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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

October - 2011 - issue > Startup of the month

Interviewstreet: Helping you hire Programming Wizards

si Team
Monday, October 3, 2011
si Team
Be it a multinational corporation, a medium sized organization or a tiny startup, if there is one challenge that transcends all barriers across the three it is the challenge of hiring the right talent. With millions talented professionals out there in the market, how does a company ensure that they are grabbing the right professional suitable to their needs. Most recruitment companies help in generalized recruitment of professionals across different levels — from a fresh out of college techie to mid level managers to CXOs. But when it comes to hiring programming wizards, they fall back and this is where Interviewstreet can help.

Founded in 2009, by two NIT Trichy graduates — Vivek Ravisankar and K Harishankaran, Interviewstreet is an online platform that helps companies and recruiters to create an online test that probable candidates need to take post before they are selected for a face to face interview. This filtering process consists of programming, multiple choice and subjective questions. The codechecker evaluates the candidate’s code against various test cases and provides a performance analysis of the code against them. From C, C++, C#, Java, Ruby, Python and other languages, programmers can code in any of these. The test consists usually consists of two coding questions, three multiple choice questions (MCQ) and one descriptive question. While the coding questions are developed by Interviewstreet the MCQ and the descriptive questions can be provided by the client. Currently they are working on allowing companies to make their own coding questions too. Also companies can customize the test by putting as many questions as they deem fit. The candidates get the answers to the coding questions and MCQs right after the test while the descriptive answers have to be manually checked.Interviewstreet charges $2 per candidate who takes test.

Apart from this, Interviewstreet also develops independent coding challenges where in programmers/developers can participate and hack. This allows the company to create a database of good programmers/coders which to whenever a client comes up with a requirement. In a very short time the company has secured multiple clients both in India and the U.S. Facebook, Flipkart, Bank Bazaar are just a few of the 50 plus companies that are using its services.

The company had initially started as a platform for taking mock interviews for management colleges and some top IT companies. But the idea did not take off and changed the business model by focusing on helping companies simplify the hiring process.

The company has a strong backing from Morpheus Ventures but was recently chosen by Y Combinator, the iconic Silicon Valley seed fund, for its incubation program, making Interviewstreet the first Indian company to achieve this. The program comes with seed funding and an intense three-month mentoring regime from some of the world's leading technology investors.

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