force
11/6/2020 12:09:00 PM | Football
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By: UNH Wildcats
By Cameron Beall Special to UNHWildcats.com
Former UNH safety Geno Miller '17 says that he learned the key to being successful during his junior year while preparing for a playoff game against Central Arkansas. The football team was on flights, in hotel rooms and participating in extra meetings in preparation for that week's playoff game; Miller had a little extra on his plate, however.
While the whole team was focusing on Central Arkansas, Miller also had to juggle the responsibilities that come with running his own company as a college student. In between film study and meetings, he was recording videos, talking with his cofounder and was also in the final round of the Social Venture Innovation Challenge (SVIC). The SVIC invites students from across to the state to try and come up with ways to solve social, environmental or economic issues through innovative and business-oriented ideas.
Miller became the founder of Shtudy as a Division I college football player, and while this may seem like a task too tall to tackle for some, the former safety thinks this helped him grow his company to where it is today.
"It forced me to find ways to make things work," said Miller. "Something deep down inside of me said that if I can figure it out now, then I'll significantly thank myself later down the road." Geno Miller
According to Miller, Shtudy is a platform to help people of color become technically vetted and get connected with companies looking to add more diversity to their work force. Candidates within the platform will begin by taking a screening quiz based on their desired career path. Miller says they cater to software developers and data scientists. If a candidate scores in the 90th percentile they move on to soft skills training. The training includes videos on how to pass interviews, how to communicate in the workplace and things of that nature. Up next for a Shtudy candidate is a one-on-one mock interview where they'll receive more feedback. Once these steps are passed, the candidate will be added to the talent pool where they can directly get in contact with recruiters and companies, similar to LinkedIn.
Hailing form the Washington D.C. area, Miller graduated from UNH in 2017 majoring in business administration with a focus on entrepreneurial studies; he was a part of the first class that featured the entrepreneurial studies program and has always had a calling for this field. At the age of 14 Miller started his own clothing company where he made $30,000 in three months.
His entrepreneurial determination is something that his former head coach Sean McDonnell is able to tie back to what he saw during his time as a Wildcat.
"His work ethic showed clear on the football field," noted McDonnell. "He always had the ability to really dial in on whatever he needed to do and do it."
McDonnell mentioned how gratifying it is as a head coach to see one of his former players move on to such success after his time in Durham, but he can't take all the credit. He explained how Miller had a great foundation before he arrived at UNH.
While McDonnell noted that it was clear that Miller had a strong work ethic to help him make it where he has today, Miller explained how he's modeled himself based on how he saw Coach Mac interact with his players. He admired the way that his coach was able to handle off-the-field issues all while trying to lead his team to a national championship. Coach Mac and Geno Miller
"A lot of coaching staffs simply wash their hands with their players when personal life gets in the way of football, but I noticed that Coach Mac would go to bat for us," said Miller.
He went on to explain how McDonnell always put the well-being of his players first, and that is how he's tried to act towards his own employees today.
Miller says the idea for Shtudy stems from growing up in the D.C. area. He noted that he knew a lot of people who were talented enough to find jobs but didn't know where or how to look for those opportunities. Miller explained that he has a passion for finding solutions to problems, so he set out to find a way to help minorities get the opportunities they deserve.
One of the company's cofounders even experienced a scenario similar to this when it was time for his job search. Upon arriving at UNH, Miller met Rayvoughn Millings who is now the cofounder and chief technology officer of Shtudy. As described by Miller, Millings was a software engineering major who finished at the top of all his classes, but had trouble being noticed by companies.
"He was having trouble showcasing his skills in a way that was adequate enough to get him to stand out to recruiters," explained Miller. "That baffled me."
The tandem went on to finish as finalists in a multitude of competitions during their time at UNH and be awarded research grants. Now that Miller had fully recognized the issue in the tech industry, he used these awards to take a giant leap into solving it.
He used the money that Shtudy was awarded to take a trip to Silicon Valley and conduct research. He analyzed a wide array of companies to try and find the disconnect between the tech industry and people of color. Upon Miller's research he came to find that companies simply didn't know where to look to find qualified people of color. He went on to explain that the companies claimed the candidates weren't qualified when they could find them. Geno Miller is the cofounder of Shtudy
Miller spoke about what sets Shtudy apart from other businesses with a similar mission, or even their most fierce competitor in LinkedIn. Shtudy keeps all candidates anonymous to keep out any sort of bias that could come through the recruiter. He also mentioned that unlike LinkedIn, Shtudy pre-vets all of their candidates to avoid the issues that he heard about in Silicon Valley where candidates simply weren't qualified for the position.
Today, thanks to Shtudy, the Black Lives Matter movement and plenty of other factors companies have truly begun to dig deeper into the talent pool to find more people of color. This means a lot for Miller to be seeing results for what he's set out to do.
"To be frank, it's about damn time," he simply stated.
Miller says that he appreciates the awareness that's been around the issue for the last decade, but he's happy to see people actually begin to take action. Previously he says that it felt like people were just checking a box to meet their quota in terms of hiring a certain amount of people of color. Today he feels that the message has finally broke through and people are understanding what needs to be done.
"It's refreshing to finally see what we've been working towards since 2013 is finally reaching other people so that they can see what's happening," Miller explained.
After seeing the rise of Shtudy, Miller isn't satisfied yet and has plenty of events lined up in the future to help raise awareness. Shtudy has partnered with the New Hampshire Tech Alliance to spread awareness and share their mission to UNH, the state of New Hampshire and all of New England. Go here for more information on Shtudy
