LifeOpp is a jobs site for a neglected group: service staff and odd job workers

Minimum wage work at McDonalds isn’t sexy. Aside from the low pay, they don’t offer much career progression. Youths don’t consider the service industry an idealized career – many parents expect their child to become doctors or engineers.

But it’s an inevitable path for many. There’s only so much space for white-collar jobs. And education systems in general favor those who are academically-inclined or have rich parents.

Then there’s the perception problem. The service industry can be meaningful – it’s about putting a smile on people’s faces. But service staff are often treated like dirt. If customers are king, what does this make the hapless cashier at the counter?

LifeOpp is a website that wants to improve the lot of service industry professionals and odd job workers. Sure, overhauling an entire sector requires herculean effort, but that isn’t LifeOpp’s aim. Instead, it hopes to make the industry more transparent and efficient.

As much as possible, the site displays actual salaries for the job postings, preventing companies from adjusting the pay if they perceive an applicant to be somehow less qualified.

It also replaces employment agencies that deal with temp jobs. These agencies typically take a huge chunk of the pay, anywhere from 30 to 50 percent.

“Hotels are paying $16 to $20 an hour to an agency, while agencies are paying $8 to 12 an hour, that’s quite an egregious business model […] they always say it’s because they’re organizing everyone, but honestly how much work is that?” says first-time founder Joel Sng, a Harvard graduate and angel investor who backed AirBnb, Razer, Coursera, Facebook, and Foursquare.

“Before the Internet, yeah I can agree with you that maybe you need to send a letter to [employees] to be at this meeting point, but that doesn’t exist today.” LifeOpp doesn’t take a cut of salaries now, and while they’ll eventually need to do so, it’ll still be lower that what agencies charge.

LifeOpp also wants to improve the prospects of job seekers with a feature akin to LinkedIn’s personal profile pages. Companies can glance at these online resumes to get a feel of an applicant’s interests. A beach bar would want someone that enjoys the outdoors, while a clothes retailer would ideally hire a fashionista.

Finally, it hopes to make service jobs more attractive, and that’s a tough nut to crack. “How do you make working at McDonald’s sexy? It’s not easy,” says Sng. But the problem is pressing. According to him, a multi-national bakery with thousands of staff could spend as much as $2 million annually on hiring alone.

So, a disgruntled or disillusioned baker or waiter who quits just after a few weeks not only adds to that number, but throws away the time (often one to two weeks), money, and effort that’s put into training up the person.

LifeOpp gives job seekers more incentive to stay with a tiered rewards and referral system. Successful applicants get a reward of a few hundred dollars if they join a company – emulating a practice in the high-end white collar world. The reward system also serves as a data point, allowing LifeOpp to know if and when a position gets filled.

The money is dished out in tranches, a move that could increase the chances of staff staying on longer. The extra cash isn’t the primary motivator here – it’s about giving companies a chance to leave a lasting impression on new employees.

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