LaunchPad

The First Ever Skills-Based Recruitment Platform

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Inspiration

Just a year ago, the youth of my country, Bangladesh, overthrew our Government by leading a national movement against biased recruitment practices. They were driven by deep frustration over youth unemployment and inequality in hiring.

That movement inspired me to ask: Why is it so hard for skilled talent in Bangladesh to find a worthy job?

I began interviewing seniors, peers and recruiters.

I found something shocking: 7 out of 10 job seekers faced rejection not because they lacked skills, but because they didn’t have the “right” University brand.

With the resume-based hiring system, it was hard for fresh graduates to prove they had the practical skills the employers are searching for.

On the recruiter side, they too were frustrated. They wanted to hire skilled talent, but had no system to verify candidates’ real-world capabilities: a one-page resume does not convey the candidate’s skill level to them.

They had to rely on the candidate’s University brand and grades to judge them, which often led to them making the wrong choice since Universities in my country do not build their students' practical skills.

I’ve shared this app’s idea with many of my peers, University career offices and recruiters. I’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback with 43 classmates and 5 companies (including one Multi-national Corporation) signing up for early access.

The resume-based hiring system does a poor job at connecting employers to skilled talent and skilled talent to opportunities.

This gap in our hiring ecosystem, where skill doesn't get a fair chance, is what LaunchPad is here to fix.

What it does

LaunchPad is Bangladesh’s first skill-first hiring platform designed exclusively for internships and entry-level jobs.

We are rebuilding recruitment from the ground up to serve both fresh talent and recruiters honestly.

Key Features:

  1. Skill Portfolio Builder

Users can complete industry-specific challenges (like building a simple App or writing a report) to build a visible, credible skill portfolio.

  1. Skills-Based Hiring

Employers post small tasks relevant to the jobs they are posting. Instead of a resume, applicants apply by completing the task & submitting their skill portfolio which allows direct assessment of the applicant’s capability. The task submissions and tracking is handled by the Supabase backend.

  1. AI powered customized roadmap

Many students and freshers in Bangladesh do not know what practical skills they would need for their dream career. LaunchPad’s AI Roadmap engine uses OpenAI’s GPT-3.5-turbo to analyze a student’s current skills and career targets to generate practical skill-building plans, integrated with Supabase for real-time progress tracking.

LaunchPad provides recruiters a smarter way to find talent while allowing freshers a way to prove themselves through their skills.

How We Build It

Frontend & UI/UX: All UI prompts were tailored to reflect a retro, youth-focused Bangladeshi aesthetic

Backend: Managed via Supabase, which provides scalable authentication and data management for users and job posts. Also used Edge Functions for OpenAI API integration.

AI-integration: OpenAI’s GPT 3.5-turbo API was used for AI-powered operations.

Deployment: Deployed using Netlify and claimed with my Netlify account.

Accomplishments we’re proud of

Built a complete job platform from scratch

Designed a skills-first recruitment model to solve one of Bangladesh’s most pressing issues.

Integrated Backend with Supabase after being afraid of backend operations for years.

Learned how to integrate OpenAI’s API in my app for AI-powered operations.

What we learned

Backend and AI integration are not as intimidating as they look

The recruitment space is ripe for disruption but only if we design with empathy and inclusivity.

What's next for LaunchPad

University Onboarding: Partner with university career offices to source real internship & job listings and promote student adoption.

Public Launch: Roll out LaunchPad as a real-world solution to make freshers visible and victorious in the job market.

Scale beyond Bangladesh: Youth unemployment and recruiting bias exists worldwide. We want to scale our operations to South Asia and beyond.

Our Mission

LaunchPad isn’t just a Hackathon project - it’s a movement to change how Bangladesh connects talent to opportunity.

We believe in a world where your capabilities speak louder than paper credentials and we’re building it right now!

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