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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy 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,\u201d Cockrell said. \u201cHiring 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like it was one of those things that you begin to see because whatever it is pertains to you,\u201d Cockrell said. \u201cI\u2019m sure there were local businesses searching for employees long before I noticed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked with some owners and they said that they were working with \u2018skeleton\u2019 crews and when someone could not make their shift, it was impossible to cover and they weren\u2019t having luck hiring employees from the job hiring websites or even their social media pages.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
While she and her husband were in California at the time, Cockrell also thought about Hawai\u02bbi Island, where she grew up and had to move away from after graduating from the University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa since there were more jobs in her field of finance on the mainland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt 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,\u201d Cockrell said. \u201cThe 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 Hawai\u02bbi became really important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 Ho\u02bbomaka Hou Ana O Puna, which is a Puna-based nonprofit that helps serves women who are overcoming domestic violence, substance abuse, and homelessness.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes the women in these programs don\u2019t have the ability to drop resumes off in person or to complete numerous applications online,\u201d Cockrell said. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Cockrell said coming up with the potential features for ShiftPass was easy. But she didn\u2019t know anything about creating an app.<\/p>\n \u201cLuckily, being located in California at the time, there were plenty of people to collaborate with when it came to the literal app creation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of spending days posting jobs, sorting through applications, and scheduling interviews, employers can identify and contact available workers within minutes,\u201d Cockrell said. \u201cAt the same time, workers don\u2019t have to constantly apply and can now be discovered and hired based on their availability and experience.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.bigislandnow.com\/file\/bigislandnow\/2025\/07\/250711-new-domestic-19-copy.jpg\")
<\/a>Jessica Cockrell, right, smiles while taking a photo with members of Haumana Kuk\u0101k\u016bk\u0101 during a luncheon for the nonprofit, He Ho\u02bbomaka Hou Ana O Puna, on July 12, 2025. (Kelsey Walling\/Big Island Now)<\/p>\n