Vivek Ravisankar, Founder, InterviewStreet

Tuesday October 20, 2009 , 3 min Read

For Vivek Ravisankar, a Computer Science graduate from NIT, Trichy, losing out on a coveted job during campus placement because of a spoiled interview, is an incident he will remember with fond memories. For a silly error in the final round of the interview woke him to the realization that there maybe many others like him who could have avoided what transpired, by the simple practice of participating in a mock interview session. Hence it is, that, Vivek found www.interviewstreet.com - a portal for students to participate in mock interviews conducted by professionals and hone their technical skills.

Says Vivek, “I realized that there are lakhs of college students and job seeking candidates who want to have a feel of the interview before appearing for the real thing and yet all the existing forums had only static content where the preparation could be theoretical at best. Our service helps students interact with professionals/domain experts. Users agree on a common time with the interviewer and the mock interview takes place over the phone, surely beneficial to the jobseeker as it helps them analyze their performance in real time.”

The site allows users to search for specific types of interviews e.g.: Data Structures, Marketing, Finance, etc., as also from an array of interviewers whom he/she can apply to.

Vivek has certainly captured in a brilliant way the changing colors of the web and the strides being made in education technology and the markets seem to agree as a few weeks into the launch and 300 students across 15 colleges have already used the service apart from a growing number of working professionals, the count of which has crossed 100.

The company makes money by charging students for every interview session and on the other hand maintains the quality of mentors and interviewers by adequately compensating them for the time they spend.

“Employers associate with us too not just for the money but also because they like a system which is better reflective of their current company and hiring policies as also because they get to meet better prepared candidates.” Explains Vivek of how they would continue getting interviewers from different fields.Currently in partnership stage, the company is in product expansion mode. New services in the form of tech talks, online resume builder and others would soon be rolled out. Efforts to widen reach to more colleges and companies are on in full swing too through live showcasing of the product at locations.

Being a new concept, building up a strong brand amongst the dynamic student community might have proved a challenge for InterviewStreet, yet the appreciation has been constant with customer testimonials and blogs talking about the ‘awesomeness’ of the service triggering further interest and word of mouth.

What Vivek thinks has worked for the company is the fact that their solution aims to do what a good solution should – simplify things. He envisions to make possible through their platform every kind of interaction that every student in every college wants to have with a professional.

On turning entrepreneur, he says, “It’s absolute fun! You do the thing that you really love and get to work on and learn different aspects like development, marketing, finance, HR, PR and many others. Those wanting to take up entrepreneurship must realize that ‘Entrepreneurship is a lonely path but it’s in the loneliness that you do things that you never imagined you could do!’ My advice to them would be to ‘be creative, focus on the product and always have your customers in your mind.”

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