Loading ...Did you know that the best job for a fresher is in a startup? Well, it is.
Did you know that the best job for a growing professional or someone who loves challenges, is in a startup? Well, it is.
One of the biggest problems that startups have is in hiring people. During the last OpenCoffeeClub meet that we had here in Chennai, this was pretty much the topic, and after all the questions and answers that were debated upon, and the discussion that goes on in the forum, we have been working on it. It is a very solvable problem, just needs the right partners in place to make it happen and Proto.in has just that - all the right partners you need.
There are essentially three elements, to this problem:
1. Students are not even aware that startups are an option.
2. Startups don’t have the medium to gather mass. Most of them require one or two people, compared to the 800 people that TCS requires. End result, no placement office is all that very keen on small numbers.
3. Students need training on development platforms that make sense for startups.
Point #3 is actually a very nice business proposition. Imagine a centre like Aptech or NIIT which trains people on Python, Ruby, AJAX etc, on project (read hands-on) mode. The business can possibly make money by developing projects for smaller clients, and the very projects could also serve as assignments for the students to practice and nurture their programming talents on. As long as the centre delivers quality programmers, the startups will keep pounding to have more human resources from them, and the cycle will go on.
When I spoke about this to someone, the first thing she mentioned was, get me a centre to do this in Chennai and lets work out a franchisee model to spawn this across to various cities. I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t work. It has all the necessary ingredients to make it work. NIIT and centres such as that, should definitely look into such options.
As for #1 and #2, I have been suggesting within the Open coffee club group in Chennai towards forming a group within the startup community so that they can be tackled. There is a large scale solution of this that we are working on, which we will be unveiling during Proto (in January) and will be on fullswing starting february.
Excited? You should be. The Ecosystem is one step closer to being efficient.
I will make a more elaborate post with all the fine details on this regard, as we draw closer to unveiling this. Hold your breathe for a month.
This Post is a re-post from the Author’s Blog.
Apart from expertise of a particular domain, one needs to be willing to take risk if he/she wants to work for a start up. Also it requires that entrepreneurial bent of mind in order to start working for a new venture. We at www.gyangang.com in our small journey so far have seen that its beyond plain potential of the project that people will join you. They must be shown that they are important to the organization and they are decision makers rather than someone who will take down instructions.we promote an open culture which can facilitate a discovery or a rediscovery of us as an organization and our employees as individuals.
I don’t understand the popular opinion here. As a startup, how many people are you planning to hire? 4, 5 or at max 10.. right? Now if you’re telling me that out of lacs of engg. students across the country, you’re not able to find *10* good quality people with the right attitude then either India is not ready for startups or you’re not trying hard enough. Who cares about the average Indian engineering student? It’s the exceptional ones we are after, right?
There is enough enthusiasm for startups at engg. colleges, at least the top ones. We went looking for interns this summer and received more than 60 applications from IITs alone. All this, without even visiting the campuses even once and simply by spreading the word online. People applied because they heard about us from their seniors even though our stipend was anything but huge. The enthusiasm was remarkable too. Instead of one, we ended up getting 3 students and the quality has not been anything short of stellar. The way these 3 interns have mixed and formed a team that can deliver has been a delightful experience. I’m confident that our association with our interns will continue beyond the internship period too.
Getting the candidates excited about your company is like making a sale. If you are unable to do this, think really hard why you’re doing a startup at all.
Hi,
Well, I agree that it makes sense to hire freshers because they’d bring the kind of passion and dynamism that every start up needs, and of course it would be an excellent learning opportunity for them. But the reason we aren’t heading to the nearest university or college is that we just don’t have the resources- time or money, needed to train students with no experience. Isn’t that a problem a lot of other start ups would face? Also, as many people have said, most students need sizeable packages which start ups can’t always offer. Consequently, if students do decide to leave us for better paying jobs within a short period of time, we’re affected significantly since our resources are scarce to begin with.
P.S: SearchMyCampus.com is hiring so anyone who’s said they’re interested in a job, contact me!:)
a suggestion: try talking to students in their 3rd year.
Take them on as interns during the summer. This is a good strategy because they will be more willing to experiment, you wont face as much competition and it will give both you and the student a chance to get comfortable with each other.
