MeraJob leverages reach-out model to establish better connection with job seekers and recruiters

Pallav Sinha had faced huge challenges while building a large pan India front-end sales team for a wealth advisory and distribution company Fullerton Financial Holdings in his previous corporate role. He observed that the recruitment process

was broken and the market was inefficient in matching job seekers and jobs. “While we have various platforms connecting job seekers and recruiters, very few of them focus on assessing soft skills (e.g. language proficiency), preferences and behaviour of job seekers,” says Pallav.After realizing the gap in recruitment space Pallav founded MeraJob, an employment marketplace for the under-served mass market job seekers.

Initially, Pallav wanted to foray into skill development space but with hundreds of millions entering the workforce, he realized that though the need for training and skill development was enormous, there seemed to be an even more scalable business opportunity -- matching these job seekers with employers. “Then the concept of building a bureau of job seekers took root,” adds Pallav. Later, Girish Phansalkar and Ritwick Ghoshal joined MeraJob as co-founders.

Pallav is a serial entrepreneur and has over two decades of experience in financial services and retail banking with leading institutions in India and overseas. Earlier, Pallav worked in several leadership positions in retail banks and local JVs of MNCs, including Fullerton Securities (now a 100% Temasek company). Girish is an IIM Ahmadabad alumnus and had worked with Geometric and McKinsey while Ritwick worked at senior levels in global banks, managing corporate and consumer relationships.

Differentiators and USPs

The startup employs an innovative reach-out model to connect to job seekers who are unable to effectively signal their presence to employers using traditional recruitment tools (CVs) and channels (job portals). It uses multi-channel approach comprising the internet, call centres and on-the-ground presence through partners. MeraJob reaches out to a large section of jobseekers to create SmartProfile, a visual CV, which is constantly updated based on contact algorithms.

“This distinctive proposition of MeraJob to effectively match jobseekers with the employers helps in significantly reducing the

cost per hire for employers, while also allowing a better match of job requirements and skills,” points out Girish.

Revenue model

At present, the startup charges per pre-screened profile provided to the recruiters. “We will also roll-out a subscription based charge to access job seeker profile,” reveals Ritwick. Besides this, MeraJob is also working with skill development companies to help source students who want to acquire skills by using its matching engine.

Road ahead and competition

“We're still in the process of deploying the full technology solution, client and job seeker interfaces and building the database of smart profiles to a level where they become CV++ i.e. offer considerable advantage over a regular CV,” adds Ritwick. The startup plans to introduce functionalities which will be based on its experience and client feedback in the pilot it is conducting in Delhi NCR.

MeraJob competes with horizontal job aggregators like Naukari and Monster, including InterviewStreet which filters right set of candidates from a heap of CVs. With its multi-channel approach MeraJob seems to have some advantages over other players who have so far focused on only online approach.

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