Aasaanjobs: A Startup Attempting to Organize the Unregulated Recruitment Market

Founded in November 2014 by Gaurav Toshniwal, Dinesh Goel and Kunal Jadhav, Mumbai-based Aasaanjobs, is an online marketplace for entry-level and blue collar jobs which acts as a platform enabling recruiters and job seekers to interact seamlessly.

The company’s inception was inspired by the unregulated recruitment market in India as far as entry-level and blue collar jobs go.

“Aasaanjobs aims to create an ecosystem, wherein each of its stakeholders – job seekers, employers as well as manpower agencies – can build trust and get benefitted in a way that suits them. The overall idea is to create a digital identity for job seekers in a disorganized market, through various technological products in our offering, and help them in fulfilling skilling needs as well as get a job,” maintains Dinesh Goel.

How Does it Work? What are its Features?

The company’s two-way matchmaking algorithm filters through its database to only connect candidates whose profiles and job expectations meet client requirements. This makes the entire process quick, effective and convenient for both job seekers and recruiters.

Aasaanjobs has a mobile app each for a candidate, for a partner as well as an employer, facilitating a smooth and frictionless job marketplace for all stakeholders involved. It is working on making the website vernacular in oder to cater to the diversity in language.

Business Model

Employers can purchase credits based on which they can shortlist and interview candidates, through a digital portal where they can use multiple filters to select the right candidate for the job. Manpower agencies partnering with Aasaanjobs get special incentives to source candidates for client requirements.

Monetization Model and Traction

Aasaanjobs earlier operated on a postpaid basis – employers paid only on successfully hiring a candidate and got a replacement in case the hired candidate left the job before a stipulated time. It has since then changed the model to a prepaid one, where clients can purchase interview credits and expend them only upon a valid interview.

The company claims to have reached the milestone of two lakh registered candidates in two years. It currently has more than 3000 companies on the system.

Funding status

The startup has  recently raised funding from Aspada, IDG, Inventus. The proceedings from the current round of funding will be utilised to expand to other cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata, as well as to build a sustainable, scalable product to effectively help our target audience, confirmed Goel.

What is Asaanjobs’ USP? How is it Different from Other Players like Naukri and Shine who are Competing in the Same Segment?

“Aasaanjobs’ USP is its innovative technology-backed solutions that solve the problem of recruitment in a largely unstructured segment in a number of ways”, said Goel. Adding further, he stated that the startup offers a multilingual website to reach out to people with diverse backgrounds as well as a WAP website to engage with candidates still using feature phones. It has also created an assessment module for candidates that can be accessed through both mobile and web platforms.

Its model is different based on various ways in which we bring technology in the fold to make hiring hassle free and job seeking an easy and convenient process – through its website, mobile app and WAP website. “Instead of being just another data mine of candidate information given out to recruiters to make their choice, we actively help them schedule interviews and select candidates,” he explained.

Recruiters purchase data plans to be able to access contact details of candidates, who they can reach directly. They can also purchase interview credits where our recommendation algorithm pulls out skilled candidates especially suited for their requirements. Our offering of temporary staffing services takes care of bulk hiring requirements while saving recruiters from payroll disbursement hassles.

Challenges Faced by the Company on its Journey

“The major challenge initially came from shedding that image of being just another manpower agency. Once job seekers were convinced, looking at the various technological and service offerings, it became a little easier to bring traction. The other challenges were liasoning with partners and agencies, as well as fulfilling client requirements, some of which were so particular as to include a particular Android version in the phones of candidates! We have been able to strike a chord with all stakeholders by setting realistic expectations for everybody and even though every day might bring a fresh hoard of challenges, we take them head on to augment our learning”- maintained the co-founders.

Check out the following video to have a better understanding about the platform: