The world’s largest aggregator for learning courses Get Me A Course (GMAC) recently launched its Smart Career Path Recommendation Engine that 
helps individuals answer the crucial question: ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’ by directing them to a custom-built solution for learning and career growth need. GMAC’s proprietary Smart Career Path Recommendation Engine goes one step beyond addressing the reskilling needs of individuals. It is an AI-driven Career Path Recommendation Engine that helps individuals identify their current standing with respect to skills and pay scales. It then outlines the succeeding levels in the career ladder they can upgrade to, along with the expected pay range and skill sets required along the given trajectory. This is supplemented by suggestions of top courses for the learner’s particular skill-building needs.
Stoodnt.com got in touch with, Rohan Krishna, CEO and Co-Founder, Get Me A Course, to know more about the unique offerings of the organization.
A selected excerpt of the interview –
A little bit about the inception of the company?
Most of our graduates are stuck learning by rote from decades-old curricula that doesn’t help them gain the critical skills the new economy needs. Over 80% of India’s engineers are unemployable, as per a recent report from industry body NASSCOM. Even after landing a coveted job, the spectre of not having the right skills to build a satisfying and profitable career path haunts professionals. In order to stay current in their respective industries, professionals are expected to constantly acquire new knowledge and to keep upskilling.
Get Me A Course (GMAC) was founded with the aim to help professionals succeed in this extremely volatile environment. We are a one-stop solution for lifelong learning and development needs. We bring learners and learning content providers on to a single web-based platform with a separate, sharp focus on each segment’s requirements. We specialize in recommending the most relevant courses and jobs to learners, and connect learners to qualified and experienced mentors.
Also, In the ‘one click’ economy where flights, hotels, groceries, loans and medicines are available where you are in a jiffy, looking for the right course still involves hours of nightmarish searches online, reading hundreds of reviews and blogs still, having to take a chance! For learners Get Me A Course (GMAC) brings this one-click efficiency to finding the right course. For trainers, GMAC solves the ‘Discovery Problem’: where top trainers struggle to make themselves visible and reach students. GMAC removes the chance factor from learning.
How is it different from other skill-building institutes?
We are the world’s largest aggregator of both online and classroom courses. We curate courses from various learning platforms – you get to choose the course that fits your needs the best. We want both learners as well as training providers to see the infinite value and possibilities that GMAC offers. We help trainers by solving the all-important “Discovery Problem”: we connect trainers to interested students from anywhere in the world who want to gain those relevant skills. The model is very similar to travel aggregation sites and apps that list all the different airlines, hotels and travel service providers: GMAC is bringing the same efficiency to education and skilling!
What impact has it created till now?
We have seen that everyone has an inherent hunger for learning – the sense of accomplishment that one gets on learning something new, is like none other!
We have learners of ages ranging from 18 to 65+ from a whopping 172 countries logging into GMAC, using 1800+ keywords – the data we’re getting about learner behaviour is just mind boggling. The top 5 countries logging in are the US, India, Canada, Iran and the UK.
We’ve derived startling insights that runs contrary to the ‘trends’ that people tout about data science or AI/ML being ‘hot’ topics for learners. For instance, our data shows that Networking, Java, Medicine, Health and Fitness, Cyber Security, Finance Management, Architecture, Web Development are the top searches currently. These are key insights that trainers and course creators should be aware of!
With a customer retention rate of 24% we have seen over 48,000 courses being discovered from our platform. Being an affiliate of all major course providers from Udemy, Coursera, Pluralsight and many others, we have mover 500 independent trainers who are using our platform for their daily course advertisements and students acquisitions. The best part is that this has all happened in less than 8 months!
How many individuals/ professionals has the organisation catered to?
We have over 100,000 users visiting Get Me A Course with over 27% user retention rate. 160,000+ searches have been made on our portal and people have discovered over 230,000 courses on our product. Over 2600+ keywords and skills are being searched on our platform every month from over 180 countries. By the way, we do not advertise and it’s all organic 🙂
48% of our users are from India whereas 35% of users are from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, UAE, Germany, Nigeria. Rest from different parts of the world.
In times such as the current one where fewer jobs are being created, and many organizations are reducing their workforces owing to the downward trend in the world economy, GMAC’s proprietary Smart Career Path Recommendation Engine is a reprieve to professionals. – How?
