Designing
Naukri Campus - A Career Platform for Fresh Graduates
From campus hiring portal to early-career ecosystem
0 → 1 Product Design
B2C + B2B
Context
FirstNaukri was Info Edge's platform for campus and fresher hiring.
It mainly worked for final-year engineering students, onboarding them through job postings during placement season.
Over time, the platform
stopped scaling:
⏰
Students came in very late in
their journey
📉
Engagement dropped sharply outside placements
🛡️
Recruiters struggled to trust
fresher signals
🧱
The platform plateaued at around 4 lakh users
At the same time, student behavior had changed. Career exploration was starting much earlier, often outside Naukri, and students relied on multiple fragmented sources to prepare.
Early-career hiring at scale was breaking down.
The
Core Problem
The platform was optimised for placement-season job discovery, not early-career development.
Students joined late, engagement was transactional, and recruiters relied mostly on resumes rather than demonstrated skills or participation signals.
The challenge was to design an experience that supported students before hiring began, while generating meaningful signals for recruiters and campuses.
Research
Signals
We conducted research with:
✔️
Telephonic interviews with 100+ FirstNaukri users
✔️
In-person connected with students across Tier I–III campuses
✔️
In-person connects with recruiters involved in fresher hiring
Three clear patterns emerged:
🧩
Students prepared for careers using external, scattered resources
⏰
Job search intent appeared late, often after graduation
🛡️
FirstNaukri was not seen as a complete or credible career destination
This led to a key decision:
Instead of evolving FirstNaukri, we would build a segmented
early-career experience within Naukri.com
Core Insights
Early-career platforms cannot depend on job discovery alone. They must support career readiness before hiring begins.
The core problem wasn't discoverability.
It was signal quality.
How the Platform was Structured
We created Naukri Campus, an early-career platform integrated within Naukri. The experience was structured around three pillars:
Prepare
tools and guidance for career readiness
Participate
contests, events, and skill-building activities
Find Work
jobs and internships
This lifecycle model ensured students
could engage with the platform throughout their academic journey, not just during placement season.
Key Experience Decisions
🧭
Lifecycle-based platform structure
Organising the experience into Prepare, Participate, and Find Work created a continuous engagement loop rather than a seasonal hiring interaction.
🎪
Events as acquisition + signal generation
We introduced quarterly national-scale events (NCAT, Young Turks, Engineers’ Ring of Honour, etc.) offering scholarships, rewards, and recognition.
These events,
✔️
Drove student acquisition.
✔️
Increased engagement
✔️
Generate skill & participation signals
📊
Skill-signal data layer
Student activity across tools, events, and assessments contributed to a growing dataset of competencies that could later support recruiter discovery and campus insights.
Aptitude
Quantitative
Verbal
Logical reasoning
00
Total points
200
points
Begineer
00
Days streak
T
W
T
F
F
S
M
Start quiz
Java
Quantitative
Verbal
Logical reasoning
899
Total points
1200
points
PRO
30
Days streak
T
W
T
F
F
S
M
Quiz starts in 02Hrs 30Mins
View details
What Changed for Recruiters & Campuses
As students engaged across preparation and participation, the platform started building stronger signals - skills, interests, readiness, and intent.
For recruiters, this meant:
✔️
Earlier visibility into fresher talent
✔️
More confidence in profiles
beyond resumes
✔️
Less dependence on last-minute screening
Campuses gained better visibility into student outcomes and a clearer bridge between preparation and placement.
Impact
Naukri Campus has grown into a large early-career platform:
🚀
50L+
Campus students onboarded so far since Apr’24
📈
11L : 1.5L
MAU : DAU on the Naukri Campus platform
🏫
55%
Penetration across
Top-Tier institutes across India
More importantly, students now engage with the platform before graduation, creating stronger readiness signals and improving recruiter confidence.
Reflection
Designing Naukri Campus reinforced that early-career hiring cannot be solved through job listings alone.
