Faujnet, making Armed Forces veterans compatible for corporate hires

Serving the country as part of the defense forces has its own set of joys and sorrows. The professionalism, the discipline, the courage and the maturity of a soldier in uniform are some things which people admire and wish for in their own organizations.

Unfortunately, military veterans are often perceived to be good only for security or HR related jobs. Their people skills are completely ignored. Captain Venkata Ramana Rao who was on a short service commission, sensed this opportunity during his stay at IIM Lucknow and decided to do something about it. He started Faujnet to help military veterans with a smooth transition from the defense ecosystem to a corporate life.

"I realized the problem was both ways: Armed Forces officers despite all the experience and leadership abilities are not able to communicate their experience effectively to the hiring organizations. Though it is a known fact that military personnel are great assets, corporate organizations were not able to find suitable fits,”  says Capt Venkat.

The seeds of the idea were sown when Capt Venkat saw his friends facing difficulties in getting placed. Along with his course mate, Flt Lt Srinath, they helped others to write compatible profiles for corporate positions. As a result, they had a 1:5 placement offer ratio, which was the best in the history of the Defence MBA batches at IIM Lucknow.

Initially, there were a lot of challenges from all sides, be it allaying the fears of family members or funding.

"Since this was a very niche domain and required a different kind of approach, convincing the corporates to have a focused look at this community was difficult. Convincing the military personnel to plan their retirement and make career moves was also difficult,” says Capt Venkat, adding, “Funding was also one of the hurdles. We did other recruitment assignments and Corporate Out-Bound Experiential training to support the huge outflows in the initial years."

Marketing

So far word of mouth publicity has worked wonders for them. The military personal who were able to get placed became their brand ambassadors, and the corporates who got the benefit of their hiring services from them also publicized them in their circle recommending them to others.

At present, they claim to be India's only company which has screened more than 5000 defense officers through a scientific assessment methodology for jobs in the corporate sector. for their corporate job fitment. And have over 150000 screened and validated profiles whose post retirement careers we help shape. On the client side, Faujnet boasts of more than 250 corporate houses which have utilized their military hiring advisory services in one form or the other.

They are currently bootstrapped, and their focus is on strengthening their technology framework and building a better team.

Click here to visit Faujnet.