If they are good offer them a job at the end of their degree.
If they need to work on some skills, they have a year to pick the right courses.
There are no easy way to find out jobs in startups.
I am a BE CSE Engg., was very eager to work in a startup, not because I cant get job in big firms but I always believed in business ( I am from business background). But it’s been since 3 years I yet to come across any startup who is looking for good quality people.
Finally, after waiting for almost 2 years, I started my own venture last year, I though started a website development studio. I decided to start this because low entry barrier and I though I would learn a lot and I did learn.
Now, I am over that venture ( my partner has taken over it) and I am looking for MBA or new venture again. So if anyone has any good job profile, I am interested. Money does not matter as much as profile will.
This Proto, we are launching a network to hire freshers right out of universities. There is more news on this which will be announced in the coming days, and especially during Proto.
In order to launch this effort, we want to take a consensus of startups which are looking to hire freshers. I strongly believe that a fresher with potential, is the best resource a startup could get on their expansion team, simply because of the lower overhead and the loyalty that a fresher builds with the company and with the other team members - thats how cultures are built within the team.
The first of this initiative is to be launched in Chennai during the first week of February. Any startup that is interested in hiring freshers, do drop me a mail so that we can enroll you into this program. Membership is free for startups, as of now.
Regards,
Vijay
A nice post there and yes I know nearly every startup faces this problem.
(I’m talking in context of engineering grads from IITs and NITs)
Why?
)
1) Many of the freshers dont want to share the ’startup risk’ in the very beginning of their career. Infact many of them want to live an easy life, best provided by a well established corporation.
2) Yea, they want quick money and they really don’t understand stock/equity options(ofcourse these things are not taught in their courses
3) Lack of awareness and information.
4) Their upbringing, parental involvement as well as the Indian culture itself.
Solutions -
1) Information - Well, making a site and top rankings in Google won’t work. Many of them still use internet just to twitter with their friends, emailing and stealing content from places. They don’t know what is a blog, how google works (and earns) and what is the concept behind “free email” ;). Many colleges(atleast every IIT) have a “Entrepreneurship Cell”, information could be sent to these cells and these cells would be really interested to know more about the startup and circulate its information throughout the campus(free publicity). Yea.. yea.. I’m too optimistic with Viral Marketing 
2)Money - Yes these guys really deserve some money at the end of the month. But huge salaries should not be the only reason they are joining the startup company, otherwise they would leave when they are offered bigger salaries. I think salaries should be atleast at par to what is being offered by companies like Wipro/Infosys/IBM etc. They may be offered a stake once the employer is satisfied with his work(to make him stay for a longer time)
IndiaBulls, NIIT, Shaadi.com, Naukri.com and those big ones Reliance (Hats off to Dhirubhai) and Infosys (yea.. Murthy too). Many freshers are willing to take risks(like me), go find them…
3) Risk - A nice point made by Shyam, we need a success story and there are many
4) Culture - ehmm.. what culture, guys who still think small and do whatever there parents want are not required by any startup.
@ Shivaas - I’m a final year student at IIT Roorkee, and there wasn’t a single notice about your concern. I’m a Student President here, send me the information and I’ll help you, or may be I can arrange a session where you can deliver your thoughts/ideas and directly communicate with the students. My email is smartarpit [at] gmail.com
So.. any startup interested in recruiting me?
Hey Vijay
I was in contact with a few students at IIT Delhi and Roorkee last month for students interested in an internship with startups. No response from them till date !
So that means either the students are not interested unless you’re in the news for a million dollar funding spree, or your startup is not well known yet. Aren’t these wrong notions that need to be corrected in the thinking/mentality of the students ??
Is there a way to find out Startup job listings? Other than direct networking, I don’t see a way. I think Startups also need to reach out more to the potential employees as someone who is looking to revitalize his/her career (including freshers)
And I agree with the underlying point that is coming out from a few of you. Someone - a fresher or not - should join a company because he believes in the story, than for any other reason.
We desperately need a success story, and there are all parallels of activities going on for that, but in the meantime, what shall we do?
As an act of taking consensus, how many of you - especially those running a startup - frequent the nearest universities and colleges and talk to the students, and take internships?