Hunarr Connects Job Seekers with Training Providers for Better Opportunities

It is necessary to be skilled even for an entry level job in the current times. Besides, just being skilled is not enough these days. Having the right skill as per demands of potential employers in different niches is the need of the hour in the industry. Here does a skill gap lie between job seekers and employers, which Hunarr is trying to bridge. Hunarr is an online platform connecting job seekers with training providers for skill development and assessment.

Hunarr is a stand-alone training product of Aasaanjobs, an online recruitment and staffing company for entry level jobs. The prevailing skill gap between the current level of employment and the employability of job seekers pushed the founders of Aasaanjobs to come up with a solution that took the shape of an online platform to help job seekers find the right training providers and training institutes. Thus the innovative training startup Hunarr was launched in October 2015 in Mumbai.

The Story behind the Inception

The story behind the inception of Hunarr is rooted in reality. Dinesh Goel, one of the cofounders of Aasaanjobs, found his house maid worried about her only son’s job. A watchman at his housing society approached him for better job opportunities. In those scenarios, Goel discovered that there was no network of trainers for those seeking better blue collar jobs. Then he launched Hunarr for entry level job seekers to connect with training providers, add more value to their current skill sets and find fulfilling jobs.

A Brief about the Founders

Dinesh Goel, one of the cofounders of Hunarr, is a chemical engineering graduate from IIT Bombay. The other two cofounders are his IITian friends Kunal Jadav and Gaurav Toshniwal. Nikita Navral who heads the training vertical at Aasaanjobs is responsible for business strategy and product management at Hunarr. Nikita is a graduate from IIT Delhi.

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Business Model & USP

Hunarr is powered by a dynamic business model which is mainly aimed at helping the users of the recruitment portal Aasaanjobs.com with relevant training programs to sharpen their skills. Besides bridging the skill gap in the industry, empowering the job seekers with a set of parameters to compare training institutes and get relevant training is the USP of Hunarr. Unlike other portals in this niche, Hunarr not only lists training institutes and trainers but also suggests possible career options related to different courses and companies where students are placed on successful completion of courses. “The business model of Hunarr will be evolving with the changing scenario from time to time,” says Dinesh Goel.

How This Startup Beats Competition

“Staying ahead of competitors is one of the keys to success. But it’s not easy to beat competition. It takes lots of doing on several fronts,” Dinesh Goel comments. The winning feature of this startup is its simple and transparent interface giving access to the easily navigable content. The training institutes which have registered on this portal are given accounts to add, modify and update training courses, thereby keeping the content fresh. The training providers get microsites which they promote on their own to reach out to more and more students organically. Moreover, the website is extremely fast to load.

Initial Challenges

The inception of Hunarr was followed by a few challenges. The biggest of all initial challenges was to make job seekers understand where they lagged behind, why they needed to get trained for career development, and how it could help them. The job seekers were on the hunt for better opportunities without understanding that they required training to have the right skill and readily employable. How to keep the website navigable through increasing volumes of content has been another challenge to the founders of Hunarr.

Response to Hunarr

Hunarr has seen a decent traction among training seekers and job seekers. Braving the odds and initial challenges, Hunarr has carved a niche in the training market by listing certified courses on behavior building, soft skills, technical knowledge, software development, business communication, functional operations, etc. Dinesh Goel claims that on an average 100 job seekers register on Hunarr to enroll for relevant courses daily. Around 800 institutes from across 84 cities in India have added 10,000 courses to the website. With an increasing response to Hunarr, the training providers who have listed their courses on the website are getting noticed among job seekers.

Marketing, Funding and Goals  

“We are on a mission to address skill deficiencies and bridge the skill gap not only in one industry but all industries across the country. We strive to transform lives by reaching out to job seekers who are lagging behind and groping in the dark unknowingly, says Dinesh Goel. Hunarr is supported and funded by Aasaanjobs. They raised 1.5 million USD in a seed funding round and 5 million USD in the series A round.

The Closing Note

“Hunarr is not a mere startup with revenue goals. It is a guide for job seekers and a champion of what is right for them. We believe that only startups like Hunarr with a noble mission and vision emerge as winners and go a long way,” Dinesh Goel exclaims.

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