BUSINESS
LEADING THE PACK Playa Vista entrepreneur launches pet industry’s first employment search engine STORY BY SRIANTHI PERERA | PHOTOS BY LUIS CHAVEZ
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Playa Vista resident Seda Bolulu is the founder of PackHire, an employment search engine and recruiting firm exclusive to the pet industry. 22 22 PLAYA PLAYA VISTA VISTA DIRECT DIRECT || OCTOBER OCTOBER -- NOVEMBER NOVEMBER 2021 2021
eda Bolulu was looking for a career transition combining her skills in talent acquisition and passion for animals. What the Playa Vista resident found was a niche in the business world. Bolulu noted that it was difficult to search for jobs in this particular field. Thus, while still in business school at the University of Southern California, she created a job board for the pet industry. “Through extensive market research we discovered that the name job boards created for the masses were not sufficiently catering to the rapidly growing $100 billion pet industry, and we wanted to build the platform where employers and candidates can easily and cost-efficiently find their pack,” Bolulu says. PackHire, the new employment search engine and recruiting firm exclusive to the pet industry, serves the pet-loving community through its online platform. The service is free to job seekers who may search employment opportunities in areas such as veterinary care, grooming/boarding, dog training, rescues and nonprofits, pet food, retail, pet insurance and pet care start-ups. Employers pay to register and post jobs, search the candidate resume database, and work with industry expert recruiters to find quality candidates with niche backgrounds for their pet business. Bolulu has a decade of talent acquisition experience under her belt and her husband, Fadi Rasheed, is an employment attorney. “Creating an employment search engine between the two of us kind of made sense,” she notes. The couple hired technical expertise, such as web development, to fill the gaps in their knowledge. Funding was bootstrap. It is an opportune time for applica-
