How tech tools are helping hire the right talent

NEW DELHI: Online recruitment portals are developing innovative tools to help technology companies spot the right talent in a market where there is a shortage of skilled professionals. These ventures help their clients filter candidates, administer specialised tests and make the right choice in a process designed to deliver quality rather than quantity. "Companies always want the best developers, who can build the best platform or the next iPad, our job is to filter candidates accordingly," said 26 year old Harishankaran K, co-founder of online recruitment portal InterviewStreet. Founded in 2009 by two NIT Trichy graduates, it was the first Indian startup to be selected by the Silicon Valley incubator Y Combinator in 2011 and has also raised funds from Khosla Ventures. The Bangalore-based firm now has clients including Facebook, Flipkart and Amazon and expects a revenue of up to Rs 18.7 crore this fiscal. A number of such portals including Hirerabbit.com and HasGeek are helping aggregate supply in the fragmented Indian online recruitment sector dominated by older ventures such as Naukri.com. Interview Street creates coding challenges based on client requirementsand also allows clients to administer tests from any location and in real time. Even for many young technology ventures, who do not have the deep pockets of Interview Street's bigger clients, these tools are proving to be a major asset. "We earlier used LinkedIn and Facebook to hire people with mixed results," said Biju Asokan, founder of Chennai-based real estate-focused startup Metroplots who turned to Interview Street. HasGeek, founded by Kiran Jonnalagadda, 34, in 2010 with a seed capital of Rs 10,000, organises technology events attended by scores of coders and developers. The firm has has bagged marquee clients such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Facebook. This fiscal it expects to earn a revenue of up to Rs 3 crore Another company that is developing innovative hiring tools is Bangalore-based Hirerabbit. Founded in 2012, by NIT graduates Piplayan Nayak and Prafull Sharma, both 29, the company provides software that powers the job site and helps carry out analytics.