For B Chaturvedi, a native of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, preparing for bank exams has now become easier. The reason – he takes coaching at convenient hours without hassles, thanks to increasing options from digital learning.

There are at least 10 lakh job-seekers like him, who prefer online coaching for various recruitment tests being conducted by banks, civil services and the staff selection commission, among others.

Demand

“The interest in online coaching for recruitment is catching up and we have over 8 lakh general users and 20,000 paid users, respectively, for training courses online,” Santanu Pal, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of TalentSprint, a career accelerator firm told BusinessLine . It has users from 300 towns in across 29 States, including tier-II and tier-III locations.

There is huge demand for bank jobs as the banking sector has probably been the second largest recruiter after IT in recent years. While average annual hiring in IT is around 2.5 lakh as per Nasscom estimates, SBI and other public sector banks (through IBPS) are recruiting nearly 70,000 to 80,000 people in clerical and trainee office cadre.

Large recruitments are also conducted by the Staff Selection Commission for various central government jobs through combined graduate level exam.

According to Kalyan Chakarvarti, Director of OnlineIAS, the shift from classroom-based coaching to the digital mode is quite rapid as far as preparation for civil services exams is concerned.

“Flexibility of timings, availability of experts and savings in terms of time and cost make a big difference,” he said.

Drivers

Significant savings are possible in the online mode as compared to regular classroom coaching, as infrastructure requirements are few. “The fee for bank exam training could be brought down to as low as ₹3,500, with little variation,” Paul said.

Candidates will have both options of either listening to live classes or access to a recorded version.

As almost all recruitment exams are conducted online nowadays, practicing tests online could be a big help, say experts.

According to CS Vepa, Director of the National School of Banking, online mode is more suitable for practice tests and those aspirants who hail from a completely urban background.

But there are big expectations on the future growth of online coaching business. TalentSprint, which has invested ₹30 crore so far, is planning diversification.

“In the next six months, we are rolling out complete online training platforms for IT verticals and school teachers test programmes,” Paul said.

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