GMAC’s proprietary Smart Career Path Recommendation Engine goes one step beyond addressing the reskilling needs of individuals. It is an AI-driven Career Path Recommendation Engine that helps individuals identify their current standing with respect to skills and pay scales. It then outlines the succeeding levels in the career ladder they can upgrade to, along with the expected pay range and skill sets required along the given trajectory. This is supplemented by suggestions of top courses for the learner’s particular skill-building needs.
The recommendation engine’s personalised paths and recommendations help individuals— whether they are job-seekers or senior professionals—obtain the necessary skills to be market-ready. The recommendation engine caters to 800+ job titles, identifies 750+ skills and covers a wide range of professions from technology to marketing to management, and includes niche professions such as patent law, child psychiatry and aerial photography.
What are the five most important skills for today’s workforce?
Communication & Interpersonal skills, Leadership, Time management, Creativity and Emotional Intelligence are the basic founding pillars for global workforce. In a research by Workforce Solutions Group, it was revealed that more than 60% of employers are experiencing lack of sufficient communication and interpersonal skills to be considered for jobs. At the same time, lack of these skills are a major underline effect on company’s productivity. These five skills have been the most popular skills on Get Me A Course platform and at the same time, amongst the few skills that are common globally in terms of the search trends. Interestingly, we find these skills more searched by folks in the age group of 18 – 32 yrs.
What is the right time for today’s millennials to start learning skills?
Learning “Never Stops!”. We start with learning A for Apple, moving to adding numbers, to complex algebra equations, and gradually move to our career based learning. In our early career, we need to be competitive, ahead of our colleagues, street smart, skill smart to grab the best opportunity. A study on “jobs applications to hiring ratio” states that for each job, average 2000 applicants apply. So the question is,”How would you stand out?” On GMAC we see this age group searching for topics like, interview, communication, presentation, leadership, teamwork and majority search for skills related to their career path. Engineers look for Linux, Java, Python, Data Science, Analytics, AI, Machine Learning etc, BBA/MBA’s look for Digital Marketing, Social Media, Google Adwords, Analytics, Financial Modelling, Branding, Sales and Marketing etc. While other streams look for courses like Corporate Law, Graphic Designing, UX design, Accounting and Bookkeeping, Amadeus, Nursing, Social justice and care etc.
Another career phase is the Mid-Career, which is in a crisis situation today! We want to move up, get unstuck, move further – faster. We see global learners in this age group look for advanced level of courses related to their skills and also adding new skills that can help move up.
And finally the later stage of our life when we are at the top of our career value chain or retired. No new career or jobs related skills are needed. Unfortunately learning doesn’t stop here because you need to keep up with new technologies, how to use them. For example, think about the time when your dad came asking about “Facebook”? and how well they use it today! Get Me A Course sees a lot of learning interest in this age group for topics like painting, cooking, spirituality, meditation, yoga, photography and similar lifestyle topics.
So, in today’s competitive environment one cannot stop learning. Things are getting more efficient each day and so is the technology. Hence, one needs to stay matched or a step ahead with skills to prevent oneself from becoming unemployable or unfit for a profession or losing the competitive advantage at work.
Your future plans
Well, there’s a lot to be done! Our vision is to be a pathbreaking Data and Technology driven aggregator connecting the lifetime needs of an individual for learning, employment and mentorship. We are working towards bringing more value to the ecosystem by organizing it and at the same time working deep in AI-built recommendation engine. Our plans include further enhancements to our product to inspire, engage, and delight our users by directing them to finely tailored solutions for every learning and career growth need. At the same time, we are on a mission to create a layer in the ecosystem between the employers and training/degrees that actually verifies and certifies the skills of every individual, consider a LinkedIn of verified skills with millions of users accessible globally.
Anything else you want to share?
We are the world’s largest aggregator of courses. We understand users’ backgrounds – their career aspirations, aptitudes and current skill levels – and provide them with useful information on the skills they can acquire to fill vacancies in the industry.
GMAC is absolutely free for learners. This is in line with our mission to serve professionals with their lifetime needs of learning, mentorship and employment. We aim to empower individuals with the most relevant, accurate and timely information in their careers so that they make their career decisions in the best way possible. Learners on GMAC can access information on all the courses listed – whether free or paid. We recommend that learners take a free course to judge their own interest levels before paying for any course.
Learners need not pay GMAC anything, instead they pay the trainer/training provider directly for all paid courses. Even trainers do not need to pay anything to list their courses GMAC.