Aspiring Minds, a Gurgaon-based human resource company that helps in the recruitment of "right people" and benchmarks the workforce of clients, has forayed into China and plans to start a US unit by July, co-founder and chief executive Himanshu Aggarwal said.
"China is a hard, challenging market. But, of course, it is a larger market. We aim to generate revenues to the tune of $10 million from our China operations in the next three years -- our target is to assess 1.2 million people," he said.
"Factors like number of youth graduating there, corporations looking to recruit the right kind of people, an under-served market in employability-assessment space and our technology tools can be the key reasons that will help with better revenues," Agarwal told IANS.
Started by a duo that counts Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as alma maters, Aspiring Minds plans to hire some 25 people over the next two years in China. "We expect to get a business licence in China by the end of this month."
One of the USPs the company hopes to deploy there is custom-made tools that will test the people in Chinese, rather than the global practice of using the English language which the local youth are not too familiar with.
The group is also in talks with global financing ventures to raise capital, after it secured some $2.5 million in 2011 from Omidyar Network in the first round -- four years after it was founded. The techie co-founder-brothers, Himanshu and Varun Aggarwal, started operations in 2007-08 with Rs.20-30 lakh.
The company generated $10 million in revenues in 2014-15, mainly from India operations. Last year it had forayed into the markets in the Middle East and the Philippines and is in the process of preparing for a US unit after stabilising the Chinese unit.
The core work of the company is to gauge the employability of a candidate through its Aspiring Minds computer adaptive test (AMCAT), which is an automated, computerised test. The module seeks to test the language, cognitive-aptitude, personality and functional skills of a candidate.
Himanshu Agarwal said the company has tied up with 4,000 colleges in India and has 70 partner centres in the country. In 2014-15, it has assessed 1.2 million people in India and plans to double the numbers in the current financial year.
"We're planning to scale up our direct reach to students this year. We'll focus on colleges that don't have a set-up to help students get a job," Aggarwal added, adding the company's tests were deploying high-end statistical modules.
The company has also entered into a partnership with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). Under this, it evaluates vocational training at various fields for students who are in the 8th grade or 10th pass-outs.
(Aparajita Gupta can be reached at aparajita.g@ians.in)
