Info Edge (Naukri) plans to launch job site for freshers
06 October, 2008
Info Edge India (Naukri.com) plans to launch FirstNaukri.com , a recruitment site for college pass-outs. The company also plans to tie-up with colleges for the new venture. Info Edge recently bought the domain name FirstNaukri from FirstNaukri Solutions, a Mumbai-based company promoted by Piper Serica Advisors.
“Most of the entry-level hiring is done through campus recruitments. Job portals play a very peripheral role in it. FirstNaukri.com will try to help colleges create more value for their students,” Ambarish Raghuvanshi, CFO, Info Edge India, has said. [Source: Financial Express ]
Update
Rajiv Dingra, who had launched Jobs4Freshers.com which was in existence for one and half years before it was shut down in 2006, has listed some pain points of running a job site for freshers. Here is the edited version of the pain points originally posted on WATBlog :
1) More often than not most companies get inundated with fresher resumes the moment they are about to pass third year. So essentially employers have little or no value for freshers resumes.
2) Pain Point is at the freshers end (some of them don’t even know how to write a good resume) but they have no payment capacity beyond say Rs 500/1000 and most of them won’t have credit cards so even if you plan to charge them Rs 500 there is no cost effective way of collecting the same.
3) Freshers don’t remain freshers once they get a job. Redundant database is what this space suffers from... Also most freshers would ideally like to complete a year or two before quitting their first jobs as it “looks good” on their resumes.
@Rajeev - the problems you have mentioned are there but not show stoppers. you can make money only where there is a problem and you have a solution to solve it. Fresher market seems to be attracting a lot of new ventures - such as elitmus, cocubes etc. and some of them look really serious about their business... read this recent article in economic times http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3916202,flstry-1.cm...
One site by Naukri can make difference for freshers, Freshers need good guidance as they don't know where to look for jobs, How to make resumes, but naukri should keep in mind that it doesnt dilute their brand.
There is one more useful Resource on Freshers Jobs in India. Have a look www.vfreshers.com The site launched in 2007, has been growing at a good pace and has a nicely built GUI.
The coming of FN will make this space more competitive !!
Naukri had 32500 clients last year. I dont think companies are foolish. They use naukri because they find it useful.
As far as dilution of profitability is concerned at least naukri is making a profit. I have heard that one of their competitors is getting ready to sack around 200 people in the next two months. Watch this space.
The logic of the freshers site is that no current online offering solves the freshers hiring problem. Can Firstnaukri do it. Lets wait and see.
When naukri was launched in 1997 most people wrote it off. But the naukri management saw the opportunity early.
In fact one of the things that Sanjeev says is that if the opportunity is obvious to everyone then it is already too late - you have to chase opportunities early, those that becoem obvious to others only after a few yerars.
Lets see how Firstnaukri pans out
VK, Info Edge acquired Jeevansathi as the first diversification 5 years ago. Today, it is a distant No.3 player that is loss making. 90% of Info Edge revenue still comes from Naukri. Does one need another 5 years to figure out if diversification is working or not?
Announcements by CFOs may help convince some blind investor but the reality is much further from the fancy thoughts. Most of the traffic on the job sites now, particularly Naukri, is freshers. As an employer, our headache is that we get too much junk when we advertise our jobs. It is not clear why Naukri would launch a site which targets its own current traffic instead of focusing on increasing the quality and value delivered on the main site. With a few more announcements that destroy shareholder value with sundry extensions to main brand, the day isn't far when this stock will plunge below IPO level having already lost 75% of its value.
For Free Job Posting For Freshers Also Log on www.jobspoint.in
I suppose, FirstNaukri’s main target would be campus recruitment just like cocubes.com. “Virtual Campus Recruitment” is one big concept which is yet to be exploited in Indian market.
I heard many a times in my discussions with all the job portal companies that they are seriously looking at this segment. We almost signed an agreement in last Oct with one of the India’s biggest internet/media company. Anyways, it didn’t workout at the last moment because of some change in management and subsequently in their strategy.
However, nobody was talking about a recruiter/employer subscription based revenue model. They are not looking at just gathering resumes and listing jobs.
All are talking about creating a great technological platform which will help companies and colleges to collaborate seamlessly, in the process, reducing the cost, time & effort in the recruitment cycle.
some other points that came up in our discussions:
(1.) Setting up a quality assessment system. Or collaborating with some existing company in terms of designing and conducting written tests.
(2) Cutting down the training cycle of companies by providing training in the campuses to the recruits after they get selected
(3) Setting up a channel/collaborating with a DTH provider, to broadcast employer related content. this helps in brand building as well as in educating students about industry
Revenue Model:
(1) selected jobseeker pays one/two months of salary.
(2) Employer pays for branding
(3) Employer pays for recruitment services
(4) Employer pays for training services
(5) Colleges pays for branding
(6) Colleges pay for training services
(7) Colleges pay for technology usage (pay-per-usage)
If InfoEdge can put a long term vision in this venture then I am sure the market is too huge and waiting to get captured in a big way. This can even surpass Naukri’s current revenues in 2-3 years of time.
However, if it starts to see as just another portal and doesn’t put emphasis on offline strategy, then I doubt about the propects of this venture.
Anyways, its good that some action started again in this space.
Good quality candidates don't put their resumes on Naukri anyway. The traffic on Naukri is of crap quality and the only people that flock Naukri are these freshers and entry level people. What is the idea of this fresher job site? Shooting themselves in the foot.
Ask any recruiter like me.....naukri is a very good job portal to attract both junior and middle level talent. Yes, naukri does have a very good entry level database too..but this would be a minuscule of the entire lot available out there in the market.
The idea behind launching a fresher site would be to offer corporates with an additional avenue for fresher hiring. Currently most of the companies go for campus drives which is both time consuming and a costly affair. A ready made database of current pass outs would mean recruiters like us would have more options to select relevant talent.
Off late Info Edge has invested in lot many portals....where jeevansathi and 99acres are doing fairly good, most of the other sites like asknaukri, brijj are not monetized yet.
Only time will say if this diversification strategy works or not. As far as market price is concerned....none of the stocks are doing good.... God save us from such bears who trade on emotional grounds and not based on fundamentals of a company.
One more step to further dilute their profitability with multiple brands. None of their new brands like Jeevansathi, 99acres, asknaukri etc have stabilized and more new brands will further suck the life out of Naukri. Add to this pretty senseless acquisition strategy and you have a losing game. Sell this stock.
There are already many sites which compete with Naukri and other job classifieds. One such site is chetanas forum. It is more difficult to evaluate freshers who doesn't have any track record to evaluate. Academic score cards do not reveal many important aspects of potential recruit ( like communication abilities, trustworthiness, loyalty, GK, aptitude etc etc). So FirstNaukri must not be just a resume or job aggregator, it must also provide skill evaluation services ( Meritrac is one such service provider ) and capus recruitment logistics to stay relevant.
The Freshers Market is already dominated by www.Freshersworld.com
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