Entrepreneur Kshitij Jain reveals how he aims to disrupt the hiring industry with jobs platform Joveo

Entrepreneur Kshitij Jain, Founder and CEO of joveo, a programmatic job advertising platform, believes that the hiring industry, especially the job board space, has not fundamentally changed from 1995. 

Kshitij explains that earlier people posted job requirements on boards and expected applications to come;  recruiters now post requirements online but the idea is fundamentally the same.

“The problem is that it is a pull model. So, you pull a person into a job board, and then you pull a person to the company’s career site, then you pull the person to apply to a job from an apply process standpoint. It’s a pull process,” he says. 

The catch now is that the world has moved on to a “push model”. 

“Large companies such as Google and Amazon know exactly who you are, what you like, when you like, and how you consume content, and they put an ad in front of you. That is a push model. You are not going anywhere; they are all coming to you. It is ad tech. That technology has not been implemented or used in any shape or form in our industry,” he says.

Kshitij believes this fundamental change has to come into the hiring industry - applicants don’t need to be pulled to job boards; the “right ad needs to be placed before the right candidate”.

Building Joveo

Kshitij is solving this problem through Joveo which stands for “jobs for everyone”. Founded in 2017,  Joveo provides recruiters with one of the most advanced programmatic job advertising platforms. 

With companies such as Wells Fargo, Barclays, Rolls-Royce, Sony, and HCL among others as clients, the startup claims to be driving up to 2X more relevant applicants and 40 percent higher click-to-apply conversions, at 20-50 percent lower cost per hire.  

The founder says there are several online job boards, including LinkedIn, Indeed, and Naukri, but for a long time people didn’t know where to put up job advertisements. Also, several players may be operating in the space, but recruiters may not know which job board is more suitable for a particular country or sector.  

He states that Joveo’s motto has always been “three applications - two shortlists, one hire”. 

Kshitij believes several decisions, including buying a house, marriage, and taking up a job, hugely impact people’s lives, adding that “the right job helps in increasing the happiness index of the world”. 

“If you ask people, nine out of 10 will say they are not happy in their jobs. It is not their fault; it’s because they just haven’t found the right fit, the right company, the right culture, the right place for them. 

“Nobody comes to a company just to do a job. They show up in the office every day to be valued, to be appreciated for what they do, to be able to give the best to the company they work for. The problem is that we have not tried to solve the problem – to help that guy be in the right job,” Kshitij says.

In this episode on 100X Entrepreneur Podcast, Kshitij Jain talks about his entrepreneurial journey, starting up Joveo, and more.

To know more, listen to the podcast here

Notes: 

00:50 – What does Joveo stand for?

02:17 – Insights related to the online jobs and hiring industry

09:47 – Motivation behind spending 20+ years in this industry 

13:03 – Difference between sales and selling

17:16 – Magic recipe behind Mobolt

19:35 – How to focus on what the customer needs and not what the customer wants

25:27 – “Everybody who wants to be an entrepreneur needs to know how to cold call”

27:58 – Key milestones in Joveo’s journey

30:22 – Learnings coming from Marwari family background

39:41 – “I’m the business of the unfinished business”