ZigMe: The HR-Led Startup Fixing India’s Fresher Hiring Crisis

In boardrooms and interview rooms across India, HR professionals Meenakshi Ginodia Jalan and Rima Naware kept seeing the same problem: Hiring is always on—but finding quality candidates is not easy.

There’s a sea of enthusiastic, maybe even academically credentialed candidates who simply weren’t ready for the jobs they wanted. They had degrees, but lacked clarity. They had ambition, but struggled with interviews. Most importantly, they didn’t know how to present themselves to hiring managers. Additionally, the current placement ecosystem in India is heavily concentrated in premier colleges, leaving a massive pool of untapped, capable talent from other institutions unnoticed.

That gap, between education and employability, became the genesis of ZigMe, a career enablement platform built not just to train, but to transform.

The Founders: HR Experts With a Shared Purpose

With over 40 years of combined HR experience, Meenakshi and Rima (fondly known as #RiMakshi) have led HR functions across companies like Infosys, SREI, Electrolux, and NextGen. Their partnership is not just professional, but deeply personal. They’ve navigated motherhood and entrepreneurship side-by-side, building ZigMe during pregnancies, raising children while closing client deals, and championing career returnees through example.

Today, ZigMe reflects that ethos. Its own team includes women re-entering the workforce—a workplace built by and for those often left out.

A Full-Stack, Student-First Hiring Solution

Founded in Mumbai in 2024, ZigMe blends digital scale with physical engagement, offering practical tools and personalised guidance. The team has established campus relations with over 5500 colleges across India and within its first year, reached over 35 colleges—including IITs—onboarded 8,000+ students, and partnered with 70+ hiring companies.

The platform’s offerings are built on what employers value most: VIBE Resume Builder with video intros and polished formatting; Workplace DNA Tests that assess candidate-role fit; PrepMe modules delivering bite-sized training in soft skills, and real-time mock interviews with actionable feedback.

Unlike many competitors, ZigMe is the product of real-world HR experience. It was designed by professionals who understand hiring pain points from the inside, not just as a tech challenge. This insight shapes a platform that is deeply accessible, particularly to the 80% of Indian graduates underserved by elite career services. It’s a digital-first yet deeply human solution, powered by inclusive values, especially for the larger masses of degree students and also women re-entering the workforce, with a commitment to equitable employment for all.

Target Market: India Beyond the Metros

While many skilling platforms focus on elite institutions, ZigMe flips the script by serving a broad spectrum of users often overlooked in mainstream hiring ecosystems. Its core audience includes graduates from tier-2, tier-3, and tier-4 colleges, as well as job seekers from general degree backgrounds. The startup also caters to companies hiring across departments like sales, HR, operations, and support functions. With over 10 million graduates emerging annually in India, yet only 20-25% considered job-ready, ZigMe is tapping into a vast, underserved market hungry for career transformation and writing the on-ground script for the Indian Workforce, which the world knows us for. 

A Scalable, Inclusive Business Model

ZigMe sustains its mission through a dual revenue stream spanning both B2B and B2C segments. For companies, the platform charges ₹5,999 per successful fresher hire and also organises curated bulk-hiring events. Students can access freemium features, such as video resumes, mock interviews, and career DNA assessments, starting at just ₹199, with most foundational content freely available. 

Colleges can opt into institutional packages priced from ₹25,000, enabling batch-wide assessments and workshops. This pricing strategy, combined with scalable digital infrastructure and AI-based tools, allows ZigMe to reach deep into non-urban India without being hindered by logistical limitations.

Impact & Recognition

ZigMe isn’t just transforming careers; it’s reshaping norms. Women returning to the workforce constitute a significant portion of its team. Thousands of first-generation students in small towns have gained professional confidence through ZigMe’s interventions. 

These results haven’t gone unnoticed: the company has been featured in SiliconIndia as a Top 10 Workforce Development Consultant, and both founders have received accolades at the World HRD Congress and Dr. Tarita Shankar Awards.

Looking Ahead

ZigMe's vision for the future is expansive yet rooted in its core values. The team aims to expand to 1000+ colleges, introduce new PrepMe modules focused on workplace etiquette and salary negotiation, and popularize industry-first concepts of automated speed interviews and featured filters like average CTC at college level etc for employers to economize time, efficiency and costs. Looking further ahead, the platform plans to scale into other emerging markets across South Asia and Africa, where similar education-to-employment gaps persist.

Founders Meenakshi and Rima offer seasoned advice to aspiring entrepreneurs:

"Start with what you know. Build as you go." "Be ready to show up—even if no one expects you to." "Say yes early, but learn when to say no."