STARTUP
When 7,000 Interviews for 10 Hires Became Too Much - Two Friends Built an AI to Fix Hiring
Two VIT graduates, Akshat Gupta and Anand Suresh, built Expert Hire, an IIT Madras–incubated AI platform that simplifies hiring by bridging readiness gaps, offering AI-driven mock interviews, feedback, and recruiter-focused automation.
When 7,000 Interviews for 10 Hires Became Too Much - Two Friends Built an AI to Fix Hiring
The Hiring Headache That Sparked It All
After college, Akshat led recruitment for his previous company. What sounded exciting at first soon became a nightmare. “For each university I visited, I had to interview 5,000 to 7,000 students just to find the top 10 hires,” Akshat recalls. “And I did that for three consecutive years. It was exhausting, not because students weren’t capable, but because there was no real way to know who was ready.”
Switching to LinkedIn didn’t help much either. “LinkedIn gives you thousands of applicants,” he says, “but converting them into actual, meaningful interviews is almost impossible. Recruiters drown in quantity while missing out on quality.”
That’s when the duo decided to build a simple tool to streamline interviews and screen candidates intelligently. But while testing it, they stumbled upon a bigger insight - the root cause wasn’t technology. It was readiness.
The Moment of Realization
Across hundreds of mock interviews, one thing stood out: students everywhere were making the same mistakes.
Resumes often had the most recent experience buried at the bottom instead of the top. Educational details weren’t in order. During interviews, candidates stuttered, froze, or came across as underconfident.
“It wasn’t that they didn’t know their subject,” says Anand. “They just didn’t know how to present it. Some aced technical rounds but stumbled in HR rounds. Others were fluent communicators but weak in fundamentals. What they lacked wasn’t intelligence, it was practice.”
Soon, a few universities where Akshat used to recruit invited him and Anand to train students directly. That’s when everything clicked. “We realized we could actually prepare students the right way by showing them how companies really hire,” Akshat explains.
From Training Students to Building a Scalable Platform
As the idea grew, the two turned it into something bigger, a platform that could simulate interviews, analyze responses, and give personalized feedback to improve every attempt. What began as a side project has now started looking like a scalable business model.
That’s how Expert Hire was born, a smart hiring and interview-readiness platform that helps both students and employers. Backed by IIT Madras Incubation Cell, Expert Hire combines AI-based assessments with real recruiter logic to make hiring more efficient and fair.
“Every company wants to hire faster and smarter. Every candidate wants to feel prepared,” says Anand. “We built Expert Hire to make both sides win.”
The Mentors Who Turned Insight Into Industry Wisdom
While building the product, Akshat and Anand realized they understood the student side well, but not enough about how experienced recruiters think. That’s when fate introduced them to Wendy Liu and Atul Bhave, two prominent leaders in the recruitment and MSP (Managed Service Provider) ecosystem.
“Wendy and Atul changed everything,” Akshat says. “They gave us a 360-degree view of the industry, how staffing really works, how agencies evaluate talent, and where inefficiencies hide. They even helped us land our first staffing-agency client.”
Armed with those insights, Expert Hire expanded from student assessments to helping recruiters identify, interview, and hire candidates faster using the same AI engine originally built for student training.
A Global Platform, Built in India
Today, Expert Hire has a presence in five countries, serving universities, companies, and staffing partners. The platform has already supported over 15,000 students through mock interviews, resume reviews, and AI-driven evaluations.
What sets it apart is its balanced focus on both job seekers and employers. Candidates can practice real interview scenarios, receive AI-generated feedback, and track their improvement. Recruiters, meanwhile, can use the same system to assess technical and communication skills before scheduling live interviews - saving hours of screening time.
Recently, the team launched a global access program where anyone can sign up and get two free AI interviews and two free resume optimizations. “It’s our way of making hiring readiness universal,” Akshat says. “No student or job seeker should feel left behind just because they didn’t have guidance.”
The Mission Ahead
From two friends at VIT to founders of an IIT-Madras–incubated company, Akshat and Anand have come a long way, but they still see this as just the beginning.
Their vision is to make Expert Hire the world’s most practical AI-driven talent ecosystem where universities, job seekers, and recruiters all grow together.
“Good candidates don’t need luck,” Akshat says with a smile. “They just need the right practice, and that’s exactly what we’re here to give.”
