Companies have a hiring process that doesn't work for all and this startup is changing that

It has been nearly two decades since the advent of online recruitment websites. And a lot has changed since then. What started as online classifieds for jobs has evolved into an analytics-driven industry that has seen a slew of startups evolving in this space.

Every startup has attempted to bridge the demand and supply gap by trying to match the ever changing skillsets that companies require today with those who can offer the same.

As per a KPMG report on ‘Digital Classifieds in India’, two of the potential future revenue streams for this market would be analytics-based value addition to job seekers to increase the sale of their services and more importantly, an end-to-end customer lifecycle management. Meaning, a portal should be able to complete the lifecycle right from shortlisting for interviews and on-boarding assistance.

And while startups in this space are trying to bridge this gap several ways, one startup is looking to eliminate the need for physical interviews and is making hiring easy through a smart recruiting application.

Founded in July 2016 by Arun Kumar and Sunaina Agarwal, Trabaajo offers free job postings, document verification and a detailed resume format as per industry standards. It acts as a first level screening tool for recruiters.

The idea came to Arun Kumar when he went for an interview and had to wait for over five hours for the HR to get free. Meanwhile, he noticed that everyone around him were busy on their phones. 

Five hours later, when the interview got postponed to the next day, it gave him the idea of saving the time of job seekers by eliminating the need for a physical interview.

Arun decided to start his own company to help job seekers and set up Xenture Technologies in July 2016. The Trabaajo app was launched three months later in October 2016.

If you’re looking for a job, Trabaajo helps you build a detailed resume summarising all your skills and achievements on the app. It makes you take an aptitude test, based on which an algorithm analyses your performance and understands your organisational needs. This helps in pushing the jobs that match your skills the best.

Now there are a lot of startups in this space who do similar things. But what sets Trabaajo apart is the fact that it eliminates the need for face-to-face interviews and allows potential candidates to give live video interviews. Candidates can be interviewed by recruiters from anywhere across the globe, thus saving time for both parties. This also opens global job avenues to job seekers and gives global recruiters a complete database of job seekers across the globe.

“At the beta test, we have been able to improve conversion ratios in face-to-face interviews from 15% to more than 73% for our clients. This also solves the time-consuming problem of scheduling interviews and coordinating calendars between recruiters and candidates. We also help reduce fraudulent interviews through a robust proctoring mechanism and an audit trail of interviews to ensure quality standards across the organisation,” says Arun.

Another unique feature is that Trabaajo offers a unique platform to recruiters and job seekers to store video interviews through its archive feature. This is especially helpful for recruiters who can choose to store interviews in its ‘video storehouse’ for them to go back for further referencing.

Trabaajo has a database of one lakh candidates and 1,400 companies have signed up with the portal. Since the launch, 8,200 candidate has been successfully placed through Trabaajo.

The service is completely free for job seekers. For recruiters, while almost all features are free, it charges them Rs 30 per live video interview.

And while it also has a website, Trabaajo is focusing completely on its mobile application. In fact, the KPMG report says that over 50% of traffic to digital recruitment classifieds comes through mobiles. Trabaajo is now working on further developing the app and the phase II of the app is in its R&D stage.

It currently has its presence in India and has offices in New York, Chicago and Singapore. “We aim to make ourselves available at Paris, Hong Kong and California as our branches by the end of this financial year,” Sunaina says.

While Trabaajo has invested one crore rupees so far, it is now looking to raise two million dollars for further expansion.

Trabaajo’s aim is to become the only interface between and employer and an employee. And with its differentiated offerings, Arun and Sunaina believe that they have no direct competition in the market. Having already seen great response on the platform, it is confident of breaking even by the end of this year.