Aspen Experience is an international recruiting organisation which helps hospitality students and graduates obtain a J1 visa internship in a luxury hotel in the US. Aspen Experience is building bridges between education and opportunity, helping students and young professionals travel, live, and work abroad with confidence. 

What makes Aspen Experience different from other recruiting or placement agencies?

The founders and most of the team members have done one or multiple J1 programmes before, so we deeply understand the pain points in the process and what our participants are looking for. We designed a user-friendly 10-step process that is easy to understand, and we keep very close communication with our participants throughout the process, not only on email but also on WhatsApp as well.

You emphasise being “fast, responsive, and genuinely involved” – what does that look like in practice for your candidates?

We are obsessed with improving the customer experience, and we do everything we can to keep the human connection alive. We schedule 30-minute video calls with all our prospects, before they sign up for our programmes, to explain the process and answer all their questions. And then, they always have quick access to our team members on WhatsApp (including the CEO), not only on email. Our internal rule is that all emails and WhatsApp messages must be answered within 24 business hours, and all team members are evaluated against this metric.

Many graduates feel anxious about starting their careers. How do you help them feel confident when working abroad??

We believe that hard work should be meaningful, and support should feel human. Whether it’s helping someone land their first role or expand their professional network across borders, we do it with heart. We schedule calls with our participants and train them before the employer interviews, depending on the complexity of the role they are applying for. We also organise WhatsApp group chats before the employer interviews and prepare the candidates, let them know a few things about the interviewers and their organisation, and tell them what questions to expect. We invite previously hired candidates to share their experiences as well.

How do you keep your work fun while tackling something as serious as youth unemployment?

That’s the easy part. We travel a lot. We join recruitment events all around the world, from Bali to Lima to Cancun to Madrid to Bucharest and so on. We try to sit down for lunch with our candidates every opportunity we have and let them ask questions while they feel comfortable, rather than put them on the spot. We also visit our participants during their internships, every chance we have, and get hands-on feedback about their experience.

What’s the most rewarding part of helping young professionals start their journeys?

Seeing the success stories gives us purpose. Watching them land that management job after their internship or finding their partner during the programme. Seeing how quickly they improve their language skills and other technical and soft skills. Seeing how much their confidence improves in such a short period of time. We are scheduling what we call “exit interviews” as often as we can to get feedback once the internship has ended, and it is remarkable to see the transformation they undergo in just 12 months. It’s like you are talking to a completely different person.