‘AI is revolutionising tech hiring and careers in India’: Masai School CEO Prateek Shukla

Institutes like Masai School are helping students launch their tech careers while also assisting companies to hire the right talent. The school’s AI-driven platforms assess student skills, mapping competencies, and help match candidates to the right jobs.

Masai School recently launched its AI-powered platform, which the company believes will revolutionise the entire tech hiring process. Indianexpress.com sat down with CEO Prateek Shukla for a deep dive into AI and its influence on careers in India.

Shukla said that LevelUp is all set to redefine the outdated tech recruitment process across the country. “LevelUp assigns a level to each job seeker by assessing their skills and mapping their competencies. Based on that level, candidates can unlock companies that align with their abilities,” added the CEO.

“The biggest incumbent in this space is LinkedIn. They’re still sharing thousands of resumes with no way to effectively match candidates. LevelUp reduces hiring time and brings much-needed efficiency to make tech hiring seamless,” he added.

The AI Advantage for Job Seekers

According to Shukla, for students, AI unlocks new pathways to launching tech careers, regardless of their academic background. “As many as 65% of our learners come from non-computer science backgrounds. They have no way to start a tech career. We help them gain skills in fields like software development, data analytics, and more.”

Shukla said that AI enables a personalised learning approach based on each student’s strengths. “With AI, we can understand learning curves and make sure everyone succeeds, rather than taking a spray and pray approach.”

When it comes to employers, AI can transform tech recruitment by accurately assessing the hard and soft skills of candidates. Shukla said that human interviewers following AI question prompts can remove bias and subjectivity from the hiring process.

Masai School uses AI to objectively quantify skills to prove someone’s abilities as a developer or whatever skillset they are trained for. According to Shukla, this competency mapping is something similar to the CIBIL Score that offers a summary of one’s credit history. However, in this case, it has more to do with skilling.

Human touch remains

Although AI may bring the power of data and analytics to the hiring process, Shukla agrees that human oversight will remain valuable in assessing candidates. “Wherever humans are involved, it’s backed by a generative AI layer. The AI assesses candidates in parallel by transcribing interviews and analysing responses. This reduces human dependency in the interview process,” he said.

In essence, platforms like LevelUp are attempting to offer a hybrid recruitment mechanism that balances AI with human assessment. According to the CEO, this could translate to higher-quality hires. For students, this would open doors of new opportunities regardless of their academic background.

When asked about AI’s proliferation in Indian companies, Shukla said, “The adaptability to new things happens faster at startups than at large companies. But AI will keep trickling down as people realise it makes them more productive.”

The biggest advantage of the AI revolution for India is that it could address the skill gap, empower students, and help companies across sizes and industries hire qualified talents. AI is seen as a defining moment in edtech and recruitment, with more and more companies and institutions embracing and integrating it.