Students need guidance, practice, and recognition before they are ready to apply, while recruiters need signals beyond resumes.
By designing the platform around participation and readiness rather than placement season, we shifted Campus from a hiring portal into an
early-career ecosystem.
Designing Naukri Campus- A Career Platform for
Fresh Graduates
From campus hiring portal to early-career ecosystem
0 → 1 Product Design
B2C + B2B
Context
FirstNaukri was Info Edge's platform for campus and fresher hiring.
It mainly worked for final-year engineering students, onboarding them through job postings during placement season.
Senior professionals were disengaging because the experience was optimised for volume, not relevance.
⏰
Students came in very late in their journey
📉
Engagement dropped sharply outside placements
🛡️
Recruiters struggled to trust fresher signals
🧱
The platform plateaued at around 4 lakh users
At the same time, student behavior had changed. Career exploration was starting much earlier, often outside Naukri, and students relied on multiple fragmented sources to prepare.
Early-career hiring at scale was breaking down.
The Core Problem
The platform was optimised for placement-season job discovery, not early-career development.
Students joined late, engagement was transactional, and recruiters relied mostly on resumes rather than demonstrated skills or participation signals.
The challenge was to design an experience that supported students before hiring began, while generating meaningful signals for recruiters and campuses.
Research Signals
We conducted research with:
✔️
Telephonic interviews with 100+ FirstNaukri users
✔️
In-person connected with students across Tier I–III campuses
✔️
In-person connects with recruiters involved in fresher hiring
Three clear patterns emerged:
🧩
Students prepared for careers using external, scattered resources
⏰
Job search intent appeared late, often after graduation
🛡️
FirstNaukri was not seen as a complete or credible career destination
This led to a key decision:
Instead of evolving FirstNaukri, we would build a segmented
early-career experience within Naukri.com
Core Insights
Early-career platforms cannot depend on job discovery alone.
They must support career readiness before hiring begins.
The core problem wasn't discoverability.
It was signal quality.
How the Platform was Structured
We created Naukri Campus, an early-career platform integrated within Naukri.
The experience was structured around three pillars:
Prepare
tools and guidance for career readiness
Participate
contests, events, and skill-building activities
Find Work
jobs and internships
This lifecycle model ensured students could engage with the platform throughout their academic journey, not just during placement season.
Key Experience Decisions
🧭
Lifecycle-based platform structure
Organising the experience into Prepare, Participate, and Find Work created a continuous engagement loop rather than a seasonal hiring interaction.
📊
Skill-signal data layer
Student activity across tools, events, and assessments contributed to a growing dataset of competencies that could later support recruiter discovery and campus insights.
🎪
Events as acquisition + signal generation
We introduced quarterly national-scale events (NCAT, Young Turks, Engineers’ Ring of Honour, etc.) offering scholarships, rewards, and recognition.
These events,
Drove student acquisition.
Increased engagement
Generate skill & participation signals
What Changed for Recruiters & Campuses
As students engaged across preparation and participation, the platform started building stronger signals - skills, interests, readiness, and intent.
For recruiters, this meant:
✔️
Earlier visibility into fresher talent
✔️
More confidence in profiles beyond resumes
✔️
Less dependence on last-minute screening
Campuses gained better visibility into student outcomes and a clearer bridge between preparation and placement.
Impact
Naukri Campus has grown into a large early-career platform:
🚀
4L+
Senior Professionals
Onboarded
📈
6.46
Applies per active user.
Increased from 3.67 in Naukri India
🏫
32%
Week 4 retention.
Increased from 19% in Naukri India
More importantly, students now engage with the platform before graduation, creating stronger readiness signals and improving recruiter confidence.
Reflection
Designing Naukri Campus reinforced that early-career hiring cannot be solved through job listings alone.
Students need guidance, practice, and recognition before they are ready to apply, while recruiters need signals beyond resumes.
Students need guidance, practice, and recognition before they are ready to apply, while recruiters need signals beyond resumes.
