Campus Recruitment as a B2B Exchange

Every year, corporates have to spend a significant amount of money and management time to visit engineering and business schools and select candidates for recruitment. Competition for talent is intense at the few, well-known and popular schools and corporates are not sure of being able to attract the good students. On the other hand, good candidates are available at a large number of lesser-known schools but the cost of reaching, evaluating and selecting them is very high. The Campus Recruitment Exchange (CRX) could be to a way to avoid the these horns of a dilemma.

The 12 Step Process

Conceptually, the CRX is nothing but a labour market, where students will sell themselves to the companies that bid the highest, or offer the best opportunities in terms of pay and job profiles. However restrictions are necessary so that the normal rules of campus recruitment, like single offers to each candidate and the sequence in which students are allowed to interact with a company ( “day 1” etc ) are followed. Without these restrictions the market will degenerate into a common job portal like naukri.com or timesjobs.com.  To avoid this, the following sequence of activities should be followed

1. A company will register on the CRX through an authorised principal HR representative (HR manager) who in turn will introduce other authorised representatives (HR executives) into the CRX.
2. Company HR reps will be responsible for creating various job profiles to be offered by the company -- each with its own job description and corresponding CTC. However these profiles will not be  visible until step 6.
3. A college will register on the CRX through an authorised and duly validated faculty member who in turn will introduce the student members of the school placement team into the CRX.
4. Students of the college will register and upload their CVs into the CRX. These CVs will be validated by the placement team of the college but will not be visible to companies until step 9.
5. College placement team members will interact with company HR representatives until specific company ( say Company A ) agrees to consider specific school  ( say School T )
6. Job profiles created by Company A will now be made available to placement team of School T.
7. School T placement team will now make Company A profiles available to general students of School T.
1. A Pre-Placement talk can be delivered on Skype and shown on a projected screen at School T
2. HR reps of Company A can be available on chat  or on forums to answer FAQs about the company.
8. Students of School T will decide whether they wish to apply for Company A or not -- this can be done through the CRX itself or even offline on school premises.
9. Placement team of School T will select students from School T and make specific profiles visible to Company A. The date on which Company A gets access to the student profiles will depend on the discretion of the placement team of School T.
1. It could so happen that Company X could access to shortlisted profiles of School T before Company A -- if School T believes that Company X is a better option than Company A. [ Company X gets a better “slot” than Company A]
2. It could also happen that not all student profiles from School T may be made available to Company A. The decision will be based on match of profiles or on whether specific student has got one or more jobs as defined by placement rules of School T.
10. Company A will create its own shortlist from the list of students provided by the campus team from School T. This could be based on a simple study of the data provided or could be through an online test. [ Identity of individual students participating in the online test will be validated by placement team of School T. If necessary a trusted third party could be used as well at additional cost]
1. If necessary Company A can conduct Group Discussion on a standard teleconference bridge. [ Identity of individuals participating in the GD will be confirmed as in the previous step ] -- this is perhaps the weakest link in the process  because Company HR reps may not be able to identify individual speakers by voice but with some effort, for example two webcams placed in the GD room, this can be overcome as well to an extent.
11. Final shortlisted candidates will be interviewed on Skype video. Multiple video interviews can be scheduled for the same candidate to address technical and HR concerns.
12. Company A will inform School T of final selections and issue appointment letters through the CRX. School T placement team will remove selected candidates  from shortlists of any company that comes after Company A unless
1. School T rules allow a student to get multiple offers
2. There are special cases like “dream company”

This is a first cut outline that provides a high level view of the process. Details can be filled in if necessary.

The trust factor

Developing the software to create the CRX engine would not be difficult -- far more complex exchanges, typically B2B exchanges,  have been created in the past but to make it work one would need :

1. Market players who will have to inject the appropriate amount of liquidity into the exchange. This means that
1. There should be a minimum number of recruiting companies (“buyers”)  who together will offer a certain number of job vacancies, and in parallel
2. There should be minimum number of schools (“sellers”) who will put up a significant number of students who are available for recruitment
2. A trusted, neutral market operator -- like a Stock Exchange or Commodity Exchange -- who will ensure that market rules are followed.

