Senior Associate, Recruiter Partnerships

Job Description

About Us:

We are Kraftshala. We are an online higher education institution committed to playing the long game of building a transformative skilling experience for the masses. We call this Scaling with Soul.

Scaling with Soul, to us, means we always prioritise student outcomes specifically our Placement Rate (percentage of students placed)- over other metrics, such as number of enrolments or company valuation in the coming year.

This is, of course, easier said than done. There are painful choices to be made at every stage, from admissions to training to placements, that wouldn't have been needed were we willing to give up on either of high quality or scale.

But in the long run, we believe that our obsession over these student outcomes will earn Kraftshala the trust of Indian students, their families, recruiting companies and the broader ecosystem.

That's why we make each of our Placement Reports public, capturing how many students are placed in each batch, in what companies, at what salaries etc.

We don't need to. None of our competitors do (though we'd be happy to be proven wrong and have more educators join us). Simply put, we have tasted the benefits of an education model grounded in high quality paired with the transparency of student outcomes and now cannot imagine doing it any other way.

We are not the largest in terms of enrollments. Not yet.

However, we are proud to be one of the largest, if not the largest already, in terms of actual, verifiable placements.

And in terms of Placement Rate, the metric that matters most to us, we are the absolute best in edtech. In the last 4 years, we have placed more than 2400+ students with a Placement Rate of 94% (and improving).

This is our long game- to Scale with Soul. We invite you to join us for the play.

Funding:

Kraftshala is backed by number of eminent investors, including

- Phanindra Sama and Sudhakar Pasupunuri, co-founders at Redbus and early investors in unicorns like Unacademy
- Amit Kumar Agarwal, Saurabh Garg and Akhil Gupta, co-founders at Nobroker.com (the world's largest NoBrokerage Property Site and India's first realty startup unicorn)
- Sujayathi Ali, Co-founder at ShopUp and Voonik
- Doreswamy Nandkishore (Former Fortune 100 CEO, Head of Asia, Oceania, Africa for Nestl S.A. and Professor, ISB)
- Pallav Jain and Sarfaraz Khimani (co-CEOs of Performics, India's largest SEO/ performance marketing agencies)

What do we value (the Kraftshala Kode):

Kraftshala is on a mission to become the largest career launchpad in the world.

Team Kraftshala is for the ambitious, the forever-learners, and most of all, for those who live to add value to others. In a world where education companies often lose sight of their core, we aim to Scale with Soul, to offer greater value to each stakeholder (including our team) everyday we get bigger.

Joining Kraftshala now means becoming part of a story still in its early chapters- one you'll help shape with your ideas, actions, and leadership. Here are things we care for:

1. We seek a value-adding mindset in prospective team mates. Folks who demonstrate a capacity to understand their users needs and are willing to go the extra mile to deliver on that, fit right in.
2. We value problem solving skills. We look at problems objectively, work backwards from the user, solve for root causes and optimise for their long-term good instead of our short-term gain. We don't let processes or hierarchies get in the way of adding value.
3. We believe speed matters enormously in business. We value people who move with urgency, have a bias for action and are willing to take calculated risks in the face of uncertainty.
4. We look for people with high learning agility, those truth seekers who pursue the best data, ideas, and solutions with rigour and open mindedness, and are constantly working to become better today than yesterday.
5. We admire people with ambition & courage to take on large goals. We are seeking to build a team of self-starters who demonstrate high ownership.
6. We aim for consistency and reliability and expect the same from others. Predictability just makes everyone's life a lot smoother.
7. We believe people who demonstrate candour with care are the most effective: real, open and direct in communication, while still being highly empathetic.
8. We have learnt that Scaling with Soul requires frugality. Resource constraints help sharpen focus and breed inventiveness.
9. We are practical optimists. Our team strongly believes in a better future and takes joy and pride in the fact that we are playing our part to make that future a reality.

Role Description

Kraftshala runs training programs in Marketing and Sales for candidates seeking entry-level positions. The high placement percentage of our students is one of the biggest reasons they choose Kraftshala, which is why the Recruiter Partnerships team is such a critical team within Kraftshala.

The primary metric you have to move in this role is Student Placements. For this, the work is split into 2 parts:

Building New Relationships and Strengthening Current Ones

- Identifying, developing, and winning new recruiter partnerships, in addition to strengthening current ones, for placing our students
- Understanding hiring needs and challenges to craft value-added propositions
- Establishing relationships and credibility with C - levels/Heads among prospective companies
- Staying abreast with the recruitment ecosystem and keeping an eye out on who's hiring for what roles

Managing the Operations of Placements

Placements are not just driven by initiating relationships but also flawless execution. While you will have support from an operations team, placement processes can be complex, and you will need to stay on top of the execution and optimize consistently.

- Co-creating an effective hiring process that works for the recruiter and gives them the best chance of hiring from Kraftshala
- Planning timelines effectively and communicating consistently with all stakeholders to ensure they are met as much as possible
- Staying on top of the operations of the placement process and intervening as and when necessary
- Coordinating with different stakeholders, internal and external, to manage recruitment processes

Monthly Outcomes:

Month 1:

- Understand Kraftshala's training programs and student profiles in depth.
- Shadow ongoing recruiter conversations and placement processes.
- Build a tracker for recruiter needs and hiring cycles.

Month 2:

- Independently start engaging with recruiters (CXOs/HR Heads).
- Own specific placement processes with operational support.
- Identify at least 5 new recruiter prospects and initiate outreach.

Month 3+:

- Consistently close recruiter partnerships and manage end-to-end placement processes.
- Drive placements for a defined set of students/companies.
- Optimize processes to reduce friction and improve recruiter experience.

Top Grading:

- Impactful Communication: An A-Player communicates with clarity and presence, influencing senior stakeholders and building credibility quickly. A B-Player communicates in a way that lacks conviction, leading to weak influence or misalignment.
- User Centricity and Value Addition: An A-Player builds long-term trust with CXOs/HR leaders, customizing value propositions. A B-Player treats relationships as transactional and fails to maintain trust over time.
- Ability to Plan Well: An A-Player anticipates recruiter timelines, aligns resources, and creates structured plans to meet placement goals. A B-Player reacts to events as they come and often misses deadlines due to poor planning.
- Bias for Action: An A-Player acts decisively, moves conversations forward, and removes bottlenecks without waiting for direction. A B-Player delays decisions, overanalyzes, or waits for others to push progress.
- Conflict Management: An A-Player addresses conflicts directly, listens empathetically, and seeks winwin resolutions with recruiters, students, and internal teams. A B-Player avoids tough conversations, lets issues linger, or escalates prematurely.
- Ownership: An A-Player takes full responsibility for placement outcomes end-to-end, stepping in wherever required to ensure success. A B-Player limits responsibility to their tasks and deflects when outcomes slip.
- Problem-Solving: An A-Player uses data and recruiter/student insights to diagnose root causes before acting and validates solutions before scaling. A B-Player acts on instinct or visible symptoms and implements fixes without understanding the underlying issue.

Must-Have Skills:

- 2+ years of prior experience in B2B / B2C Sales or Placement Management (We are not too fussed about the number of years. Experience is simply a proxy for capability, which is what we really care for).
- Empathy and a high Emotional Quotient to actively engage with clients, understand & solve their challenges
- Working knowledge of MS Office (Excel, Word, and Powerpoint) and comfort with the general usage of tools and technologies that support process automation

Location

Delhi