A philanthropist committed to EDI, Health, & Well-being, Ankit is the Founder & CEO of Unstop, a community engagement and hiring platform for students and fresher’s where talent meets opportunities. He was one of India's 100 Great People Managers by Forbes in 2020. Ankit’s dedication to Unstop is recognized, earning Unstop the distinction of the Best Workforce Enablement Startup by Entrepreneur India and the prestigious Startup 50 Trailblazer Award by Dun & Bradstreet.

1. In the early career hiring processes, what type of process is effective and trending for students and early professionals?

One of the most effective hiring processes is through engagements. These engagements are conducted by brands that give students and early professionals a chance to showcase their skills and gain an opportunity to join the brand through PPIs and PPOs. This also democratizes hiring and gives opportunities to students from any college, city, and domain. And also, technology being a part of the hiring process, it has become easier to evaluate candidates using different means of assessments that not only check their skills but also helps the recruiters to evaluate their critical-thinking and problem solving.

2. Do you think technology has boosted the standards of skilling and up-skilling among students and early professionals? Explain in detail

Yes, it has. Nowadays, up-skilling has become much easier with so many companies offering different types of courses that students can pursue while they are in college or while working. I also feel that up-skilling is not restricted to only courses. Industry experts these days are also giving 1:1 mentorships on different topics to make it easier for students and professionals to choose the career of their choice. To be precise, master classes on topics like interview preparation, resume making, and more are becoming common and give students a chance to understand concepts in depth from the veterans of different sectors.

3. How are software solutions helping to assess the students and early professionals in aligning them to specific jobs? Briefly elaborate

With new-age technology, assessments of different types are being utilized to evaluate candidates on their skill sets. We've been helping brands to evaluate candidates through MCQ assessments of different kinds, coding challenges - wherein the candidates have to showcase their coding skills by solving problems on the platform. Language tests are also being used to check how well a candidate can speak fluently. Other than this, we also believe that apart from skills, culture fitment also plays an important role. And this can be analyzed through psychometric assessments that check the behavioral aspects of a candidate and deep dive in their personality.

Well irrespective of the era we are living in the Human resources department for any organization would need to find easy & efficient ways to make their Human potential understand that, "It is the humans who will be doing the business, it is the humans who will be helping humans do the business and it will be for the humans for whom we will be doing the business. This will help them in the longer run where they need not worry about another paradigm shift in the external world

4. How is the hiring and recruitment industry promoting integrity and diversity? Is equal chance & opportunity given to all the students and early professionals?

We have been seeing an increased focus on promoting diversity within organizations with the way they have been creating different hiring requirements for bringing onboard diverse talent. For example, Walmart noticed how they wanted to connect with female coders and bring them onboard. And the best way to attract and engage them was through a coding challenge. We've been doing the Walmart CodeHers challenge for the past three years and have engaged with 1 Lakh+ female coders. We have been hiring 300+ female coders in the past two years. A lot of other legacy brands like HDFC, J&J, ServiceNow, and more have been conducting such challenges to tap into female talent.

5. Share your best advice cum strategies to unleash and unlock true potential among students and early professionals.

Keep learning and exploring. There are so many new topics and tools to up-skill and upscale the standards. Being a student or early professional, it is important to push your limits and try different things to not only understand what you like doing the most but also what you don't want to do. This way your options become clearer and it is easier to focus on the right career path. To add on, presently opportunities are pouring in for students. Whether it is through live projects or internships, students should try their hand at everything to sharpen their skills and also grow as individuals.

6. Elon Musk predicts that AI robots will handle all the major services; in that case AI advancements are good or bad? Will they eat up all the jobs in the near future? Brief out your perspective

The adoption of AI is at a rise. Even within our organization some teams have been using AI for different tasks, like design, content writing, and more to increase their efficiency. But what I feel is that AI will not eat up jobs in the future. One needs a strong base of skill sets to be able to use AI to its best potential. So, professionals, who will combine their skills along with the usage of AI, will be more proficient as compared to others because like any other technology, AI also needs to be learnt and understood. Professionals can complete the tasks faster with the help of AI and focus their energies on projects that could be more impactful in the longer run.