A web of jobs for everyone
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These are sites that make job hunting easier for candidates. They make available a wide choice of candidates to companies, and cut their recruiting expenditure.
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WHAT DO you do when your boss yells at you and the situation becomes unbearable? Easy. Squirt water on his shirt, smile knowingly and walk out of the job.
Well, this is what the unhappy employee does to his boss in the advertisement of one of the leading `job websites' in the country, `MonsterIndia.com.' The punch line in the advertisement asks the viewer, `guess who has heard about us now?'
Not only disgruntled employees but those looking to better their lot in life and those struggling to land a job these days are increasingly relying on these `job sites' on the Internet to earn that monthly envelope. In this day and age of business process outsourcing (BPO), it is hardly surprising that many companies too are outsourcing to these portals the process of recruiting employees.
The ideal interface
In today's world of instant communication, convergence and home offices, things like filling up an application form, sending it to a company and sitting in an anteroom with dozen other unemployed, waiting for the interview seems antiquated; and indeed they are, thanks to web sites such as `naukri.com', `jobsahead.com' and `monsterindia.com'.
These web sites have become the perfect interface between the busy HR executive who does not wish to wade through the applications of hundreds of wannabe-employees and the job-seeker who urgently needs to make his presence felt in the crowded job market. In other words, both the employer and the would-be employee throw in their requirements and demands on to the Net and rely on the services of these sites to play the role of match-maker.
One resume in hundred places
If in the earlier years, a candidate had to make dozens of copies of his resume and send it to as many companies in the hope of getting a response from at least one, the smart job-seeker of generation-next punches in his resume into the relevant columns of one of the job sites. One of the greatest services rendered by these sites is that they carry this resume of the candidates into the offices of hundreds, if not thousands of companies across India and even in other countries.
The rush to get `naukri' is so `monstrous' these days that it is widely predicted that job sites have a `khazana' ahead of them! — Photos: Shaju John
Moreover, it is not just a blind job application that the candidate posts on the Net; a job-seeker can specify the type of company he wishes to get employed in (IT/BPO company, manufacturing firm, retail firm, banks... ), the type of job he is looking for (entry level, middle management, top management... ), the location where he prefers to work (choice of cities or regions) and of course, whether the job he is looking for is to be a full-time or a part-time job.
Packaging the candidate
What if a candidate does not have a resume, or doesn't know what a good one looks like? No sweat. All that such a candidate has to do is to give full details regarding his age, qualifications and so on, and the site will do the rest. Any job site worth its salt would have teams of resume writers — experts in gift-wrapping a candidate for a potential employer — who take anywhere between a week to 15 days to come with a top-of-the-line resume designed to take an employer's breath away.
This professionally-written resume is then flashed in the site and instantaneously reaches the offices of all companies registered with the site. But this service doesn't come free. The sites charge a candidate anything between Rs. 750 and Rs. 1,500 for getting a resume written. Naukri.com, for instance, has package offers wherein the candidate can get the resume written and have it posted to a specified number of employers for a pre-speficied time, at a price. The higher the price, the wider goes the resume. Once the candidate gets a feel of how his resume should look like, he is free to make additional changes in that as he wishes.
Most importantly, the job sites regularly send these resumes to the placement consultants also. That way, the candidate has the advantage of his resume getting the attention of an employer and of the consultant who does the recruitment footwork for that employer. In fact the web site `jobsahead.com' says that "75 percent of business recruitment takes place through placement consultants."
So, what happens when a company finds a suitable candidate? Earlier, the company had to write to the candidate to fix an interview and then wait for a response. Now, the candidate gets notified instantly on mail whenever there is a match between his requirements and that of a company's. `Naukri,com' for instance, even offers an SMS service whereby the candidate is notified by a message on his mobile phone that his resume has found takers.
From the other side
How do these sites benefit companies, the recruiters? The most obvious answer is that the companies who register with job sites get to select employees from thousands of resumes posted on the sites. This way, the HR division is spared the task of processing these applications to see how many have applied for the post of say, accountant or how many, for the job of a systems analyst. In the same way as the sites allow the candidates to indicate their preferences of the kind of jobs and the kind of companies, the sites also provide for recruiters to scan applications with filters on for age, experience, qualifications, location-preferences and so on. The candidates thus short-listed can then be called for further interviews or sent to the placement agencies which manage the recruitment process.
Placing `personnel wanted' postings on the Net is also a good way of advertising the company. Almost all the top sites allow the registered company to either post its short profile or give a hyperlink to its own web site, along with the vacancy postings. This way, the company can be sure that its requirements reach the largest number of applicants `wired in' to the job market.
Using job sites for recruitment is also easy on the company coffers. As an HR executive points out, placement consultants charge a hefty fee and also charge something like 10.2 per cent as service tax. Her own company, she says, relies on `Naukri.com' for its recruitment requirements, albeit on a secondary basis. The preferred mode of recruitment is through the placement agencies as the urgency to fill up the post would be high. However, when the company knows about an upcoming vacancy and is working to fill it, then the site is very helpful, she points out.
Still a secondary option
Though it is a fact that hundreds of companies are now looking to job sites to provide them with the right kind of employee pool, it is also a fact that many companies rely on sites only as a secondary avenue of recruitment. More important, it is also true that many small-time firms are not relying on web sites at all for their recruitment purposes.
One executive points out that there is this problem of authenticity of the resumes posted in the job sites. "As the numbers involved are so huge, those running the sites cannot be expected to verify the authenticity of each and every resume. In the job sites all resumes are good, professionally written. Often such good resumes mask a mediocre candidate. Now, this cannot be found out unless and until an interview takes place. So, even now, many companies rely on placement consultants who can go to greater lengths in sizing up a candidate vis-a-vis his resume," he said.
It is also pointed out that in many firms the primary mode of recruitment is still through what are called `referrals' — candidates identified by employees themselves.
G. Mahadevan
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