Tech recruitment startup, Coffeee.io, on a path to revolutionise hiring process in the IT Sector
CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Mr. Amit Veer, Co-Founder and CEO, Coffeee.io
- Please share a brief about Coffeee.io
Coffeee.io is a tech recruitment platform, on a mission to become the largest community of pre-screened developers and the single most efficient & effective destination for all companies hiring developers globally. For now, the brand’s focus is to provide entry level jobs to aspiring developers where merit and talent take the centre stage in the selection process. The writing on the wall is clear that Skills and only Skills are the cornerstone of all tech hiring. We want to make the access to skilled developers easier, quicker and the most cost effective than ever before.
2. Please share the idea behind launching a tech recruitment company
In today’s day & age , it is tough to imagine our lives without technology . It is only ironic that the hiring process for the folks behind the technological advancements , is archaic and manual. And this regressive process leads to multiple complications, broken experience and in some cases – wrong hiring. We want to remove the biases, delays and inefficiencies in the process by building a large and global pool of pre-assessed developers, to be hired by Indian and global companies alike. With our keen focus on technology and AI enabled solutions, we plan to scale the platform globally and assist as many companies as quickly as possible. It’s about time that the developer hiring industry had the Uber or Airbnb moment of its own, and it’s here and now!
3. What major challenges is Coffeee.io trying to address with this platform, and how will it help the budding developers in the country?
Current hiring solutions pose many challenges. They,
Give way to biases: Recruiters have to depend on a self-serving document called Resume for the initial screening. A candidate might just word it appropriately and get through the initial screening, whether or not one possesses that match the job requirement. The recruiters (as per research) spend on an average 6 seconds on a resume, making the short-listing mainly an inaccurate key-word matching exercise.
Cause unnecessary delays: The assessments that are usually done on third-party on-demand platforms are a very important step in the shortlisting process and consume the maximum time . This is the longest lead time item in the process and the biggest cause of delay. The recruiters are at the mercy of candidates and have no choice but to wait till they get a minimum number of qualified candidates to move to the next stage. Roughly 70% of the hiring time is spent on this, which is completely wasteful.
Create jarring inefficiencies: Recruiters have to use multiple platforms for multiple purposes; resume database, on-demand assessment platform, interview platform and an ATS too. Juggling multiple platforms in this day and age is pure waste of time and human effort.
And these complications adversely impact the hiring of experienced candidates and campus going freshers alike and have a direct bearing on the organization’s agility and speed to market. The pool of talent at Coffeee.io, that has already been assessed for their skills, solves this problem almost completely and at scale, thereby enabling recruiters to use technology to make better hiring decisions.
4. In the IT industry, numerous platforms are comparable to Coffeee.io; why do you think Coffeee.io will stand out?
True that there are many platforms that are trying to make the developer hiring process better by offering multiple solutions. Even recruitment consultants, for that matter, are trying this in their own way by conducting assessments online. But the Coffeee.io solution is completely tech based and is therefore going to scale much faster in a shorter span of time. Also, the use of AI will ensure better hiring decisions on a consistent basis. The team that’s building Coffeee.io has vast experience in building products at scale and therefore is capable of building a truly global solution that’s a class apart from the competition.
Another key differentiator that sets us apart is our Free Coffeee Bootcamps . These intensive , industry-oriented learning modules enable training candidates in a short span of time and make them industry ready, thus making a real contribution to higher supply of skilled developers.
5. What are the problems developers are facing while finding jobs in India, and how does Coffeee.io helps them
The process of hiring, since not purely skill based, leads to a lot of false positives which ultimately affect the chances for a lot of eligible candidates. Also, since the market is quite fragmented, candidates not only have to run across platforms to find right opportunities but also attempt different assessments for different companies, thereby wasting a lot of their productive time. Coffeee.io’s large marketplace aims at consolidating hiring requirements from across companies and using one single assessment for their qualification. So, they are left with a lot of time to do what they’re expected to do best, Code!
Also, fresh engineering, especially in tier 2 and 3 locations, have the biggest challenge in finding their dream careers because big businesses and recruiters rarely visit institutions in tier 2 and 3 cities. The tech-enabled marketplace concept of Coffeee.io aids in their discovery by the best recruiters in the nation. Through Coffeee.io’s boot camps, we also assist developers in upgrading their abilities in coding and other required skills in the IT sector.
6. Do you have any funding plans
In August 2022, Coffeee raised INR 6 crores in a pre-Seed funding round which was led by Riverwalk Holdings and many prominent angel investors also participated. The company will look to raise fresh funding in Q1’23.
7. Please share your future growth plans.
Coffeee.io started in July ’22 and has shown significant growth in the past few months. Coffeee.io gained early traction with more than 800+ colleges and 55,000+ students from all over India and it continues to onboard more colleges and students.
Coffeee.io is soon starting to target the experienced developer hiring as well and will be going after this market aggressively. We are looking to onboard more than 0.5 Mn developers on the platform by the end of next year. The developers will be comprehensively assessed for their skills and will be available to be hired by the companies in India and even overseas for both full time hiring and contract hiring.
Coffeee.io is PAN India operational already, which is also a remarkable achievement for our 4 months old startup. We plan to expand internationally and launch in the US by next year.
