First Question: Are Job Portals a value add to the Job Seeker?
28 April, 2008
Ratan KK, Head – Global Delivery Center, PinstormThe objective of a job portal is two pronged - First, to provide an avenue for a prospective job seeker with the most relevant and appropriate job opportunities. The more such opportunities that the job portal gives, the better it would be for the job seeker and the job portal themselves.
Second, to provide corporate employers with a large number of profiles in its database, which have good number of quality resumes in terms of work experience and skills sets as sought by the corporate.
And if these quality resumes are of actively job seeking individuals, that is when the Employers, who actually make revenue for the job portals, will get benefited. If the job portals can increasing an employer's or a head hunter's efficiencies in sourcing and selection of candidates for their current requirements, then one of the primary business objective is met. .
So there are two questions that a job portal needs to answer. First question that needs to be answered is - do the job portals really add value to the job seeker? And the second question is - do the job portals increase the hiring efficiency and effectiveness of an employer. .
Between the two questions asked, the first question is more important as that is the starting point for the job portals business. Answering the first question is also more important, as the better quality resumes a job portal has, the more employers will use their services. And the more the employers use a job portal, more candidates will upload their resume for each of the job postings listed by the employers. This makes the virtuous circle going for a job portal. (What is the VICIOUS circle? For that read till the end!) .
So this article attempts to answer the first question first. .
Today an active job seeker, when looking for a job, predominantly, starts his search on a search engine. .
If you look at the few keywords (KWs) that a job seeker uses on a search engine like Google, or Live Search or Yahoo Search, the KWs would be - IT Job, Sales Job, Banking Jobs, Telecom Jobs, Jobs etc. .
And if you search for these jobs, there are organic results and the paid listings. It is important to see the job portals which are using paid listings to drive traffic to themselves. They are actively seeking job seekers, and paying hard money for every click. .
The approach a job portal, using paid listing, should take would be - once a job seeker gives intention of what kind of job s/he is seeking for, the job portal should be able to take that individual to the relevant job, when s/he clicks on a paid listing. .
For example, if a person is searching for 'IT Jobs', he would see a paid listing (it is also called a Text advertisement) as below: .
IT Jobs
BBM India is looking for Java Experts.
Send your CV today. Now!
www.jobportal.com.
If he or she clicks on the paid listing, s/he would be taken to a page on the job portal (which is called the Landing page), which has few relevant Java openings from BBM India. The job seeker, looks at the job openings presented to him/her, and decided on a job, and applies. S/he will apply to it, either by login-in into the portal, if he is already a member there, or fills the required form or uploads a resume, if s/he is not registered, with most necessary information. .
If this is done, then, any job portal will be taking care of the basic need of matching a candidate with an employer’s job opening. The employer will take over the selection process from here. .
Right money spent for the right candidate to match the right opportunity. .
Sound simple , right? Right! .
Hold on and read on! .
But if you really look at how the paid listing process is executed by the few job portals, you are in for a big BIG surprise! .
Let us take a search team "IT Jobs" and search on Google for Indian Geography. You will get a set of paid listings from top job portals. .
Let's call the job portals - www.6Jobs.com , www.7jobs.com, www.9Ajobs.com and www.9Bjobs.com . Let's simulate the job seeker's experience on each one of these four job portals, and try answering the FIRST question. .
For www.6Jobs.com for the 'IT Jobs' search term, the paid listing would be: .
IT Jobs
300000+ jobs, over 52000 recruiters
Great Career prospects. Log on Now!
www.6Jobs.com.
Once you click on the paid listing, you are taken to a landing page, which has a form, on which it has 14 fields which are mandatory and each field gets validated instantaneously. And the form actually opts the job seeker for various other mailers such as job alerts, SMS contact by recruiters, other promotional offers etc. Assuming that the job seeker, fills in all these fields, and clicks next, he is taken to another landing page, where there are 4 more mandatory fields that need to be filled in. Again, let's assume that the fields are filled in correctly, he is taken to one more page, with another form. Luckily, now there are no mandatory fields, so there is an option to skip this form. And s/he is taken to my 6Jobs page, where the personal details which are filled in by him are given. There is no relevance to what the job seeker has started his search with i.e., IT JOBS. .
Bad experience for the job seeker. Yes? .
Let us see what does www.7jobs.com experience is like. The text advertisement would be: .
HOT IT Jobs
Immediate requirement in Companies.
Submit Your resume Free. Now!
www.7jobs.com.
It is almost the same experience. Three pages of forms, with more than 18 mandatory fields. And after all the ordeal of filling in the information, there is no news of IT Jobs that the job seeker started the search for. .
Bad experience again. There is no relevance to the intent of the job seeker. The inference - the same painful process of uploading a resume, without any context to the search intent and no -differentiation approach (neither at the text advt level nor at the form filling up level). .
