For most of us, it has always been about scoring good marks or having a degree to get the golden ticket to successful employment. Now here is a company that judges candidates beyond their their educational qualifications.
A Mumbai-based crowdfunding platform, Ketto, also hires undergraduates, but together, they constitute around seven per cent of its current workforce.
Varun Sheth, CEO and co-founder, Ketto, opines, “Going to a good college or scoring marks will not define anybody as a person. If the candidate we are hiring is passionate and believes in our mission and values, then we are open to giving even dropouts an opportunity to work with us.”
Sheth strongly believes that an academic certificate does not define a person’s ability. “We want to give equal opportunity to individuals who are hardworking, dedicated, and show the ability to grow with the organisation,” he adds.
As per the Company’s hiring process, all the candidates — graduates and undergraduates — have to undergo a three-month internship programme, which further qualifies them for full-time jobs. The training helps in understanding the candidates’ abilities and their level of commitment and focus.
“The candidates we hire should know how to experiment, ideate and understand that they should be able to take up any activity that comes up. We select an individual — either an undergraduate or a graduate — who shows the best skill quality and resonates with the Company’s core values”
During the internship, the Company follows a buddy system, wherein freshers are monitored and trained under a senior team member, who guides them with skills, in terms of coding or developing software, and so on.
Once the candidates qualify for a full-time role, from a skilling perspective, the Company assigns a budget to every team leader, to spend on skilling their team members through online platforms, such as Udemy. Here, employees learn how improve tally skill sets, excel sheets, enhance SEO content writing, and so on.
“The candidates we hire should know how to experiment, ideate and understand that they should be able to take up any activity that comes up. We select an individual — either an undergraduate or a graduate — who shows the best skill quality and resonates with the Company’s core values,” states Sheth.
The crowdfunding platform has hired dropouts in multiple roles in sales, marketing and technology divisions. Like other companies, it too follows a standard appraisal process for all its employees.
Even an undergraduate — who has completed a year, and demonstrates continuous growth in the assigned job role — is eligible for promotion to the next level. At Ketto, the remuneration for all employees is the same. There is no discrimination when it comes to disbursing salaries to undergraduates and graduates.
Interestingly, around 85 per cent of the workforce belongs to the age group of 20 to 30 years.
Sheth is of the opinion that young people can manage a team better. He does not see age as an inhibiting factor in terms of shouldering responsibilities.
Ketto followed a policy of work-from-home for at least three days a week. “We always believed that people working from home can bring in the same level of productivity as while working from offices,” the CEO adds.