Poised to change the way interviews are conducted – the story of ePoise

The aim to break the barrier of time and space in connecting talent with jobs by leveraging the power of mobile is what got Sachin Agarwal and Bishan Singh to start up ‘ePoise’ - the world’s first mobile interview platform that lets job seekers not just find and apply for jobs but directly give interviews for those job positions, from their smart phone, at any time, from anywhere.

Genesis of the idea

Sachin Agarwal (Co-Founder and CEO) and Bishan Singh (Co-Founder and COO) have known each other for close to 15 years now. They were colleagues at Mahindra Satyam and were together in US as well. Both of them also did their MBA at London Business School.

Sachin and Bishan spent a considerable time hiring while working with various companies across the globe. “We realized that interviewing was the only effective way to select people since most CVs, especially for junior to mid levels, looked alike. Still typically, there is an 80% rejection rate in first round interviews and scheduling is always a challenge. In the entire process, one can well imagine how much time, effort and money gets wasted. This is what got us to start up ‘ePoise,” Sachin says. The ePoise Job Interviews app addresses all these issues, and in addition helps companies find and engage with talent.

Solving a unique problem

The employers use ePoise to find better talent and shortlist them with minimal time and effort. “Their reach increases exponentially as their interviews are now open 24X7, and can be taken by anyone from anywhere. The hiring managers also value the convenience that they can evaluate the recorded video interviews of candidates at their own convenient time as opposed to getting tied down to a candidate's availability over the weekend,” says Sachin.

ePoise is changing the game by putting a job seeker in control. They select the company and give its interview, whenever they want, from the convenience of their home, or even while commuting. “Importantly, ePoise also helps them get ahead of competition, while other candidates using conventional means continue to submit resumes and wait for interview calls. On the other side, the hiring companies not only find quality talent on ePoise but by automating their initial round of interview and associated candidate engagement, they significantly reduce their hiring time and effort. In many ways, ePoise has broken the barrier of time and space in connecting talent with jobs in the most effective and scalable manner, leveraging the power of mobile,” adds, Sachin.

Achievements

ePoise was awarded the best HR Start-up in the country, in the NHRD HR Showcase held recently at Bengaluru. Besides this, ePoise dons many other feathers in its hat. It was selected as the winner of ’NASSCOM EMERGE 50, 2014 - India’s 50 most innovative software product centric companies’. Recognized by NHRD as a “Potential Game Changer” in the HR space, ePoise was also chosen to be the Technology Partner for the prestigious NHRDN & Prof. Ram Charan Young HR Icon Awards, 2014.

Addressable market and underlying opportunities

ePoise believes it can address the global hiring market in the early to mid experience range for industries such as IT, ITES, BFSI, Pharma and Retail. “Checkout the ePoise app and it takes you less than a minute to realize the relevance. Our aim is to cater to the high demand for the skilled talent in the country and to be a platform that overcomes the roadblocks in the hiring process due to the barriers of time and location. While our current focus is the Indian market, we have plans to expand overseas,” says Sachin.

Challenges and Learnings

ePoise is Sachin and Bishan’s 2nd venture. They started their entrepreneurial journey with a web based mentoring and career guidance platform for business school students in India. “We wanted to bring some of the best practices from London Business School, especially around the industry-academia connect to India and offer it via a scalable, web based model to the 4000+ MBA colleges in India. Leaving the top 50, most lack this connect, and as a result the graduating students face serious disappointment and frustration after their graduation. That's how the word ePoise was coined. It is an acronym, stands for: ePlatform of Industry Skills & Expertise,” adds Sachin.

While ePoise saw good traction from students from tier 1 schools, they found a big mismatch between the offering and the demand from the largest student population.

“We learnt our valuable lessons about the product market fit from this experience and pivoted out of the business. Though, even now, by no means can we claim that we have figured the consumer. It is a constant process of learning and evolution. Another of our key learning has been in terms of the buying behaviour of enterprise customers in India. One gets reminded about the competitive theory of nations by Porter, as to why certain type of companies have succeeded in certain countries,” says Sachin.

Future Plans

There is more exciting news!

In our continued efforts to bring value to our readers, Yourstory is partnering with ePoise to bring an unbelievable initiative to the readers!

"India's largest virtual start-up job fair” is coming on ePoise app starting 6th October, in partnership with Yourstory."

This will provide an opportunity to India's promising start-ups and start-up aspirants to connect with each other in the most effective and convenient way, leading to fast hiring. Keep watching this space, or download the ePoise app, so you do not miss it.

“We want to change the world. No less. With ePoise we want to eliminate the constraints of time and space for each and every skilled candidate, in every corner of the country, so they can get those opportunities they deserve, breaking the barriers of time and space. Keep watching, more interesting things in the pipeline,” Sachin adds.

Revenue generation and Growth metrics

ePoise is a free app for job seekers. It is also free to use for enterprises. “We have definite monetization plans, but I will not be able to disclose anything at the moment,” says Sachin.

The start-up has been monitoring MoM growth numbers. “Still early days for us,” he adds, "We crossed 20K downloads in a month since we started our limited marketing efforts."

Funding and Traction

ePoise was born with a seed capital of Rs 1 Lakh initially and later it raised an angel funding of Rs 25 lakh from friends and family. Recently, ePoise garnered more than half a million dollars investment led by Orios Venture Partners and a few angel investors.

“ePoise has become the preferred hiring destination for 100+ start-ups and progressive companies such as Ola, Flipkart, Mindtree, Redbus, Limeroad, Siemens, Swiggy, apigee, Bookmyshow, Zivame and Bankbazaar, among others, given the reach, convenience and speed it provides. They are using ePoise both for lateral as well as campus hiring,” says Sachin.

Competition

ePoise is the world's first mobile interview platform And therefore a truly innovative product. Their competition is primarily from other enterprise video interviewing products such as hirevue.

Long term vision

The long term vision is that all first round interviews anywhere on the planet, happen on ePoise. If they do not, they probably are not worth someone's time.

Plans to deal with the e-waste issue

ePoise is a champion of carbon footprint reduction. They claim to track how much of commuting and communication time is saved every week. They purge A/V data regularly to make sure e-waste does not get accumulated.

To register for India's first ever virtual job fair click here - goo.gl/EP4jVO