Why am I starting up?

I have had a great career spannng 9+ years now across firms like Mu Sigma, Accenture Strategy, CARS24 and PayU with a MBA from IIM Calcutta to boot. After all this, I have decided to now jump full time into starting up on my own with my amazing co-founder Hanit Awal

The best reason to startup is when you see a problem first hand and think, "There has got to be a better way of doing this" and for me that is precisely the reason why I am starting up at CUR8 Let me walk you through that problem and how are we solving it!

The Problem Statement and How is it Being Solved Today?

In the last 6 years, my career journey has mirrored the journey of India's startup ecosystem. I have had the great fortune to work with 2 amazing brands in CARS24 and PayU and have seen them both grow by leaps and bounds.

More so at PayU where my role was in the SMB domain. Newer businesses in the country are coming up with amazing ways to make products and services that customers love. These businesses are increasingly digitally savvy as well.

The landscape has developed with more than 25+ active sectors in the country attracting investments. This brings with it newer challenges as well as new roles that require newer skills. On to this in a bit.

Coming to my journey. I have been lucky to work in business functions as varied as operations, sales, analytics, product and partnerships apart from playing central strategy roles.

There are a few important lessons I have learnt along the way when it comes to creating the right teams to make these functions grow. These learnings resonate with a ton of other leaders across firms in multiple sectors!

And these are heavily pertinent for business roles including marketing, business development, entry level analytics, business finance & product. Let's dive into the learnings!

1. Entry level hires in business roles are crucial to the growth of these teams. A lot of the execution happens at this level. But hiring and retention at this level are unresolved issues!
2. The process for hiring is broken across firms in multiple ways. The assignments vary, the number of rounds vary and the rigor of the interview varies. Access to the right talent pool is limited when hiring has to occur.
3. The enablement process is no better. The processes and products are changing fast within firms and recruits are expected to hit the ground running leaving no time for setting up thorough L&D structures.
4. Candidates recruited for these positions need to have a ton of hustle as they need to coordinate with multiple teams to move things along and it does not stop at coordination but extends to deeply understanding what each function does.
5. On the candidate end there are multiple issues to tackle as well: Having the right skills for the job, having the right level of intent to excel in tough roles in the Indian eco-system lack of interview skills, inability to present your personal story well (CV, LinkedIn and Cover letter)

Simply put, can companies have access to a large pool of coached and assessed candidates who will be productive from the get go and rise up to meet the demands of their roles in the initial months on the job

The key phrases are highlighted above. All current hiring marketplaces don't solve these problems because there is no signal for the level of coaching and skill the candidates have. Pedigree is a signal but not strong enough for entry level roles (0 to 3 years of experience)

There are various piecemeal ways this problem is solved today. Let us understand all of them.

1. Candidates undertake coaching on how to have a "great looking" CV, profile and cover letter by a ton of coaches and agencies who dabble in this. This works as well as looking dapper on your first date would. You can impress the other sex but you need to have real substance beneath that to keep the job (or relationship for that matter!). And beyond a point when every CV looks fancy and optimised for keywords, it beats the purpose
2. Candidates undertake long, academically focussed courses or pursue a costly MBA degree to signal that they have the required skills. Long lag time & huge cost and effort investment are usually bummers in this process. Firms that optimise to hire from these courses significantly reduce their talent pool with no significant gain in candidate quality at the entry level
3. Candidates appear for high pressure, one time assessments. This introduces bias for one time performance and solves for competency and not mastery over skills. Jobs need candidates to have the latter not the former! This is a huge difference between giving people admission for a degree and hiring them for a job!
4. Firms hire off referrals or sellect campuses or create criteria to eliminate candidates (not at all objective). Limited pool and bias creeping in are the obvious flaws in this process.
5. Firms hire off marketplaces. A deluge of CVs with no filter or signal are the problems. Recruitment agencies are manned by folks who don't understand the role and firm requirements and keep sending mismtached candidates.
6. Firms take standard licences for upskilling packages from firms that have not evolved the coursework for ages. Managers don't trust them but also don't have to setup a parallel setup to plug the gap for on the job skills. Few firms can create effective in-house L&D team

So there is money, effort and time being wasted on both ends of the spectrum and it is all the more criminal when you consider that the new economy needs new hires joining in across levels in different teams.

How are We Solving for this at CUR8?

We have been dabling in this space in the form of side projects for the last few months and finally a couple of months ago the solution started becoming apparent. Let's look at the legs of the solution.

How do you coach and assess people well?

As it turns out, the best way to coach candidates with the right rigor and quality is through role focussed, high intensity, short term, low cost cohorts based on Indian industry themed case studies taught by real industry experts.

Each word in the statement above has a battle tested insight behind it and we have been delivering on the promise now across 20+ sessions and we are rated 4.9/5! This eliminates the problems of one time performance bias, low rigour, only competency based assessments, generic lessons, small candidate pools and plain academic learning.

So that is the coaching and assessment phase of the journey bit not completely! We are also designing a through assessment process that is objective and rigorous. This ensures that all candidates can now have a skill score that tests them on industry relevant skills which will act as a signal for recruiters.

This ends the coaching and assessment journey and solves for recruiters now having access to a large, coached and assessed pool of cnadidates who can hot the job running from day 1.

This inner core of services is supported important career services like pitching a great personal story through a CV, cover letter and social media profile. But these are the cherries on the top!

We are also going to the college level across stream like B.tech. BBA, B.com and MBA to offer these services in the form of customised placement preparation cohorts to candidates as well that equips them to do well at their placements and get recruited for the right business roles. All of this is powered by the same engine!

Specialsed modules for each role that can be easily taken up during the first 3 months of the candidates working on the job form the core of the enablement services. These modules ride on the same principles as the pedagogy for upskilling cnadidates for entry into business roles!

And just like that, it is as simple as that! we already have 40+ experts coaching with us on CUR8, a 1000+ candidate community, 10+ recruiters hiring off us and a steaily building priceless and unique IP of Indian themed case studies. And we are just getting started!

The learnings everyday are just amazing. Each day building CUR8 is the equivalent of doing a rigorous business course and I would not choose anything else over it!

So that is the short story of why I am getting started on my own! We know the problem first hand and deeply at that. It is a problem to be solved at scale and has real impact on the economy. We are providing the shovels and manpower for the gold rush that is the Indian economy right now! And the team we are aseembling to solve this is just amazing in its' experience and ability to execute. (we are also hiring, do check out my profile to apply to all the open positions!)

If you want CUR to partner with with your campus or your firm, drop me a mail at [email protected] . If you are a candidate looking to accelerate your career, give us a follow on CUR8's LinkedIn page and stay updated on all our latest offering that will help you accelerate your career!

I will keep you posted on CUR8's progress or you will hear about it in the press hopefully! Till then adios and don't miss to follow CUR8 on the LinkedIn page!