Here’s to our exclusive AMA (Ask Me Anything) episode with Chavi Agarwal, Founder & CEO of CView, on ‘Employment in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’. In this live conversation, we discussed with Chavi, how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Application Tracking Systems are disrupting the employment landscape in India as well as globally and much more including:
- All about AI-based Application Tracking Systems (ATS)
- Remote hiring: Advantages and Disadvantages
- Pain points of CV building for job-seekers
- How startups can augment their hiring process in 2021
Insights
Talking about Application Tracking Systems (ATS) in general and the core-cognition behind CView, Chavi highlighted,
“For any particular job role, there has to be a technologically-driven method of screening recruits. Globally, around 72 percent of the companies have started using ATS, and in India alone, 68% of companies use ATS now. A contrary to various people’s beliefs, ATS is really important for the entire job cycle,”
“There are many companies that work on CV creating, but that is based on the expertise of their English, writing skills and HR skills. But what CView has done, it has combined the writing, HR and human recruiter skills in an ATS software. And that’s where CView stands apart.”
To help job-seekers get over the 1-page dilemma, Chavi noted,
“Nobody today has time to manually go through CV’s, and that’s where ATS comes into play as it scans the CV in 2 seconds on average, and a recruiter takes 10 seconds. Now do you think that you can catch attention in those 10 seconds, that’s the challenge here. So, it’s not about a 1-pager, 2-pager CV, or even a 10-pager CV, but a human can only skim through that. So that’s why we wanted to create a 1-pager for anybody who has experience less than 10 years, and anybody with over 10 years of experience will have a 2-pager CV. And henceforth, every 10 years means 1-pager, so if you have experience of 30 years then you can have a 3-pager CV.”
Discussing the advantages of the remote workforce concept that the world adopted during the COVID-19 scenario, Chavi shared,
“Anybody who was unable to get involved in the workforce previously now has an opportunity to do so. Compared to the previous year, there is a 17% increase in women working in the workforce. That’s the clear indicator of work-from-home coming really handy for people who are responsible for the livelihood. There are so many people who want to work, like students, women, and even elders. With the remote workforce, the workforce age-limit and diversity is increasing. Also, Tier-2 & Tier-3 cities in every country coming up in this stream. I myself now have employees who are coming up from Tier-2 & Tier-3 areas which I couldn’t have hired,”
Sharing it from an employer’s perspective, Chavi said,
“Work from home has become difficult for employers, the people who are managing. You can have very good coordination skills, you can have a huge amount of agility, you can be very good at internet communication, but productivity reduces multifold because you do not have a look and feel of what your employees are doing, it’s all completely process-driven now. So if you don’t have a process you can’t have something that is going to run very well. Also, the flip-side is, the employers are at a benefit since the employees need to show productivity and results in order to prove that they are working. So everything has both pros and cons but work-from-home has definitely gotten many pros especially for women.”
Highlighting various cons of the remote workforce, Chavi opined,
“I think lack of schedule is something that I would like to change, I also feel like maybe a lot of startups and MSMEs are not equipped enough to handle something like remote working. You know I have to invest so much more in the technology, systems and process because I’m working from home. It can be a good tester for your business to identify what’s missing, it trains you but really difficult for a startup to communicate, since people take you a lot less seriously if you are working away from each other. But in the case of MNCs like Accenture or Deloitte, they all are working from home but still successful.”
Speaking of the implication of ATS in the startup ecosystem, Chavi stated,
“Startups and MSMEs are also now understanding that hiring an HR team and taking a license of an ATS software is not the same thing. An ATS software won’t even cost you one-fourth of that of an HR team. Let’s not forget that 20 percent of the MSMEs are now using ATS, startups particularly might not but they are using licensed software which are available online for ATS checking. With ATS, the advantage is that they connect it with online recruitment channels like Naukri, Internshala and more.”
Sharing a word of advice for startups regarding ATS, Chavi said,
“If the capacity of your startup is beyond 20 employees and looking for scaling it to 30 or 40, you’ll find instability because a lot of people are only coming for experience and they keep on changing jobs and with work-from-home, it has become even more unstable as they are not taking workforce seriously. And also, they are not very intimidated by a startup. So for startups, it is even more integral to hire people that are actually worthy and looking forward to working in a startup setting,”
“In a startup, you work more than that you do in an MNC. So people willing to work for a startup need a job that is person-fit because startups are very niche and they have a target of their own, it’s not like a big company where there are multiple avenues and get into any project you like. So ATS comes really handy here as it helps create jobs that are person-fit for the startups.”
Finally, we asked Chavi to enlighten us on the CSR initiatives of CView, there she concluded,
“CView’s moto is to put work in the workforce, in anybody comes in by our service they are not only uplifting themselves but for each order, we fund underprivileged college student or woman to help them join the workforce. This is completely a new breed in the young people of multiple countries including India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and more. This helps us empower the workforce and also bring new people into the workforce,”
“So it’s a clear system, every order which is paced, 30% proceeds from that order for funding a CV or interview prep. or whatever help is required by underprivileged people. And what this does, it gives them equal opportunities in the market. We have tied up with various self-help groups from multiple parts of India, a lot of government schools and colleges and we concentrate on that.”
About CView
CView is a software development, profile building and CV creating startup that combines Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Expertise to help students and job seekers in profile building that helps them acquire their dream job. With its vision to assist budding students & recruits, the company seeks to reach out and introduce its services to students and professionals through sharing insights on professional development. CView comprises of 23 female team members and seven divisional teams.
About Chavi
Chavi Agarwal is the founder & CEO of CView, an entrepreneur with demonstrated experience in profile building, CV curation and ATS software development. She is also working as an M&A strategist in Deloitte, London. She holds Bachelor’s in Finance from Warwick Business School, UK, and Masters in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Financial Technology from Imperial College London. Her comprehensive profile helped her garner offers from Deloitte, Accenture, Lloyds Bank, RBS, and Grant Thornton in the field of Mergers and Acquisitions. She has mentored over 500 students and conducted over 100 webinars all across the globe to actively contribute towards the student & youth community. She is a propagator of women empowerment, which is why CView donates 30% of its proceeds toward Women Education in India. Ms Chavi Agarwal is also the recipient of the Young Entrepreneur of the Year, 2020 by Indian Achievers Award.
