Most recruiters work on a budget. Every year, there's only a handful of colleges that they can visit for campus placements — chances are, they're probably going to be A-list institutions. The ones in tier-II and tier-III cities probably won't stand a chance. "There are probably brilliant students, at least a handful of them, in colleges in small towns. We want to ensure that they get great jobs," says Chocko Valliappa, founder of HireMee, an app that aims to bridge this recruiter-rural student gap.  

The force: The brains behind HireMee, Chocko Valliappa

How can an app manage this mammoth task, you ask? Two simple ways. One is dead serious, while the other is decidedly more fun. The former is by going to colleges and conducting aptitude tests to find out their verbal, quantitative, technical, communicative and other abilities, "We will be testing 100,000 students and uploading their test results to the app. This will show with a seven-digit score what their abilities are best suited for, so that recruiters can contact them if they're interested," he explains. This way, companies and HR people don't have to spend a penny on conducting tests, travelling to colleges that are in places that don't have an airport nearby and so on.

Play the video: Some firms that support the HireMee app, available on both iOS and Android, include Ashok Leyland and banks like Kotak Mahindra

So what's the fun way that HireMee helps students land jobs? "What we've done is created an Instagram-like interface for students to upload 20-second video clips to showcase their resumes, their skills, their willingness to travel for an interview and so on. This allows recruiters to get a look and feel of what their potential recruit is like before they even call them in for an interview," he adds.

Several top industrial firms like Ashok Leyland and banks like Kotak Mahindra have expressed an interest in supporting the project, as Valliappa and his team have begun canvassing far and wide for recruiters to sign on the dotted line. "They are very impressed, especially because we have a concept called karmic pricing, wherein they only pay for the number of people they actually recruit. At a time when we are talking about job creation and Make In India, we believe that this can really help reduce unemployment and elevate some diamonds in the rough that are hiding in our towns," says Valliappa.

Testing Times
■ Tests are conducted both online and offline at the moment  
■ Offline tests are longer and compute a 7-digit score for every student based on their responses
■ Online tests are shorter and give a more concise readout of a person’s abilities because it is done remotely and via the mobile

Available on Android and iOS platforms, it has been developed by Vee Technologies which is a tech concern run by Valliappa, who is also a key part of the Sona Group of Institutions. "We have some pretty established academicians handling the governorship of this project. It's more of a CSR venture for us, simply because we had to go through their rigorous testing process when we recruit each year and we realised that a lot of good talent is going to waste on account of the kind of places they are studying in," he explains.