Business Monday: Hawaiʻi Island resident creates a new app to streamline hiring process nationwide

Shortly after Keaʻau resident Frank Montoya was laid off in 2023, he began losing his vision, making his employment search more difficult. But an easy-to-use app created by a Hilo resident may bring him closer to getting a job.

Earlier this week, Montoya signed up for a new nationwide employment app called ShiftPass, which helps him apply for more maintenance and custodial jobs without filling out multiple applications.

“Since I began losing my vision, it has been getting more difficult to use the computer and I honestly should not be on the computer more than I need to,” Montoya said. “Creating one profile that perfectly portrays me to potential employers gives me a lot more hope than I’ve had in a while.”

Jessica Cockrell created ShiftPass after she and her husband experienced an unnecessarily arduous hiring process when they were searching for electricians for their electrical contracting business in Palm Springs, Calif.

While there are several job search engines and hiring platforms available online, these outlets proved unhelpful. So the 50-year-old worked on a phone app to simplify the hiring process for businesses looking to fill open shifts and to help workers find genuine job opportunities more quickly.

“My husband and I were in need of electricians badly and thought that we would be able to quickly find part-time or full-time employees since we offered a competitive salary,” Cockrell said. “Hiring ended up costing us over $1,000 since we posted it on various websites. You have to pay to put job posts on hiring sites and found out that a majority of our applicants ended up being computer bots.”

Although applicants were slow to come after posting the job, she knew that plenty of people in her area had been searching for work for months. She mostly noticed a trend with multiple restaurants, bars and other hospitality-based businesses that were in need of more employees.

“I feel like it was one of those things that you begin to see because whatever it is pertains to you,” Cockrell said. “I’m sure there were local businesses searching for employees long before I noticed.

“I talked with some owners and they said that they were working with ‘skeleton’ crews and when someone could not make their shift, it was impossible to cover and they weren’t having luck hiring employees from the job hiring websites or even their social media pages.”

While brainstorming for a solution with her husband, Cockrell thought about creating a job hiring platform that would be easier to use on a phone and would be available across the United States.

While she and her husband were in California at the time, Cockrell also thought about Hawaiʻi Island, where she grew up and had to move away from after graduating from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa since there were more jobs in her field of finance on the mainland.

“It is no secret that more and more Native Hawaiians and locals have had to move off the islands because it was easier to find jobs on the U.S. mainland,” Cockrell said. “The idea of making the hiring process easier for everyone while also being able to find a long-term solution for local workers who are considering or have already moved from Hawaiʻi became really important to me.”

Her own experiences as a business owner helped guide Cockrell to create ShiftPass, however, even more inspiration came from her work as the co-founder of He Hoʻomaka Hou Ana O Puna, which is a Puna-based nonprofit that helps serves women who are overcoming domestic violence, substance abuse, and homelessness.

“Sometimes the women in these programs don’t have the ability to drop resumes off in person or to complete numerous applications online,” Cockrell said. “They need something that they can check anytime and any place. Instead of workers scrolling available jobs, employers can scroll available employees instead, which takes a lot of pressure off someone in a precarious situation.”

Cockrell said coming up with the potential features for ShiftPass was easy. But she didn’t know anything about creating an app.

“Luckily, being located in California at the time, there were plenty of people to collaborate with when it came to the literal app creation,” she said.

When Cockrell began developing the app in May 2025, she wanted to make sure ShiftPass would be noticeably different from traditional job boards. To achieve this, she worked with developers to make sure workers could create detailed profiles that includes resumes, licenses, experience, photos and video for employers to view.

Employers from a wide range of industries can instantly browse these profiles, find qualified candidates in real time, and connect with them immediately to fill open positions or last-minute shifts to shorten the hiring process.

“Instead of spending days posting jobs, sorting through applications, and scheduling interviews, employers can identify and contact available workers within minutes,” Cockrell said. “At the same time, workers don’t have to constantly apply and can now be discovered and hired based on their availability and experience.”

Since ShiftPass launched at the end of May and is still in an early growth phase, Cockrell is focusing on building a worker base while reaching out to businesses in need of employees to join the app.

“We have over 950 workers who have signed up and created profiles on the app, and 20 business accounts in Hawaiʻi, Texas and California have already been able to hire from the app,” Cockrell said. “ShiftPass is like a social media app in that way where you can see all the employees that are closest, or most available. I think the simplicity of connecting to an available worker has been the most helpful for businesses.”

ShiftPass is completely free for workers with no fees, no commissions and no deductions from their pay. Businesses are asked to pay a monthly subscription of $19.99 for unlimited access.

“The app is more affordable for businesses, so they feel more inclined to join, especially when they see how many potential workers there are in their area,” Cockrell said. “More Hawaiʻi Island businesses will be inclined to join if more workers join ShiftPass, which is free for them.”

While ShiftPass is available nationwide, Cockrell plans to market the app across the state of Hawaiʻi and offer account discounts to local businesses in need of employees.

“Getting more people the jobs they want and deserve is a success for me. In the next year, I hope to gain some feedback from both businesses and workers to continue to make ShiftPass the best it can be,” Cockrell said. “We are still getting our sea legs, but if we facilitate more connections between workers and employers, that feels like a great success to me.”

ShiftPass is available to download for businesses and workers over the App store for iPhones or the Google Play store for Androids, or create a profile on the website.