It is possible there could be some behind-the-back or below-the-table activities. Some students may directly approach companies of their choice bypassing the CRX

However if most companies and schools participate honestly -- as in the case of the regular campus recruitment -- then that should not be viewed as a major problem. The benefits accrued in terms of time and cost savings would more than compensate for the cost of aberrant behaviour exhibited by a small number of players.

While getting a neutral market operator may not be too difficult to get -- in fact, some of the existing job portals may be more than willing to play the role, earning the trust of a certain number of market players who will be willing to adapt to this new way of doing things may be more difficult. The real challenge would be to sell this idea to some big, anchor companies who would be willing to try out this new way of reaching an otherwise difficult market.

Delinking Placements from Education

People should go to college for education, to learn,  but the unfortunate fact is that they do so for getting jobs. The net result of this situation is that colleges and universities in general and b-schools in particular continue to be obsessed with placements. Potential students, and those who 'honestly' advise them, and this includes the media, both print and digital, have a religious faith in the holiness of the placement data -- percentage placed and the quantum of solace offered -- and this data has a very high weightage in the rankings that are published every now and then.

Curiously enough, the companies that hire graduates are less enthused with with placement data -- in fact they view this data with wariness and weariness because the better these are, the more they must pay and less sure they are of being ensured of a recruit. Nevertheless they do look at these rankings for the simple reason that the 'best' students would, probabilistically speaking, go to the 'top ranking' colleges, and so the probability of the recruitment team picking up a dud lemon is relatively less. As they used to say in the past, "No one was ever fired for buying from IBM" so is the case now that "No one can be faulted for recruiting from IIM".

Totally lost in all this complication is the fact that most colleges hardly teach anything of value nor are the students terribly interested in learning anything. They have come for a job and if they must tolerate two to four years of misery they would rather grin and bear it if there is a job at the end.

Which is a truly sorry state of affairs and this why despite having the "third largest scientific and technical manpower pool in the world" there is nothing substantial that comes out of our scientists and engineers and despite having a huge pool, or ocean, of computer programmers we cannot come out with any significant software product that is a best-seller even in our own country. All we have is ill trained 'engineers' desperate to cut code in software companies that pretend to be consultancy organisations and smart-ass MBAs who believe that presentations and spreadsheets are all that is required to run a business.

Can this change ? It could if we would muster the courage to shut down all placement cells in all colleges and remove all placement data from college rankings.

But would that not be insane ? It might seem so but it need not be. Robert Pirsig in his quasi-autobiographical book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about which I have written in my earlier post has explored a very similar idea as a part of his inquiry into the metaphysics of Quality. Pirsig, or rather his alter ego Phaedrus was a teacher of English composition and in his quest to improve the quality of work that his students produced came to the conclusion that grades or marks should be removed and then, and only then, will true quality emerge !

Obviously this was challenged by everyone. "Of course, you cannot eliminate the degree and the grade. After all that is what we are here for" said a student, who represented the general body. She spoke the complete truth  because the idea that a the majority of students attend the university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a little hypocrisy that no one wants to expose. [ ZAMM, Part 3, Chapter 16 ]

In the section quoted above, if we were to replace degree and grade with placement, the statement would very accurately reflect the situation that we are referring to in this post !

