Patrick Mineer of Blue Fire Consulting is looking to revolutionize career planning by bringing students together with hiring companies earlier and more deeply through a new start-up, Golden Path Solutions.

The process of transitioning from secondary school into a career has been the subject of tremendous, culture-wide anxiety in recent years. College can bring increased earning potential, but not all courses of study are equal, and almost all of them are liable to generate significant debt, without the guarantee of a good job on the other side.

Golden Path Solutions’ concept is to partner with schools and companies in order to make finding qualified candidates more efficient. They hope to match employers with students who are showing promise, even in high school, of being strong future candidates for jobs, whether due to the aptitudes they show in school, or due to more holistic measures like formative experiences.

For employers, Golden Path aims to help solve a problem Mineer has seen during his years as a consultant.

“I’ve worked with companies that are always struggling with the right experiences” for their prospective employees,” Mineer said. “They still have attrition of 10-15 percent.”

They will develop a web tool called Compass to aid in this process. High school students will create profiles, and they will be matched with companies that need staffers with the skills and experiences those students may already be showing in high school.

“What our company is trying to do is we are trying to find a better way for high school students to plan for their postsecondary educations,” Mineer said. “It’s a more deliberate and efficient way for students to find their perfect career.”

Mineer was inspired to pursue a company like Golden Path Solutions after a friend’s son was pointed out by someone who worked at a tech company as a really smart kid who showed potential to succeed in the kind of position this tech company had to offer. It was noted that the company could pay for this student’s education if they knew they would continue to develop toward the position through college.

Mineer’s question was, “How could you make that model scalable?” He noted that sometimes high quality candidates for positions might not ever find out about the opportunities they are suited to because they just don’t know the right people. Golden Path Solutions is designed to help remedy that issue. “How do you help them become visible to companies that need them?” Mineer said.

Prior to constructing and launching Compass, Mineer and Golden Path Solutions are hoping to prove the concept without the technology. They are looking for partners and investors, and they have been talking with companies and schools, looking for feedback on the viability of the concept as well as looking to bring them on as early adopters. Mineer said the company is also talking to people within the state government about the viability of the concept.

“We’re trying to validate the concept before we invest in the technology,” Mineer said.

Another project of the company involves interviewing the people in roles companies would like to fill with the help of Golden Path Solutions and Compass, in order to build profiles of what the skills, formative experiences, and raw talents that contribute to success in those roles look like. Then, potentially, they will be able to take that profile to their early adopter schools and ask them for students who match the profiles of the positions.

“These are the experiences that you should have to explore these careers,” Mineer said.

Mineer believes the concept could change what companies look for in qualified individuals for their jobs.

“We want to completely change the paradigm of how students think about their careers,” Mineer said.

The concept could also be applied to people already in the workforce, showing them the kinds of experiences they could have to improve their aptitude for their work.

Patrick Mineer will present on Golden Path Solutions at 1 Million Cups Fargo on September 26. 1 Million Cups Fargo takes place each Wednesday from 9:15-10:15 a.m. at The Stage at Island Park.