How startups are creating a disruption in preparing students for the job market

MUMBAI: With the job market in India getting more competitive with every passing year, startups catering to the needs of aspiring professionals are coming up in a big way.

Startups are fast emerging to enable students to get the real flavour of the current job market as well as to ready them for the screening.
Perspectico, founded by ex-Nomura executive Nikhil Chainani, aims to provide relevant advice to students steeling themselves for the jobs market. This he does by collaborating with corporates who can advice the students on the most recent scenario of the sector that they are planning to enter.

Chainani confesses that the inspiration for this startup was the confusion that he faced while sitting for job placements while studying at the University of Delhi.

“There is no point in asking about how to become a good investment banker from someone who has been in the sector for 20-30 years as the career scope keeps evolving very frequently,” Chainani says.

He adds that a right perspective can come only from someone who is new and fresh and has faced the challenges that an upcoming fresher is likely to face given the market conditions and the demand of the field.

He got his first reassurance in 2014 when on a cold December morning, around 70 students from Harvard Business School, Indian Institute of Management- Bangalore(IIM-B), Indian School of Business-Hyderabad (ISB-H) attended his first session called “CONTANGROW” where he collaborated with corporate professionals with the right experience to address the students.

Apart from Perspectico, another organization called Talent4Assure is helping students by acting as a “self-enabler” and helping students assess themselves for competitive examinations as well as for job placements in colleges and universitites.

Founded by Nikita Singhal and Pravesh Rana in 2009, Talent4Assure has been creating standardized and scientific content for entrance examinations like and National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) for students looking at pursuing a graduate medical course as well as All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) for engineering courses.

“Whatever form the education system takes, self-assessment will always be the key to gain self confidence and achieve new heights,” Singhal says.

It also provides content for examinations like UPSC, SSC, Bank PO etc both online and offline. While offline students are provided with a set of questions, online, the platform involves the elements of time management as well to give them a mock experience of the test they are planning to attempt.

According to a study by recruitment agency, Michael Page India, 60% of companies will add new headcount to their businesses in 2017. With startups and e-commerce disrupting the job market, a disruption is also needed in the way students prepare for them.

Other organizations like Coursera, Aspiring Minds, LinkedIn Learning are also engaged in smoothening the transition for students that the changing times are bringing in the job market.