Apart from sharpening their soft skills and offering technical know-how, startups like Scaler Academy and Masai School are helping graduates land that coveted job after completing their course
Abhimanyu Saxena doesn’t mince words. “Ninety percent of the technology needed in a high-end technology company isn’t taught in the universities and 90 percent of what is taught there has no relevance,” says Saxena, co-founder of Scaler Academy, a startup that runs online computer programmes for fresh graduates and working professionals, with a promise to get them a job.
Saxena isn’t launching a diatribe. Depending on who you ask, about 50 to 90 percent of India’s engineering graduates aren’t fit for a job. The thousands of private engineering colleges that mushroomed across the country in the heydays of the information technology boom in the 1990s, selling the dream of a quintessential good life, have begun to falter. So much so that they are failing to fill seats.
According to the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), the number of engineering seats in the country shrank from about 19 lakh in 2014 to 14.66 lakh in 2019. About 83 engineering colleges approached AICTE last year, asking for permission to shut shop. The meltdown, to a large extent, has been triggered by their inability to ensure jobs.
Late 2014, Saxena, a former executive at Fab.com, teamed up with Anshuman Singh, who had earlier worked with Facebook and Directi, to launch Interview Bit, a startup that would make students job ready.
“People often don’t know what to expect at interviews with these large tech companies,” says Saxena. Interview Bit became that free platform where aspirants could solve probable questions and have their acumen assessed. At the backend, a team of in-house recruiters would track their performance. “If you get on to their (the recruiters’) radar, they will reach out and check if you are looking out and then connect you with companies,” says Saxena.
By 2019, Interview Bit, a bootstrapped and profitable venture, had 10 lakh registered users, of whom at least 10,000 people got a job at 400 companies, including Amazon and Uber. The company clocked $2 million in annual revenue in FY19. “You won’t believe how much a company can pay to get the right talent. The success fee can go up Rs 10-20 lakh,” says Saxena.
(This story appears in the 28 February, 2020 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)