Chakri.app: How a modern solution is changing the hiring landscape
Chakri.app is a web and mobile app-based platform. With its help, employers can easily and efficiently hire qualified people, and that too within a short time
If you are an employer or related to the recruiting process of any company, you would know of the hassle of hiring qualified candidates from a vast pool of applicants.
You know how lengthy and time-consuming the selection process of qualified candidates can be: from posting a job circular to manually checking hundreds if not thousands of resumes, to taking viva.
The problem is not essentially the absence of recruitment services but that cutting-edge features are not integrated into those services.
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What is missing is state-of-the-art features such as AI algorithms and advanced data-driven analytics, automated primary screening, assessment, interviewing, etc.
Hasnaeen Rizvi, Founder and CEO of Astha IT, is himself a recruiter.
He has hired a sizable number of professionals for his company for the last 13 years since its creation.
While his company has been using traditional solutions, over the years a realisation remained stuck in his mind about the huge market gap in this niche.
As the frontman of an IT firm, he knew that he could materialise this realisation into a reality by developing an efficient and modern hiring solution that would take into account all the deficiencies of the existing platforms.
With this in mind, he built 'Chakri.app', a modern hiring solution for employers.
While talking to The Business Standard, Hasnaeen shed light on what inspired him to create it.
"At a certain stage, we realised that the present options are not working for us. It took a long time to find a qualified candidate. For example, if I post a job for a programmer or an engineer, hundreds if not thousands of candidates apply for it," said Hasnaeen.
"It is very difficult to review this large number of CVs manually. If we take at least five minutes to review each resume, for 1,000 resumes it would take around 5,000 minutes or four days straight without any gap. So, I guess, you understand how lengthy and exhausting the process can become."
To tackle this problem, his company usually went through the first 50 or 100 resumes and selected the required candidates among those.
"But the system is unfair for the candidates who applied late. Also, we might have missed a better candidate in this loophole. We had a personal feeling/judgement about this process - that we are not hiring in the right way. And basically, for this reason, we started Chakri.app," said Hasnaeen.
But what sets it apart from its peers?
Chakri.app is a web and mobile app-based platform. With its help, employers can easily and efficiently hire qualified people, that too within a short time.
But how do they manage to do this? Machine learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), algorithms, etc. All these make it easier to select candidates according to parameters from a vast pool of applicants.
There is no need to go through thousands of resumes manually. There are some features, for example, if a candidate cannot meet certain criteria, s/he cannot even apply.
When posting a job, employers can specifically mention certain parameters or criteria. This is absent in other similar services.
Those who cannot meet the criteria can apply but their profiles will be automatically in a lower position.
Employers can even hire a person without posting a job. For example, an employee can know how many qualified people are there in the database of Chakri.app whose profile matches his/her requirements.
Through this feature, s/he can curate a result from searching. Then s/he can communicate with them to find out if they want to work with him/her. This is called a match-making feature.
Additionally, they are working with many other features that will be rolled out soon.
For example, you would be able to connect with your LinkedIn profile so that you would not need to create your Chakri.app profile from scratch.
How does it fare in comparison with its peers?
Recently, a lot of start-ups are trying to emerge as leaders in this sector.
Kalke HR, Evaly's e-jobs, Google's Kormo are pushing hard to capture the space.
"I think the opportunity is huge, but the problem is not being solved. The hiring process of qualified people is backdated in Bangladesh. Even big corporations manually hire people. The reason is that there is a gap, there is much to do in this field."
Hasnaeen and his team are specifically focused on this area because they have the expertise. They have worked with big clients.
Moreover, they are trying to be a venture studio model where they have plans to roll out different products and services in the future.
"What we are trying to do is create a good-looking UI/UX product which is easy-to-use. The number of job seekers and job recruiters who are willing to try out online and automated solutions is massive. If we can even partially tap a portion of this huge number, we will be successful."
Many start-ups arise from the business sector. They have good ideas. But putting those ideas into reality is a different case.
Most founders are from non-technical backgrounds. They do not understand the tech. As a result, they provide sub-optimal solutions.
"We have 10 plus years of experience in the field. In the case of Chakri.app, it is neither a unique concept nor the first of its kind in Bangladesh. But still, recruiters in Bangladesh are hiring manually through Facebook, LinkedIn, or other means."
"We want to keep rolling out many more features in the future that would benefit both the employers and the job aspirants," said Hasnaeen.
There are other players in the market – some are established and some are trying to enlarge their share in the same space, however, only a few will survive.
In this respect, Hasnaeen is confident that they can outlast others in the competition.
They believe they have superior technology and a backup in terms of resources and experience.
"As we possess both of the fundamental elements, we are confident that we can beat our competitors in the ultimate race."
What Chakri.app means to Astha IT?
Astha IT is not a new name in the field of software companies that outsource their services.
Other than its global service wing, in 2019, Astha IT stepped into a new wing – venture studio model.
Within the scope of the business model, it has undertaken plans to build up new start-ups.
Initially they selected six products, and they have started working with those.
Within a year of this endeavour, in October 2020, they rolled out their first start-up.
Chakri.app is essentially a passion-based project. The idea and inspiration to develop it came from solving real-life problems.
Although the app is an experimental product of Astha IT, it has gained traction over time.
As a result, they have given it further effort and launched it as a full-blown product.
