Mentoring, skilling key to make engineering grads employable

India is considered as the IT hub of the world. Though the country produces more than 15 lakh engineers per annum, it scores poorly as far as employability of fresh graduates are concerned. 'GeeksforGeeks' is trying to resolve this unique problem that the country is facing by skilling students in their crucial interview preparations. In a conversation with Bizz Buzz, company's founder Sandeep Jain said the company has also forayed into 'course' segment apart from launching a job portal for enabling candidates to get better jobs in the engineering sector. The company, which prepares candidates for facing interviews in Google, Amazon, Microsoft, TCS, Infosys and many more, also said that the online tests of many Indian IT firms are creating more audience for the company

What is the motivation behind starting GeeksforGeeks?

I studied in a tier-III engineering college and in that college, no company was visiting us. Then, I went to IIT-Roorkee. Though there were many companies coming for placements, we didn't know how to prepare for the interviews. That was the motivation behind starting 'GeeksforGeeks'. Through this, we are trying to fill the gap.

We started with the blog. Under this segment, students write the blogs, which our internal team evaluate. Post-evaluation, those articles are published. Our content is popular and we are very well ranked by Google. Our content is consumed world-wide. In India, our Alexa rank is around 50 according to Amazon tool. Due to our consumer base in Europe and US, we generate most of our revenues from advertisements from these geographies.

Two years ago, we entered into (engineering) courses business. Here, we provide online courses. As I have passion for teaching, that is the reason we entered into this segment. This segment is relatively new and we have invested a lot of our energy into this. We also give live classes in which mentors teach the candidates. As many of the students come guidance related to jobs, we have also started a job portal. Here, we help our students get jobs.

When did you enter into job segment? How is the segment performing?

We launched the job portal one year ago. So, it is relatively new. But, we have good traffic. We are getting applications from good candidates.

Which segment contributes the most to the revenues? How are the new segments performing for the company?

Of course, blog is the oldest part of our business and contributes the most to our revenues. However, the courses segment is growing at a rapid speed.

There are many edtech platforms which are providing various engineering domains. How do you view the competition and how do you stand out from others?

We are very good at providing guidance for interview preparation. Whether that is Amazon or Google or TCS & Wipro, candidates rely on our interview preparation. Across the world, candidates know us and that is our forte. We have been publishing the interview experience of candidates for long and have built our expertise.

Do you have any interface with IT services companies or MNCs that are recruiting engineering graduates?

There is an interface. In our website, there is link for companies to post the job vacancies. So, they come and post their requirement. After evaluation, we make them live. There are also instances where some companies have asked for our courses and they were pretty much satisfied with our content.

Our interface is more with engineering colleges. When the colleges feel that their students need to prepare well for the interviews, they take our courses. So, we have been more active with the colleges than with companies. We have tied up with 30 engineering colleges.

Does your content also relevant for lateral entry of candidates?

Yes, we provide interview courses for lateral entry of candidates. We are mostly focused on the technology part of the interview. For fresh graduates, some of our courses also guide for interviews till the HR (human resources) round.

How was the business in 2020? Has that been impacted due to the pandemic?

Growth during last year was good despite the pandemic though there had been some impact on the blog business. In the blog business, advertisement revenues went down as many enterprises were not spending due to the Covid pandemic. But in the courses business, revenues went up higher than our expectations.

Are you profitable as an entity? What are your fund raising plans?

We have been profitable from the beginning. We have not raised money so far and stayed boot-strapped. Though we have not approached by any investors during initial days, this has changed in the recent time as we made good progress in our course business. After our courses get popular, we have been contacted by many investors. We will take investment from the entity which will support our business plan. Currently, we are in talks with one investor. If this materializes, it will be the series-A round kind of fund.

You also provide courses relating to digital technologies like machine learning, data analytics. How are these courses performing with regard to adoption by candidates?

In our engineering colleges, the courses that are taught may not be very relevant for facing job-related questions. Employers are looking for problem solving skills. However, programming skills of our students are not that good. That's where we come in. We have courses relating to data-specific algorithm. That kind of content is not available in the market.

Now, many companies like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro are skilling students through their course content. Do you see these large IT firms as your competition?

No, we don't see them as competition. Rather, we provide guidance to students for cracking the examinations conducted by these companies. For example, TCS conducts its National Qualifier Test. We prepare students for this test. Similarly, we do it for Infosys, Wipro and other IT companies. In a way, these tests are good as students from smaller engineering colleges get the equal chance. So, this is not competition for us. Rather, these tests grow our audience for us through the open nature of these examination.