Startup Circle: An AI-powered Resume Builder and Recruitment platform

Workruit is an AI-powered recruitment platform based on an interactive dating app-like interface, where finding talent and jobs are done by swiping the profiles to choose the right match. It is a marketplace where employers and job seekers can connect. The platform is designed and engineered by the Young CEO – Manikanth Challa. Workruit was founded to solve one of the most painful problems in the career & recruitment industry.

Manikanth Challa, the Founder and CEO of Workruit, is a solution-oriented entrepreneur who believes in understanding the minute details of challenges faced by society and accordingly processing them to provide a robust and well-planned solution. His brainchild, Workruit is an endto-end HRTech firm that offers a suite of B2B and B2C solutions, including an AI-powered Resume Builder and a Recruitment platform.

Speaking to CIOL, Manikanth Challa, the Founder and CEO of Workruit, has shared his views about the drivers/market trends that are shaping the AI platform in 2022. He talked about his startup journey and also, and he speaks about the growth plans he has for Workruit.

Tell us about Workruit and your offerings. Tell us about the team.

Workruit is a career development firm providing a suite of B2B & B2C solutions. Our flagship product, 'Resume Builder' is one of the only platforms available on Android, iOS and Web platforms that allows users to create interactive resumes instantly. We've enabled AI in a way that makes it domain-specific, compares the resumes to desired job descriptions that would provide analysis, and conduct AI-review on the resume, which would help candidates to differentiate between active voice & passive voice statements, critical skills & functional skills, and many more. It also allows users to create video introductions (as we see an immediate need for such a tool). Workruit Resume Builder is also offered to educational institutions as a SaaS platform.

The next solution is, Workruit Job Search & Recruitment, which allows job seekers and employers to register, post jobs, explore talent and opportunities, schedule interviews, instantly chat and get updates on jobs. Lastly, Workruit for Governments is a white-labelled solution we provide to Government bodies to digitize the Skilling & Employment Exchange platform for all the skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled workforces in the private sector. In collaboration with the Government, Workruit builds, operates and maintains the platforms to bridge the gap between job seekers, job providers and skill providers.

Our team is well equipped with professionals from various domains such as Technology, Product, Business and Design. We believe in the lean team mechanism and have experts handling individual departments. Overall collectively, we could say 100+ years of experience from all the professionals.

Being a product driven company, our goal is to always put forward the product and users need’s first and we understand the user behaviour and deliver the best experiences.

Our startup team is strong, with a CTO who has 12 years of experience in building applications, Business Head with 10+ years of experience in driving sales and partnerships and a CEO who has a background in product and design. Together, they bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table, making them well-suited to lead our company. The rest of the team is lean and efficient, made up of experts in their respective fields. This allows us to work quickly and effectively, without wasting resources. With such a talented and experienced team, we are confident in our ability to create innovative and successful products that will delight our customers. Overall, our team is dedicated to delivering high-quality work, and we are excited to take on new challenges and opportunities as we grow our business.

What are the drivers/market trends that are shaping the AI platform in 2022?

At various stages of our solutions, AI is used. The use cases are at multiple aspects, such as screening resumes, showing relevant recommendations, giving more accurate suggestions, what sort of skill programs could help a job seeker upskill, and more as our suite of solutions includes Job & Recruitment Search, Resume Builder, and Digital Exchange platforms. We recognize the value of a particular tech stack and the necessity of keeping it updated in order to ensure that the hiring or employment process is as quick as it has ever been. Understanding a user's resume and advising them on how to improve it, including how to use words and sentences and how to keep it consistent with the job descriptions currently available is a crucial application of artificial intelligence.

How is Workruit tapping these market trends for growth?

We observed that Workruit's fundamental strength is its comprehension of job seekers' needs and what is necessary to shape their career development in a progressive way. We see a massive market for mobile solutions that assist job seekers with creating resumes and curriculum vitae, job searching and connecting with employers. Our resume and CV builder solution, which we offer job seekers, enables them to create an interactive resume and CV quickly. This solution aids them primarily in exploring opportunities, comprehending the skills needed for various jobs, and planning their next steps. A platform like this is also necessary because, since the pandemic, the unemployment rate has risen, and job seekers are more desperate than ever.

Tell us about Workruit's expansion plans in US markets and the aggressive growth seen in India.

Workruit's job search & recruitment platform will launch in the US market in 2023, allowing employers and job seekers to connect instantly. It will be simple to tap into all key domains from entry-level to professional level because Workruit is a mobile-pro-centric platform.

Tell us about the changes and upgrades that the industry (job seekers, employers, and government) must make in post-pandemic India.

The Key changes and upgrades in the HR industry have primarily concerned jobs and recruitment. Companies are interested in holistic 360-degree platforms that cover aspects to showcase the candidate's ability, soft skills, resume, strengths and weaknesses, which would help them in decision-making. The industry now expects the platforms to offer solutions that cover all aspects of a candidate's ability for decision-making. Businesses have also become highly picky, preferring fine quality over anything else, one that could multitask and have the capacity to re-skill or up-skill as necessary. Soft skills have grown to be a crucial factor in determining whether candidates are capable of having fundamental communication etiquette. It has also become a critical skill that employers are looking for in candidates. Candidates must constantly consider up-skilling and re-skilling to stay abreast of market and industry offerings and to benefit their employment and personal development.

How has your revenue grown with brand evolving during pandemic?

Yes, we've noticed an increase in job seekers interested in premium services like expert connect and resume writing. Over the past 12 months, growth in educational institutions and employers has also increased.

What has 2022 changed for you? How are things now?

The Year 2022 has given the employment industry a lot of learnings. Second half of 2022 has also seen massive layoffs across the world from global corporations to start-ups pulling the plug and downsizing for various reasons. This impacted in several ways and the result of it being a lot of individuals being left without jobs.

This has increased a lot of unemployment and we had to immediately adapt to enhancing our product offerings not just with opportunities but also aspects that could help one up-skill or re-skill in general to become more ready for the next opportunity. While quality and productivity of the resource being a very important element, it is important that individuals who are in search of opportunities are strengthening their profile and that’s ideally how we’d like to support and offer our solutions along with Resume, CV, Recruitment services.

Now as we move into 2023, we’d like to offer additional offerings like soft-skills training, assessments, job specific screenings along with our existing services which would help us provide a platform for users to quickly up-skill and become ready for high attrition roles.

What are your growth priorities for 2023?

By the end of the following year, we expect to have reached more than 5 million job seekers, 5000 businesses and SMEs, and 2000 colleges. With Workruit Resume Builder being available in numerous international languages like Bahasa, Filipino, Malaysian, Vietnamese, etc., we are expanding our solutions to the South East Asian market. We have seen strong organic growth in these markets, and a mobile tool that makes it simple to create digital profiles is desperately needed. To help students and the placement team automate creating resumes, CVs, cover letters, and video resumes, we aim to target more than 2000+ educational institutions and colleges as part of our solutions. This will enable students to connect with more internship and job opportunities.

Upcoming Funding

Workruit aims to raise a Series A round by mid-2023 as part of the growth we're keen on in India, South East Asian markets, and US markets for the Resume & CV Platform, Recruitment Platform.