Let us look at what www.9AJobs.com offers. .
Their text advts would look like: .
IT Jobs
Careers at Fast Growing Companies
IT, High Tech, More. Search today!
www.9Ajobs.com
It is almost the same experience again. Two pages of form filing with 29 mandatory fields. And in the end, once more, presents the job seeker with nothing but what is filled up (which is usually called 'my9A-job'). Painful experience and no-differentiation, once more! .
You must be already bored and feel clichéd, and would have answered the FIRST question emphatically. But you have to wait to see what is in store for the job seeker at www.9Bjobs.com .
The text advt looks like this: .
IT Jobs
Wanted IT Professionals Immediately!
Search & Apply - Post resume Free.
www.9BJobs.com/IT-Jobs/Post-resume
You are right, the text advert is nothing special. .
Again, you have to go through three pages of forms, with about 22 mandatory fields. Yes, you are right, nothing new! Is it not? .
In this job portal, once the job seeker says that you are experienced, you have to give your current company name, your current designation, and your current salary. And all three of them are MANDATORY. BTW, this portal is one of the top five job portals in India. Do you think you will divulge all these information? I will not. If I did, I will give FAKE them. Therefore, there would be lots of resume here which will be fake. Once the information provided is fake, the EMPLOYER gives it less value to the resume, therefore the call for interview will not happen. The resumes will not be sought after. The revenue for Job portal depletes. The Vicious Circle kicks in. .
I do not want to go on to the other job portals. In fact, you can experience the same, if you simulate the process yourself. .
Now can you help me answer our first question, do the job portals really add value to the job seeker? How far are they for their own virtuous circle? How closely are they are to their vicious circle? I wonder!
WTF KK..
Seems like this guys is a hot jobseeker, that he himself is posting comments, and bringing life to the article that he published ages back... smart Try... wish you all the very best...
Great article Ratan. Very insightful. Keep up the Good Job.
Very nice article thank you very much...
this such a useless article. this person does not know much other than google adwords.
In all the existing job portals, basically it has turned out to be a number game where nobody gives a chance to the job seeker to even see their landing page. Most of the job portals, the advertisements are from recruitment consultants who in my opinion are a single desk fly by night operators.
I have come across a job portal which is refreshingly different in terms of its model. It is www.eudyog.com but the only issue is it seems to be too small right now. If they grow then they can be quite useful to a job seeker especially the experienced and senior professionals as it relies more on the judgement of the job seeker to decide whether to pursue an opportunity. They do not seem to take vacancies from recruitment consultants.
I lost interest after the third stanza. Now consider this Question that the author puts.
"First question that needs to be answered is - do the job portals really add value to the job seeker?"
How can job portals add value to an individual. They just market your resume. So a job seeker must have his values and portals are there to promote their interests in the market, among the Employers.
Think Kk tried to create and article after doing lot of research, but these are basics, ( Probably he might be new to it or wanted his Pic to appear in this forum ) i don’t think its any rocket science, and that too someone need to explain like this. Try next time with a good writer..
I think you started with the assumption that job searches would be done via search engines and if there is a match between KW and Paid search job seeker would click and so on and so forth.
Does it not warrant first to know how much traffic to a normal job search website comes from Paid listing ? Or even Organic listings ?
If its more than 60%(thats my rough guess) then your assumption holds true and you are right that they suck !
Thanks,
Ravi
When a job seeker looks for a job in a job portal, generally, there are two aspects of getting a job.
1. The job seeker directly searches the available jobs in the job portal and apply directly for the appropriate one. Here, he/she does a lot of research finding the right job.
2. The job seeker expects employers calling him/her or getting interview calls/emails from the employers. But how will this be possible? Only when the employer gets the full information and the job profile of the job seeker, after analyzing his/her CV, the employer will be able to decide if the candidate will be appropriate for the job or not. Here, the employer/recruiter does a lot of research finding the right candidate. This is possible only when the job seeker fills the complete job registration form.
I agree with Mr. Ratan telling that if a job seeker looks for keyword "IT jobs" in any search engines, the paid listings should take to the relevant IT jobs page or page with IT jobs listings. But, if a job seeker looks for a generic keyword "good jobs", what should be the landing page? In this case, the landing page would be either the home page or the registration form page, home page because, it has the broad job search bar and registration page because, registration is compulsory before applying for any job.
Job portal like www.Yellojobs.com uses the appropriate job pages as the landing page for the specific keywords and home page/registration form page for the broad/generic keywords. Yellojobs also adopt a new concept of job referral network where every job seeker in turn is a job hunter.
I Think being into the recruitment industry, what matters to the jobseeker is the easiest and the FASTEST way to get a job.. more than the value added services.
