IITian spins web to catch fake CVs !!!

Publication: Times Of India Bangalore
Date:Feb 13, 2007
Section:Times Business
Page Number:19


















Companies beware : IITian spins web to catch fake CVs

R Raghavendra | TNN

Bangalore: Fake CVs have been playing havoc in the recruitment market, compelling companies to spend exorbitant amounts to do pre-hiring or post-hiring checks through third party agencies.
Now, it looks like the internet could make this a simpler and more cost effective process. Mahendra Pratap, an alumni of IIT-Kanpur, has created a portal that allows anybody to add comments about a candidate whose resume is available on the site. The idea is to build trustworthy referrals within the portal that can give comfort to potential recruiters.

The process is simple: You upload your resume and ask your previous employer or colleagues to comment about your personality on the website. Any prospective employer gets to see your referrals and saves his time in making checks about you. If you fake your referrals, your present employer has the opportunity to write his views about you, marking you as a fake for your next job.

Referrals have built a huge amount of credibility among other portals like eBay and LinkedIn. Says Madan Padaki, cofounder and director of Merit-Trac, “A lot of companies make their hiring decisions based on what your colleagues and friends think of you in LinkedIn. Companies look for trustworthy referrals. eBay too rates both its buyers and sellers in order to tell people the actual worthiness of the people who are transacting business.’’
LinkedIn is a business oriented social networking site used for professional networking.

It has over 9 million registered users across 150 industries and over 400 economic regions (as classified by the service). The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. One can even gain introduction through a mutual, trusted contact. Employers can look out for potential candidates.

In Mahendra Pratap’s portal mohanchoti.com, a company on the look out for candidates pays a one-time fee to the portal and later pays for every reference concerning a particular candidate. Pratap’s concept is patentpending, and barely three months since its founding, the portal has a database of 40,000 CVs and over 15,000 referrals. “Over and above all the checks, if we still hire a candidate who is unworthy of the post, then we have a chance to post our views in his resume. That would make his future employer know about him.

Compared to the traditional reference checks, the advantage here is that we have a ready base of references to begin with,’’ says Nitin Singh Yadav, VP in online movie rental company seventymm, one of Pratap’s clients.

Three other IITians have now joined Pratap and the firm is working to increase its database, “so that we can serve the needs of bigger companies,” says Pratap.

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...referral portal may be way out

Released: Saturday, February 10, 2007 7:55 PM

BANGALORE: Fake CVs have been playing havoc in the recruitment market, compelling companies to spend exorbitant amounts for pre and post-hiring checks through third-party agencies.

Now, it looks like the Internet could make this a simpler and more cost-effective process. Mahendra Pratap, an alumni of IIT-Kanpur, has created a portal that allows anybody to add comments about a candidate whose resume is available on the site.

The idea is to build trustworthy referrals within the portal that can give comfort to potential recruiters.

The process is simple: You upload your resume and ask your previous employer or colleagues to comment about your personality on the website.

Any prospective employer gets to see your referrals and saves his time in making checks on you. If you fake your referrals, your present employer has the opportunity to write his views about you, marking you as a fake for your next job.

Referrals have built a huge amount of credibility among other portals like eBay and LinkedIn. Says Madan Padaki, co-founder and director of MeritTrac, "A lot of companies make their hiring decisions based on what your colleagues and friends think of you in LinkedIn. Companies look for trustworthy referrals. eBay too rates both its buyers and sellers in order to tell people the actual worthiness of the people who are transacting business."

In Mahendra Pratap's portal mohanchoti.com, a company on the look out for candidates pays a one-time fee to the portal and later pays for every reference concerning a particular candidate.

Pratap's concept is patent-pending, and barely three months since its founding - the portal has a database of 40,000 CVs and over 15,000 referrals.