It would be futile for me to go through the entire logic that Phaedrus, nee Pirsig, used to justify his stance on the irrelevence of grades to education -- the reader may just as well read the chapter in its original but there are two things that we should remember here : (a) Phaedrus was fired from his job, declared insane, was given electro-shock therapy to make him forget his ideas ... BUT recovered enough to write the book which went on to become one of the greatest best sellers of the last century and earned him an iconic cult status all across the world ! and (b) Phaedrus conducted an experiment with one class where he withheld grades from the students for one whole semester and observed their behaviour, that is described in detail in the book. What is interesting is that when he polled his students BEFORE  eventually revealing the grades,  about the value or utility of this approach -- the majority of the top students, who eventually got A, favoured the system. The middle guys, B and C grades, were equally split and the worst students, those who got D and F, were vehemently opposed to the system. Which is paradoxical and contra-intuitive ! You would think that if the grade was all that really mattered then those who got A will value the grade more than those who got an F !

Phaedrus' hypothesis was that grades are inconsistent with, or at least not correlated to the quality of a students work. My hypothesis here is that placements are inconsistent with, or at least not corelated to the quality of education offered in a school or college.

In fact my personal and professional experience with CAT and JEE scores is that under the malignant influence of coaching classes these scores have lost all relevence as indicators of academic merit. In fact, some of the high scorers in the JEE can barely pass their semester exams while some of the students with high CAT scores are generally the bottom of the class. In  another post,  I have suggested an alternative approach but that is a different matter altogether. What this lack of correlation -- between CAT scores and actual ability  -- means is that the vicious nexus between "best students" going to the "best ranked" schools that ensure "best placements" can be broken once and for all.

If the really good students do not care about placements ( just as the Pirsig's good students did not care for their grades) then they will not be motivated to follow the placement-based rankings. Colleges will be under no pressure to hard-sell their students, improve their placement data and use the same to get the so called best students. Recruiting companies will feel no competitive compulsion to select students from this so called best-ranked schools. The entire artificial edifice of a placement driven education will, or should, crumble.

In a sense, the artificial and unnecessary "stress" induced in the system will, to borrow a phrase from a long forgotten subject called metallurgy, will be get relieved by a natural process of annealing and colleges will go back to doing what they were initially expected to do : provide good education through a model that encourages creativity and research.

Shikshajaal:21 - the education network for the 21st century

Affordability and Quality

Students located in remote and economically backward regions of the world are in critical need of good education and yet they are precisely the ones who cannot afford it. Since direct aid is both inefficient and inadequate, Shikshajaal:21 blends cutting edge technology and modern management techniques to  address this challenging goal.


Shikshajaal:21 believes that educational services at the K12 level cannot be delivered through fully automated channels because kids would not have the interest or the ability to learn on their own. Human teachers, empowered with tools and technology, are essential. However, competent and motivated teachers are rare in the regions of the world that we wish to target. So the model  uses technology as a “force multiplier” that enables a large number of ordinary people – teaching assistants –  to deliver high quality education to a dispersed student population.


The components of the Shikshajaal:21 architecture  are now described in terms of the physical infrastructure, human resources, software environment, management structure and financial model.

Physical Infrastructure

Since the school is the primary touch point between a K12 student and the world of knowledge, we need to have as many of these as possible built and rolled out quickly. To ensure speed, we need a standard, minimalist design whose major components can be pre-fabricated on an assembly line – like Liberty Ships of WWII – located centrally in each country or region and then shipped to its destination for final assembly.


Such a school would contain 10 classrooms to accommodate 12 classes  of 50 students each in two shifts,  have high bandwidth wireless internet connectivity with local WiFi, be powered by solar energy with battery and grid backup, have a rugged net-book for each student and a large display, either projection or LCD, in every classroom. In addition there should be a kitchen + cafeteria to lure poor students with mid-day meals – that have proved to be highly successful in reducing the drop out rates in India. Schools in affluent areas of the world may have more facilities than the minimalist set defined here.


The planning for the fabrication and logistics should be such that it should be possible to  commission two schools every week , on average, after the initial gestation period, so as to have, in a country like India, a new school in every parliamentary constituency  within a span of 5 years. This roll-out will be planned and managed by the Country Shikshajaal  organisation described later.

