The challenge
An NSDC-aligned vocational training institute running courses across retail, hospitality, BFSI, healthcare and IT-ITeS was placing 1,800 candidates a year — but 40% of placement conversations died because employer follow-up was manual. Skills assessment was a paper test that took 5 days to grade. Candidate-to-employer matching depended on the placement officer remembering who was good at what.
How we deployed
- Built a digital skills-assessment workflow — sector-specific question bank, instant scoring, NSDC-aligned QP/NOS mapping.
- Tagged every candidate with sector, sub-sector, NSQF level and language proficiency in Zoho CRM.
- Maintained a live employer-requirements board pulled weekly from 280 hiring partners.
- Auto-matched candidate profiles to open requisitions — top 5 candidates surfaced per role to placement officer.
- Triggered candidate WhatsApp interview-prep sequence on shortlist — JD walkthrough, company overview, mock questions.
- Sent employer status updates after each interview round and auto-issued offer-letter follow-up nudges.
What changed
- 3,400 candidates placed in 12 months — 1.9x lift on previous year.
- Employer conversion to offer climbed to 78% from 51% baseline.
- Time from course completion to job offer fell by 22 days on average.
- Skills assessment turnaround dropped from 5 days to under 2 hours.
- Placement officer team reallocated from scheduling to employer relationship building.
"My placement officers used to be glorified spreadsheet operators. Now they actually visit employer HR teams and the matching just happens."
— CEO · NSDC-Aligned Vocational Institute