Unacademy to launch NextLevel to take on LinkedIn

Edtech unicorn Unacademy plans to launch a new product, NextLevel, to take on the Microsoft-owned social network LinkedIn, according to Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gaurav Munjal.

“Credentialing is broken. We still rely on random Degrees and Certifications to measure how good someone is for a particular Skill. And LinkedIn feels like a Product from early 2000... It’s time to change all of this,” Munjal wrote in a tweet on Wednesday.

NextLevel is expected to launch next week, Munjal added, sharing a few other details, including a rating system that would help people “unlock” job opportunities, in a series of tweets.

“Get a Professional Rating in the area where you want to build a Career by competing with others. This Rating will help you stand out. It doesn’t matter where you want to College or if you even went to one (sic),” Munjal said.

“Your Career shouldn’t be dependent on one or two exams that you wrote years back. You can keep learning and keep improving your Rating. It’s a continuous process and not a singular stamp that you got years ago,” he added in another tweet.

Job seekers would be able to match with jobs across the globe through their rating, and they “do not need to spend Lakhs buying an Online Degree just to stand out,” according to Munjal.

YourStory has sent queries to Unacademy on the development but is yet to receive a response.

Early last month, Munjal shared that the edtech company’s research and development team was “working on a Product that wants to disrupt LinkedIn”. And conducted a poll to get suggestions for the product’s name. Although, it appears that the edtech startup decided to go with the second most popular suggestion.

Other details shared in his recent tweets indicate that NextLevel would have an interactive gameplay feature, which, according to Munjal, is “designed to test your skill and knowledge”.

Interestingly, an image displaying a profile picture in the first tweet is of Manu S Pillai, an author and historian. In a tweet, he said, “Apparently, I am "Sagar Chauhan", senior frontend engineer."

It is not clear if NextLevel will be available to people through the web or a mobile app.

Earlier this month, Blackstone-backed edtech firm Simplilearn launched SimpliRecruit, a platform for recruiters to identify and hire talent across technology domains.