Bengaluru-based startup, Beatest, is out to revolutionise hiring in the country by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to screen a candidate for his Personality, Behavioral and Technical Profiling, and hence, removes the need to go through degrees and marksheets. The Beatest team claims that using their platform helps corporates reduce time spent on recruitment by 33 per cent and upping revenue per candidate by 40 per cent.

Started in 2018, Beatest, a NASSCOM 10K Startup, has also recently launched ‘Upsurge’ wherein they join hands with startup ecosystem partners to extend value to their portfolio companies. Indian Angel Network (IAN) is their first collaboration, wherein Beatest would collaborate with all of IAN’s portfolio companies to help them rapidly fulfill their hiring needs. “With Upsurge program by Beatest, we are looking to fuel the startup ecosystem faster and better by addressing one of the largest gaps it seems to be having right now which is, finding the right man for the right job starting from co-founders level to the junior most position,” said Digvijay Singh, COO, Indian Angel Network (IAN). NewCrop caught up with founder and CEO of Beatest, Sayantan Chatterjee, for a chat.

NewCrop (NC): What led you to think of this startup?

Sayantan Chatterjee (SC): While working as an Ethical Hacker with Oracle, I witnessed the evolution of tech in numerous areas and realised that the objective for every organisation should be to make the recruitment process a data-driven analysis with involuntary involvement for its honesty, reliability, and effectiveness. Keeping these parameters in mind, I created Beatest to bridge the gap between recruiters and candidates. Although, the plan was to pursue MBA from IIM-Kozhikode after a corporate stint, my drive to solve the everlasting problem of mismatching skills and the potential for a job profile led to opting out and building Beatest.

NC: What pain points are you trying to solve for candidates and recruiters?

SC: There are two main barriers faced by the recruitment industry in today’s world. Firstly, companies struggle to find the right candidate for the various job profiles out in the market and use a biased process for recruiting wherein their choices are made only on the basis of merits, college names, etc. Secondly, the process of recruitment itself which isn’t candidate-centric and doesn’t engage with them, builds more pressure on them. These two problems, if solved, can build an agile workforce that can bridge the gap between potential candidates and recruiters.

NC: How are you using AI?

SC: The point of leveraging AI is to primarily understand the potential of a candidate rather than their current skills. The application is to identify the ‘how’ and ‘why’ at the candidate’s end while they approach problem-solving, rather than their score. With about 81% of candidates in India generally termed unemployable, it is imperative that there has to be a solution, which would identify hidden gems for an organization.

NC: What sets your startup apart from others in this field?

SC: Beatest is an AI-enabled hiring platform based on algorithms that get deployed to identify skills that are best-suited for specific roles, and also reduce bias in the selection process. While most of the players in the market are segregated in their niche of either technical hiring or non-technical hiring, Beatest sets its niche in segregating high-growing candidates for an organization.

NC: Have you picked up funding?

SC: Currently the revenue from our customers is driving us but the next word will be out soon.

NC: Quantify your business.

SC: Beatest has 25000+ users on its platform; and after conducting thousands of assessments on the platform, we are excited about the analysis and predictions we see on our recommendation engine. The recruitment market grows at 15 per cent CAGR with India expected to be the 6th biggest market by 2025. Beatest is currently at a growth stage with over 10x growth on a year-on-year basis and is expected to shoot up from upcoming FY. Our recent tie up with Indian Angel Network (IAN) will help us reach their 500 startups.