Focusing on Employability Skills, TalentSprint bridges the gap of unemployment especially in IT, Banking and Govt. Jobs

Unemployment has always been a major concern for the youth, more so for the highly aspirational professionally qualified graduates. On the other hand, employers are struggling to find the required talent for their business.

The task of fixing the gap between academia's output and industry's input has been taken up by various organizations. While hiring and training had been the focus earlier, thanks to margin pressures and competition, companies are not able to invest in creating the talent they need.

Hence, companies seek efficient options to get trained, just in time talent who get productive very quickly. Among very few such organizations which offer such fruitful program for youth, TalentSprint has become a noticeable name which is not only known for its unflinching commitment, effective use of technology but also for industry interface.

TalentSprint is India's leading Career Accelerator for Youth. Its technology-driven platform attracts youth with high aspirations and equips them for exciting careers in the knowledge sector.

Funded by Nexus Venture Partners and the National Skill Development Corporation, TalentSprint aims to empower ONE MILLION young job seekers to pursue careers in Information Technology, Banking and Financial Services, and Education.

TalentSprint has so far enabled 150,000+ youth from 1000+ towns across India. Over 650 employers recruit fresh talent from TalentSprint. The skill acceleration platform delivers technology-enabled experiential learning through a mix of cloud and contact programs. It leverages digital and social media for youth outreach and forward integrates with a high-quality employer network.

Fixing the skill gap is a major concern for recruiters. An experiential skill development program is one of the best ways to beat the skill gap. By offering experiential learning to aspirants, TalentSprint ensures that they get up to speed on the industry relevant skills.

What differentiates TalentSprint is that it focuses on Employability Skill for graduates who are seeking aspirational careers in IT, Banking and other Government Jobs. The organization earns revenue from their trainees who are seeking their first job.

Experiential Learning and Effective use of Technology are the uniqueness in the services of TalentSprint.  Its programs are designed to be highly experiential (learn by doing) in nature. The team at TalentSprint also believes that scale is possible only through automation but with personalization. 

Hence, they have invested in Technology which not only covers high-quality video learning content, practice tests, online coding labs etc. but also in AI for personalization.

Dr. Santanu Paul (Co-Founder and CEO), in a conversation with The CEO Magazine

TCM: What are the most effective marketing initiatives or programs you have used to promote your business?

Santanu: We believe in sharing content from our top faculty for the benefit of the community. In this regard, one of the major contributors of growth of the Organization is digital marketing. Various initiatives thave taken on this front include:

• Video Content on YouTube

• Weekly Free Live Sessions

• Weekly Newsletter and Email Engagement

• Weekly Free Employability Tests

• Seminars at Various Locations

TCM: What are the major milestones for the company since founding? Does the company have any new projects coming up?

Santanu: As an organization, we take pride in achieving milestones like:

WISE Program – WISE is a boot-camp style program based on experiential and self-learning. It equips select women graduates with the latest industry tools, modern programming practices, and helps them to secure positions in top software companies in the country.

Some of its graduates have been mentored by top women engineers at Microsoft, launched their apps on Microsoft and Android App Stores, made it to Google Summer of Code, won the National IT Skill Competition and been selected to represent India in the World Skill Olympics.

Online Training –  An exhaustive library of 1200+ videos covering concepts across the topics from various subjects including Quantitative Aptitude, Reasoning Ability, English Language, General Awareness and Banking, Computer Awareness, Computer Programming (Java), Computer Programming (C), Industry Orientation and Interview Preparation, etc.

YouTube Channel – We have a very strong presence on social media helping students find relevant content for the test-prep of their choice of career. We have more than 600 videos available on our YouTube channel which is viewed by millions of students across the globe.

TIA (Test Improvement Advisor) which is a test score improvement bot that runs on artificial intelligence. It observes and analyzes the performance of every trainee during the exam and pinpoints exactly where the trainee is going wrong. TIA emails them a unique personalized study plan, so each of them can understand and correct their own specific mistakes.

The Spirit behind the success

Dr. Santanu Paul (Co-Founder and CEO), let's know about him in his words:

Asthefounding CEO at TalentSprint, I have an amazing opportunity to shape strategy, financing and growth of this exciting firm. Our dynamic start-up team has won many national and international awards since 2011. Wehavealso raised capital from the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and Nexus Venture Partners along the way.

My last stint was at Virtusa as Senior Vice President for Global Delivery Operations. Earlier, I lived and worked in Boston as Chief Technology Officer of OpenPages and Viveca. Both were venture-backed technology firms. My first professional innings was in New York City at the reputed IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights. Out of all this came 20+ international papers on technology and 2 United States patents.

I studied Computer Science at IIT Madras and received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. I strung together scholarships to underwrite my studies, including the Rackham Doctoral Fellowship, the IBM Canada Fellowship, the LaCroute Fellowship for Computing Sciences, and the National Talent Scholarship.