The Journey: Cajobportal.com
With more than 2 lakh Charted Accountants, 30,000 Company Secretaries and Cost Accountants in India, the competition is only getting tougher by the day. Interacting with CA freshers, Sonia Singal, co-founder of www.cajobportal.com realised that just a fraction of them would ace the competitive exams and land a good job.
While some lacked communication skills, the others took multiple attempts to crack the ICAI’s placement test. And not forgetting the age-old method of relying on friends and relatives to channelise resumes. That is what led to the genesis of www.cajobportal.com in August 2013.
While I accompanied my husband to the IIM Ahmedabad campus in April 2014 for his MBA course, we both realised that a CSR mode was not sustainable. Our model was replicable and could get lost in the overcrowded recruitment space. There were no entry barriers and users perceived little differentiation amongst the various portals. Hence, we decided to go commercial. We approached corporates for B2B tie-ups, bundling the value proposition of an online platform and offline search consultant, hitherto regarded as just a postman of CVs.
“Through our start up, we took commoditisation in the finance human capital space head-on, adding value through segmentation and customisation.”
Sonia Singal, Co-founder, www.cajobportal.com
For reducing the credibility gap which a start-up faces, we formed an Advisory Board comprising of Ms V N Saroja – co-founder and former COO of naukri.com, Mr Hari Mundraex Group CFO- RPG. Mr. Dilip Apte, Vice Chairman, WIRC, ICAI, Prof Arvind Sahay – Dean –Alumi at IIMA and Prof Biju Varkkey -Human Resources at IIMA
Having the first initial sign ups was tough. TCS and Unilever were our first clients; for them working with a start-up was a leap of faith. Fortunately we managed to help them close crucial positions with high ratings on KPIs.
While the ‘cookie cutter’ approach to recruiting involved talking to candidates on clichéd terms – CTC and notice period; our differentiating factor was the ability to talk IFRS, Forex and EV/EBITDA, which led to better mapping of the candidate and up to 4x conversion ratios for clients., we delivered up to 4x conversion ratios.
It has been a ‘David Vs Goliath’ journey for us in the overcrowded B2B recruitment space. However I must acknowledge here my firm belief in “The Alchemist” where strangers along the path help you realise your ultimate destiny. With the kind support of senior industry leaders, we’ve conquered some milestones.
Despite being a top performer at Deloitte, I struggled to find a job in Kolkata after my maternity break. It was then that I realised how difficult it could be for women to find a job. When I got involved full-time into www.cajobportal.com to head Operations & Business Development, I ended up recruiting only women in my team. They operate as an all women ‘Work from Home’ setup.
In CY 2015, we’ve closed positions with CTC aggregating to Rs 5 crores and earned revenues of INR 3 million
Today, our value proposition has been endorsed by 50+ marquee brands which include Unilever, P&G, ITC, Philips, Britannia, Cipla, HDFC, Goldman Sachs, Titan, Caterpillar, Amazon and Bharti Airtel.