Human Resources

Each school should have a manager, a supervisor for all non-academic activities including physical maintenance and kitchen, and eight teaching assistants – three for science, three for humanities and two for languages – who should be able to facilitate learning based on the teaching software – which could be on-line, electronic or even physical – that will be created and distributed.


A central facility would have a pool of quality teachers who will work with experts to design and create teaching material in the appropriate  language and customised to local requirements.  This material will be designed as per global standards and on the technology platforms described in the next section. This central facility would also serve as a train-the-trainer hub for the teaching assistants to ensure quality and consistency across all schools across the country or the region. The recruitment and training of this cadre of  teaching assistants will be executed centrally by the Country Shikshajaal organisation described later.

Software Environment

Key to the success of the scheme is the premise that a cadre of teaching assistants armed and assisted with high quality, multi-media teaching aids will be able to deliver an educational experience of very high quality.


Teaching material could be developed in two possible formats : print-on-demand textbooks printed on inexpensive, recycled paper and on-line multimedia – slide shows, movies, interactive animations. The on-line content would be hosted on central web servers that would be accessible  with web browsers.  Some of the course ware would be tailored for  individual student browsers while others could be used on the teaching assistant's machine and shown on the blackboard style  large display available in each classroom.


While the exact software platform to be used can be decided later, and it would change and evolve with time in any case, the general construct would be based on the principle of Web 2.0 and its focus on user generated multi-media content, somewhat similar to an Orkut style social network. Specific applications can then be bolted on using the Open Social ( or similar open ) APIs to deliver virtually any kind of educational or collaborative functionality.


Simulation software will  be a key component of the repertoire.  Beginning with traditional models of science laboratories and experiments , newer platforms based on maps, games and 3D Virtual worlds would be introduced so that students can explore remote regions with reality based applications like Google Earth, participate immersively,  in Second Life type simulations of  ancient Egypt or Mughal India or attend readings and enactments of great literature. Students would also be encouraged to escape from their physical classroom, as avatars, and participate along with avatars of students from other schools across the world in virtual events of their specific choice – for example a lecture on Vikings that is otherwise not on the curriculum for students in India. Social networking with MMORPG and 3D Virtual Worlds will lead to a new level of globalisation of young and inquisitive minds – the kind that happens with physical country visits.


All courseware should be developed on the lines of free and open source software and be available under Creative Commons for modification, localisation and language translation.   
Students from Class VI – XII can be formally evaluated with on-line examinations that would their test skills of analysis – through on-line games and puzzles, and of synthesis – through project reports, term papers and  time bound essay style answers to questions that can be automatically scanned for plagiarism and then reviewed by a pool of distributed examiners.

Management Structure

Technology changes but institutions survive on the strength of management structure that governs them. Shikshajaal:21 would have a three-tier management structure that would be layered as follows

• A private global organisation,  Shikshajaal Global, structured as widely-held public limited company,  with no individual,  organisation or government holding more than 1% of the equity. It should be incorporated in one of the global financial centres.
• This organisation would be responsible for defining and ensuring global standards in technology, governance, course material, pedagogy and financial audit.
• A national level organisation, Country Shikshajaal, structured as a public limited company with 26% equity held by Shikshajaal Global,  24% held by the national government in lieu of the free-hold land donated to build the schools and the other 50% held by the national public.
• This organisation would be responsible for the management of the central facilities,  building the schools, development of the course ware, training of the teachers and would ensure quality and consistency of teaching and evaluation at the local school level.
• Each school will be operated as a franchisee of  the Country Shikshajaal by a local entrepreneur who will lease the physical facility of the school from Country Shikshajaal, hire staff  and operate it on a management contract at a specified return on investment. After a specified period of time, the local entrepreneur, if found adequate would be allowed to buy out the facility at a mutually  negotiated price and operate the school on his own, for profit.