Copyright 2007 The Times of India. Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd. Source : Financial Times Information Limited

Provider:
Financial Times / Asia Africa Intelligence Wire / The Times of India

http://smallbusiness.mworld.com/m/m.w?lp=GetStory&id=241304831

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Mohanchoti Receives the “Excellence in Entrepreneurship” Award at PAN IIT PAN IIM ENTREPRENEURS FORUM

October 01, 2006 Technology News

(PRLEAP.COM) Mohanchoti, A Third Generation Recruitment Portal (www.mohanchoti.com) , has been awarded "Excellence in Entrepreneurship" Award in the PAN IIT PAN IIM Entrepreneurs Forum on September 23, 2006 in Bangalore. There were more than 180 participants in this forum coming from across India, and this award was appreciation towards innovative approach of Mohanchoti.

Mohanchoti, provides access to information of candidates and instant validation through references. It is an online system which values time and reference. Candidates are rewarded by a unique point system based on the number of genuine people referred. Companies gain the advantage of having complete understanding of their potential recruits, enabling quick and sound decision-making.

What is Third Generation Recruitment?
It is time for a new ERA in recruitment. There is a growing feeling that all the existing players in industry will soon phase out in recruitment industry as they are not catering to the problems currently being faced by recruitment industry - like Problem of Validations, Problem of Forged Profiles, Problem of False and Incomplete Information, to make decisions at a glance.

In first generation, pen and paper were used and so retrieving information was quite painful. Then came the era of recruitment portals and now information was freely available. This was an excellent solution for just a growing industry - people were happy with simply having information.But today, industry is experiencing high exponential growth rate. Having access to information is not enough any more. There are a new set of problems which need to be dealt with - problems of validations, problems of false and incomplete information to make decisions at a glance.

Here is the solution - welcome to the world of Mohanchoti!! This is a third generation recruitment portal with not only access to information, but complete set of systems to validate the same, through various perspectives and eyes like friends, bosses, and old employers. We firmly believe that in today’s fast-moving world, every bit of time spent should have an ROI model for all the parties to get involved whole heartedly.

How it works?
Finally, a system which values your time spent. Yes, candidates get paid for the time they spend introducing and referring friends. Reference is valuable and authentic for companies in taking a quick decision about their potential recruits. Companies will buy your references and you get rewarded. But be careful, your references will get rated by buyers - if a reference is forged, your rating will go down and monitory benefits would be proportional to reference review rating.

Not only this, candidates also get paid a certain percentage of the earning of people introduced by them, based on a unique point system. The earnings through sharing will increase exponentially as chain builds down.

PAN IIT and PAN IIM Entrepreneurs Forum September 23, 2006 was a full day event at The Oberoi, Bangalore for close interaction between IIT and IIM entrepreneurs, successful business persons and venture capitalists to strengthen the spirit of entrepreneurship. Bangalore Chapters of Alumni Associations of IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur are involved in organizing this PAN IIT PAN IIM event, which is being supported by Sequoia Capital (www.sequoiacap.com ).

This event was open to all the entrepreneurs, or to-be-entrepreneurs- any IIT or IIM or even beyond. The enthusiastic response to this event has been a tribute to the entrepreneurial spirit of new India, and more than 400 registration requests were received.

The motivation for this event is to have a unified approach and build an ecosystem which caters to budding entrepreneurs throughout their ventures – inception, getting funding, and execution till exit. Many successful people want to start on their own today, given the tremendous opportunities unleashed around the globe that they can take advantage of while being in India. The stimulating business climate, technology advancement and success stories of IIT and IIM alumni and Indian entrepreneurs are added charms. This event aims to build a long sustaining forum with frequent interactions where entrepreneurs, to-be-entrepreneurs, accomplished business people and venture capitalists can come and share their ideas, experience and leverage resources with a singular focus – SUCCESS.

About Alumni Associations of IITs
Alumni associations of Indian Institutes of Technology are playing an active role globally in the transformation of business and society. Apart from organizing business focused events and promoting Indian entrepreneurship, they are very active in social entrepreneurship and educational initiatives. They are actively involved in creating the PAN IIT forum.

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