Since its commencement in Raipur, Headstart has been playing an active role in making the start-up ecosystem in Raipur more vibrant with its various initiatives. By organizing Headstart Higher, a ‘speed dating’ format based hiring event which was first of its kind in Raipur, team of Headstart Raipur showed their diligence towards enabling a well-groomed start-up culture by connecting enthusiastic job seekers with few prominent early-stage start-ups based out of Chhattisgarh.
Most of the Headstart initiatives being held in Raipur are basically concerned with training budding entrepreneurs and supporting evolving start-ups. Though quite successful in fulfilling the main motto, a realisation also dawned upon that there’s a dire need for a common platform which could connect start-up ready candidates with nascent stage start-ups in Raipur as communication and awareness still remains a major glitch in tier-2 cities. Hence, Headstart Higher was needed to be put in place.
Right from the day the first post calling candidates and start-ups was rolled out, a myriad of job seekers and givers were seen showing interest, owing to the very unique nature of this event which was less of a job fair but more of an interaction cum interview session. In all, 80 candidates, both from tech & non-tech fields, were shortlisted and 11 start-ups working in diverse sectors applied to participate.
On the day of the event, the entire format was thoroughly explained to all the participants. Also, each start-up was given an opportunity to pitch in front of the candidates. Further, 11 start-ups were placed in different sections based on their requirements of tech or non-tech candidates. A batch of 11 candidates was taken at a time and each was given 5 minutes with one start-up, post which a whistle was blown and the next batch of 11 candidates were called in. Altogether, a candidate gave interviews to 11 companies in 55 minutes. 
The event was held in the office space provided by our venue partner 36INC, which is Chhattisgarh government’s start-ups incubator. Support provided by 36INC has been incredible throughout Headstart’s journey in Raipur, especially while coordinating with target start-ups. Also, at their first Higher event, Headstart Raipur took help from 2 start-ups and utilised their products to ease out the entire process. While Zoodify App helped in keeping a live track of the event, CrowProduct helped in avoiding any paper work by giving the details related to each candidate to start-ups, helping them in short listing candidates much easily. Feedbacks received were really overwhelming. “Not only did I get an opportunity to interact with 11 start-ups but also I learnt about weak areas in my profile” says Ankit Roy. Such reviews have given a boost to the entire team in Raipur who look forward to make the next event even better.
Contributed by:
Bhavya Pathak
Volunteer, Raipur