Financial Model

Initial capital for this enterprise will be raised at both global and national levels through a variety of channels. Shikshajaal Global will negotiate with both national and multilateral aid agencies to secure low cost finance and after appropriate due diligence deploy the same as either equity or  debt in the various Country Shikshajaal organisations.


Country Shikshajaal  organisations will, in addition to the equity and debt injected by Shikshajaal Global, raise additional funds locally through a variety of low cost instruments like Government backed sovereign bonds and other special instruments  – like the popular tax-free Infrastructure Bonds in India. This debt and equity will be serviced by the levy of a franchisee fee payable,  by each operational school, for each student.


Each school in turn will meet its operational cost and pay its franchisee fee by money raised as tuition fee from the students. No school will be free but a part of the tuition fee – ranging from 0% to 95%, depending on the socio-economic indicators of the locality and the economic status of the student – will be subsidised through a cess levied on municipal, state or central government taxes or even by international aid agencies, if necessary. This subsidy would be transferred to Country Shikshajaal on a per student basis. Hence society will pay for the education of its children both individually and collectively through the route of taxation.


Operational costs will be also be met by donations, of  cash or equipment,  or  labour donated in the creation of  open source learning material. The schools themselves can generate revenue by renting out their premises, on holidays and after school hours, for community and social events.
But the biggest contribution to operational cost will come through advertisements placed inside educational content – both on-line as well as printed textbooks. If the entire free-to-air television industry can be profitably supported by advertisements placed by producers of FMCG and lifestyle products, then there is no reason why a part of this huge ad-spend, cannot be redirected – in a controlled and responsible manner – towards defraying the costs of education. The on-line advertisement model pioneered by Hotmail, Google and others can be used to generate significant revenue.

The ascent of man

A key indicator of social progress is the increase in the operational efficiency  of civic mechanisms  as  evident in advances of technology – from wheel and fire to cars and electricity – and a parallel evolution of institutions – from tribes and guilds to democracy  and multinational corporates.



Shikshajaal:21 is a unique public private partnership education model that simultaneously addresses both these issues.  It uses modern management techniques and funding models to build a platform on which  a whole range of  educational technology can be deployed to create a flexible and efficient delivery mechanism. This will ensure that the money that society in general, and governments in particular, invest in education is spent in a manner that squeezes out inefficiency,  reduces the possibility of  corruption and delivers a service that meets or exceeds expectations.

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[ written for the The Economist-Innocentive Ideation Challenge ]

CBSE XII as Common Entrance Examination

In an earlier post on de-stressing higher education, I had argued about the irrelevance of the JEE / AIEEE as instruments of selection for entrance to higher education and the Damodar Acharya committee has recommended that the JEE should be scrapped. This is good. But the proposal to replace the same with a SAT style aptitude test is not a good solution either.

These aptitude tests -- earlier referred to as IQ tests -- have been found to be rather flawed because they seem to measure one aspect of what is known as "intelligence" or "aptitude" and would again be another strain on the students. Instead, let us focus on one examination and let that be the CBSE XII.

Why do I say this ? Because the cost and effort involved in managing the logistics of two nationwide examinations is better utilised in making sure that one examination is managed better. Second,  by making the process more broad based, we will be able to iron out the vagaries and uncertainties of performance delivered by a student on just one day.

Of course it may be argued that students who appear in non-CBSE boards would be at a disadvantage but strictly speaking they are already inconvenienced by having to take their own board examination plus the SAT-style aptitude test. However the CBSE XII would be closer in syllabus to any other board examination than any new SAT style aptitude test. So yes, CBSE students may be at an advantage but no, the advantage would not be any worse than the present situation where students are forced to take JEE / AIEEE / VITEE / State JEE / BITSAT and a whole slew of other examinations.

Ideally speaking all students should take just one examination at the end of class XII but given the diversity of opinion in India and the argumentative nature of the population this may take some time but the CBSE XII could be a good first step in this direction.