I would certainly not agree to mr.KK about "Today an active job seeker, when looking for a job, predominantly, starts his search on a search engine.".. any active jobseeker`s first attempt to search job are the portals only.. thereafter different medias..
I would like to appreciate the REFFERAL RECRUITMENT concept of YELLOJOBS, the way they have entered into such competitive market, and providing a different experience to the Jobseeker,also to the employers..
I have atteneded a summit organised by AIMA, where in there was a survey presentation by Yello People, which was incredible..
More than that, the members are to applauded, who have taken their time out to participate in that survey..
I think Mr. KK has taken pains to understand the working of portals.....tried hard but.....the article is quiet confusing and the author has given examples which rather than giving basic idea corrupts the idea itself.....Bad try.........
Hmmm...
A good article. Let me try and give my perspective point by point:
1. Value add to recruiters:
Yep. Job Portals are invaluable to recruiters. Portals like Naukri, TJ, CJ are giving immediate access to lacs of active job seekers. Recruiters may not be able to fulfill all the positions directly from the available database. But, recruiters use this database as a starting point. Then they ask these job seekers for references, which works like a magic.
2.
Value add to Job Seekers:
Yep. At least, job portals are able to help the job seekers to announce their availability in the market place. More than 50% of vacancies are filled with the help of job portals(either directly or indirectly), at least in IT & BPO sectors. I beg to differ with Ratan on " Today an active job seeker, when looking for a job, predominantly, starts his search on a search engine". All the recent reports and our research shows that more than 60% of job seekers goes directly to job portals when they are actively looking for a job.
3.
Can they add more VAS to both Job seekers & Recruiters:
Yep. Surely. There is always a great scope of improvement in any business and job portal business is no exception. But, the main problem the current leaders in the industry are facing is : Complacency. Top 3 portals are not facing any problems in retaining clients and they are too busy in concentrating on newer areas of businesses. Hopefully, some strong competition comes in to the market and urges leaders to innovate.
Now, your article seems to be echoing the problems you faced while promoting Cybermediadice and now shine as a marketer. So, lets concentrate n those points as well:
4. Can we have a landing page with job openings rather than resume submission form: Hmmm... This is an ongoing debate in both job & matrimony segments. There are a few problems in having job opening page as a landing page which i feel are technical problems. You definitely can't guess in exact terms for what type of openings a guy has been searching. So, if you start displaying job ads with a minimal amount of information which you posses it may have negative impact on job seekers. This has been proved to some extent as well. Other option is to have a Job Search page. However, some job sites like CJ are having an option of applying for a job with out actually having to register with the site. So, the site will loose on lot of registrations.
5.
Fake Data on some fields:
Sure. This is a problem. But not as big as it is quoted in this article. Let me explain: If a job seeker is putting in key details like Skill set, experience and contact details..then the qulaity will be poor. But if he is putting some fake data in secondary fields like current CTC, Employer and so on..it doesn't matter much. Speak to any recruiter, he will tell you.
I think Ratan has written this article from the perspective of online (or in fact, Search engine) marketer. But, if you see from employer, recruiter or job seeker's perspective you can see enough value being created by these job sites. Hence, people are coming more and more towards e-recruitment. Just to add, out of 3 million(app. figure) IT employees in India more than 75% are present on different job sites. This shows the type of faith people are putting on jobsites.
However, there is still a long way to go. I see lot of innovations coming into the online recruitment space in the coming 24 months as more and more players are announcing their entry into this space.
...there has been very little innovation in jobs boards since the beginning of the internet and they offer very little value to job hunters, and employers - who are deluged by one click applications from unsuitable candidates.
This is why we see sites like www.thecareermole.com where you can apply directly by introducing yourself to the company's employees. In the same way job fairs allow you to meet people working at the company you want to apply to, these new referral websites give you the same opportunity
This is one of the biggest reasons for the rise of job fairs across the country because of multiple reasons.
1. A job fair is face to face interaction with companies.The quality of the resumes coming in would overall be substantially higher plus there is the added advantage of on the spot hires.
2. I think job sites tend to be more skewed towards ensuring that their Database is sold annually and retention on that order is high than really looking at the job seeker. Employer's were fooled initially given that they suddenly had 3 lac plus CV's in their laps..but then the realization set in - Most of the CV's just did not come upto the mark..be it incomplete, useless information , outdated and became more weary of them. HR managers and whomsoever was accessing the DB's got more cautious....sales guys from portals were asked to give trials , live presentations and searches and annual orders started coming down...the JP was being held accountable for the number of people they hired through them..
At this point CV quality suddenly came into the forefront again and what did they do to improve the quality....one of the things they did was to start holding Job Fairs..!
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