How Eduvacancy is changing the way institutes hire teachers in India

The firm's SaaS-based platform has over 500,000 registered educators and 12,750 institutes pan India and matches the right candidate for the right job across regions

It was a random dinner meeting with his teacher cousin that eventually got 28-year-old Manav Shah to set up Eduvacancy, a SaaS-based HR enterprise for pedagogues seeking employment, which has over 500,000 registered educators and more than 12,750 institutes registered pan India.

"My cousin had been looking for teaching positions on generic job search platforms, but lamented that she was unable to land one as most of the portals focused on IT, BFSI, Oil & Gas, and bulk hiring jobs.”

That got Shah, who had always wanted to run businesses that benefited society, perplexed simply because he couldn't figure out why his cousin was unable to get a suitable position when there is a general paucity of trained tutors in the country. He says that according to an IBEF report, the education industry in India has the potential to reach a size of a staggering $225 billion by FY25. The Indian EdTech market size is expected to reach $30 billion by 2031, from $700-800 million in 2021. The online education market in India is expected to grow by $2.28 billion during 2021-2025, growing at a CAGR of almost 20 per cent. The market grew by 19.02 per cent in India in 2021. Therefore, with this surge, there is a huge requirement for educators in the country.

So, Shah began doing some research on the teaching/education industry and found there were a host of niche areas such as nursery, training for specially-abled children, the 10+2 segment, University level teaching, coaching, test prep, vocational training, and of course, ed tech. Then there were subject area specialisations. Besides that, every sub-sector also required non-teaching/non-academic staff.

"The market is massive but well compartmentalised, with each niche area requiring a unique set of specialists. The challenge was to get all categories of specialists under one roof, and then ensure that the right vacancy reaches the right candidate by building a large set of search filters," says Shah. "We didn't want a 10+2 requirement going to a primary teacher, or a special needs position going to a test prep specialist."

He says the purpose of building Eduvacancy was to cater to the entire education sector and build a job/talent search platform for the Industry, which is among the top 5 employment generating sectors in the country.

Getting started

The company was formed in September 2020 with an initial capital of Rs 1 crore to build a SaaS platform with search filters, video resume, and live interviews on the platform itself. However, it began operations in February 2021 after preliminary testing and the service was finally launched in April.

Before and during the development stage, however, Shah and his partner in business Nikita Shah went about contacting friends, relatives, associates, and former colleagues to essentially connect to educationists and make them understand the concept of Eduvacancy and onboard genuine candidates to the platform. In February and March of 2021, the platform had a database of 5,000 educators, acquired mostly through word of mouth. In April, that number doubled to almost 10,000. In addition to this, it also has over 3,500 candidates from the GCC region. Currently, it has more than 500,000 candidates/job seekers on its platform.

Today, job seekers on the platform include not just teachers/educators, but business development executives, insides sales staff, admin staff for education institutions,  career counsellors, placement executives, and various other profiles within the education space.

To ensure stickiness and constant engagement of the database, Eduvacancy has been offering resume creation services to members as well. “We have noticed that most candidates lack the know-how to make a well formatted resume,” says Shah.

He adds, "Our focus is Tiers 2, 3 and 4. We realised that these regions have a lot of untapped talent. In fact, you would have heard the story about this guy from Jharkhand who set up the IIT-JEE Super 30 programme. He got famous, but there are many like him who actually have the right knack, skill and talent, but aren't recognised."

On the employers' side, the platform has a database of about 12,750 registered institutes, ranging from regular schools and colleges, to edtech platforms like SimplyLearn, to coaching classes for both high-end exams like IIT-JEE and normal commerce classes, to computer classes, to schools in remote places such as Pali in Rajasthan. Eduvacancy has been working with top names like Orchids International School, Jamnabai Narsee School, Asia English School, St Peters Engineering College, Square Panda, Cyboard, Credo World School, SaPa Learning, DPU (D Y Patil), among others.

The technology

Shah says it is a Saas-based, highly scalable platform with security protection for data. "We have been working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on that front wherein they take care of that part first on their servers. But the technology was built in-house and spearheaded by co-founder Nitil Gupta, who has a tech background and has been associated with the education industry for 20 years," he adds.

Shah says Gupta's understanding of the education industry's needs, and how it hires has helped him develop the filters on the platform.

How it works

As a job seeker you need to make your basic profile, consisting of basic personal details, your degree/s, the subjects you teach, the choice of segment, experience, the role you seek --teacher, principal, dean, etc.

Shah admits the form is cumbersome and lengthy, but says most other platforms first try and put your basic details and then go further. "We don't do that. If you are a job provider and see someone who hasn't uploaded a video resume, you will still get a fair idea about his experience, the proficiency with which he teaches his subjects, his specific role, and such like. We offer at least eight fields to enable the prospective employer to take a decision on whether or not to call the candidate for the interview."

The lengthy form also separates out genuine candidates from the non-serious ones and the kind who are just testing the platform.

The platform also provides others features, such as matched candidates. When an institute does a job post on the platform looking for candidates, Eduvacancy also provide a few recommendations with similar profiles who maybe of relevance to the employer. The matching is done on parameters like location, subjects and role. Post this if the profile is relevant the employer can schedule an interview with the candidate on the platform itself.

The revenue model

Services on the platform were free until April 2022. Eduvacancy began monetisation only in April 2022. That month, the firm launched a series of packages for employers. Says Shah: "We had planned not to monetise in the initial stages as we were beta testing and our main agenda was to on board users and make changes to the platform based on their responses. Technically, April 2022 was when we started to actually monetise our product."

He adds, "Today we are selling subscription plans to employers under which they get access to a certain number of job posts and candidates access pan India for one, six or 12 months, depending on the plan they choose. Employers can search candidates on the platform in two ways: one is through a job post method and the other is a multi-faceted search option to help the job provider search based on degree, location and a host of other parameters."

However, Eduvacancy is now attempting to broaden the choices for the employer by going beyond the specific region chosen by the latter. So, if he isn't able to find a suitable candidate in, say, Mumbai, where his office is located, he can look for one in another zone and engage that person if the candidate is willing to relocate.

Registration for job seekers remains free.

The company also has an offline model for profiles such as deans, directors and other top-level positions.

The platform also offers premium membership, which includes personalised services.

“Our premium services are not just limited to the hiring process. Rather, it's a carefully crafted recruitment strategy that will help the employers improve their brand value and drive more business. The USP of our time lies in our experience and knowledge across various education institutions,” says Shah. The charges for the offline/premium service plan are eight per cent of Annual CTC.

The financials

The company has already clocked a revenue of Rs 17-18 lakh in the first five months since it started monetising. It hopes to close the year with a turnover of Rs 1-1.5 crore. The firm raised $200,000 in an angel round this April, with participation from HNI investors.