Looking ahead, a possible and feasible road map could be as follows

1. The percentile marks in the CBSE XII should be selection criteria for all Central universities like IIT, NIT etc.  All students will have to take at best one and at worst two examinations for all central colleges

2. At some point in time, State government and private engineering colleges will see the benefit of using CBSE XII as an entrance examination.

3. After some more time -- and subject to some honest political soul searching -- state level boards may agree to merge their XII exam with the CBSE XII. This may be facilitated if states can be given a position of authority within the CBSE hierarchy.

4. This road map will be greatly facilitated if the CBSE XII can be conducted multiple times in the same year so that students can take the examination at leisure and in comfort. Calculation of percentile in the CBSE XII can be done on the basis of multi year population -- this has been done successfully in GRE / GMAT for years -- and this will ensure greater reliability and stability of scores.

The only resistance to this approach would be from those who administer this plethora of tests. There is significant money that is spent in conducing these national level examinations and a good part of the money that is spent ends up -- legitimately or otherwise -- in people's pockets. A slowdown in this money flow may be unfortunate reason why a single CBSE XII may opposed by the nation's education system.

Education Delivery Model : Encouraging Creation, not Consumption of Knowledge

"You can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink"

In the context of enhancing the delivery capabilities of the education system, we should perhaps rephrase the statement as "You should lead a horse to the water, but desist from spoon feeding it"

As it is, those who manage to get into IIT -- either at the UG or the PG level -- have their originality and creativity ironed out of them, or at least significantly degraded, by the coaching classes that tutor them for the entrance examination. To compensate for this, teachers in IIT must go the extra mile to erase the effect of cramming and learning by rote -- the hall mark of a successful coaching class -- and awaken in their students a sense of wonder about the world of knowledge and instill in them the confidence of stepping out of their zone of comfort and address intellectual challenges of the highest degree.

What this could mean in practice is a reduction in the importance of the text book and examinations as tools and the progressive usage of the world wide web, as well as the library, as a way to not just gather facts but also publish analyses and interpretations into the public domain.

The Indian education system is perpetually dominated by the grim dark clouds of an examination -- right from kindergarten, all the way through X, XII, JEE, CAT, mid terms, end terms and comprehensives -- and a person's "success" is measured by marks obtained at every step of the way. Here the definition of success is debatable but instead of splitting hairs on this let us explore what all we can do.

Obviously, this lethal cocktail of text books and examinations cannot be done away with completely -- the system would collapse into an unstructured academic anarchy -- but four specific ideas could be introduced.

1. Students should be encouraged to locate multiple sources of information, preferably newer sources of information, well beyond what is written in a text book, if at all there is one that is prescribed. Ideally this would be websites, blogs, discussion forums and scholarly archives. Library books and journals are also equal candidates
2. Students should be encouraged to "publish" not just in peer-reviewed journals -- which may call for effort not normally expected in a normal UG or PG course -- but on their own blogs and in case studies, term papers and working papers that are uploaded in web2.0 communities. The ability to collect ones thoughts --and the facts that have been picked up through the process described in point 1, synthesize them into a unique point of view and articulate that in a cogent and understandable manner is an essential foundation for future research leading to traditional publications in refereed journals.
3. Collaborative learning should be the key because the image of the "mad" scientist working alone in his den-like-laboratory has either become dated or was never quite correct. Modern science and technology calls for significant collaboration within and across communities -- department, institutes and even countries and this collaborative approach should be woven into the fabric of our delivery process in the form of cross-functional teams. These should be tasked to not only identify problems and evolve solutions and but should also participate in the evaluation and if possible implementation of the idea.
4. Failures should be tolerated as these are the pillars of success. The person who has never made a mistake is perhaps the same person who has never done anything new in this life and the society for which we wish to prepare our students does not need such people! Experimentation should be encouraged, recklessness should be cautioned against but failures should be seen, not as objects of ridicule but as a learning opportunity. Practically this means rewarding not just results but also activity.

Consumption of knowledge should be replaced by creation of knowledge