Need for an Event Section in Job Portals

Job portals have been doing great work in creating a virtual meeting place for both employers and job seeking candidates.Though with arrival of social recruiting methods, some of us have started doubting their usefulness in future, still I think Job boards are here to stay.Only they need to incorporate new options that can bring more value for both parties, make job/candidate finding process easier and less burdensome.

When I look at a job portal's web-design(both recruiter page and candidate page), I find it to be filled with lot of options. Many options are quite helpful yet there are many options which are not quite required and they unnecessarily clutter the page.

If we look at job search options all job sites give options to search jobs based on companies, skills, experiences, salaries, location etc (i,e:1, 2, 3 ). We can search job putting an  individual option or  mix of some, which is quite useful.

However there is a very important feature, which can be equally useful for employers as well as candidates and  still is missing from job sites .

I am talking about an 'Event' section.

To explain, let me take an example.

Lets take, I am a software engineer. And I am looking for change. However, due to busy work schedules I can't attend interviews on working days. I can either attend interview on weekend or some day when I have applied for leave.I can surely check what all jobs matching to my skills are available in the market. But how am I supposed to know what interviews are happening on my free day? For that I may need to call/mail many employers , which is a tedious task.

Just imagine, if job site has a section called 'Event', which has fields like recruitment drive date, skill, experience, location etc. All I have to do is put my preferences on the required fields and click on search button, and I can know what all recruitment drives are happening in my town on a specific day that are matching to my skill sets.Lets take, next Saturday , I am free. I just have to check on Saturday,what recruitment drives are happening in my town that match my skill, experience etc. If it is a walk in, I can directly go there with my resume. And if it is a scheduled drive, I can apply for the job and inform about my availability.I feel this can ease job search a lot.

Now lets have a look at it from the employer's side. Suppose we are a software services organization.We are currently having huge requirements and we want to close positions soon as project is about to start. So,We plan for a recruitment drive next weekend. Till now,there is no proper channel to announce the event.We either send mail to job mail groups  or give advertisement on paper(which can be expensive) or post details on job posting space in job sites.  There are chances that candidates might overlook it.Here 'Event' section will come handy.

So with 'Event' options , what I have to do is, fill recruitment drive date, interview slots, required skills, Job description, and experience, venue detail etc fields and post it.This will give clear communications to all job seeking candidates.Candidates who are looking for change and free on the required date will directly apply here.

It is a win win situation for both employers and candidates.And looking at the current trends where most of the companies are preferring recruitment drives to meet their mass hiring need, it can be a boon.I wont be surprised if it becomes one of the most used features on job portals soon.
 
I hope some job portal comes across this article and adds this option in their site. :)

Naukri, Monster, TimesJobs : Anybody listening...

Dear readers,Please tell what do you think of this suggestion.

Naukri.com's Facebook Page Review

In today's world where social media has become a part of our day to day life, many companies are putting efforts to attract business and customers from these tools. Out of all social media tools Facebook seems to be much ahead of others, so it becomes obvious for organizations to use it properly for corporate communications.

Facebook(FB) with huge user-base provides great scope for brand promotion. In india also facebook has surpassed Orkut as the most popular social network site.Many indian companies are using FB for branding activities.On this context I was checking Naukri.com's facebook page.

Here is a quick review-

Though I am not sure when they started this page, but their 1st post appeared on 24th sept, 2009. So that means it is up for more than 1 year.

Info page is decent where they have mentioned about their company and it contains their url id also.

For last one year the number of posts from Naukri.com is only 15, which is very less. So they seem to be neglecting this page.

However the plus part is they are not spamming followers time-line. All their posts are relevant.Mostly they have done postings when they have new updates, release of their jobspeak info,video of their TV ad etc.

Once they have put a contest also. Contests are good way to attract more followers. But  the sad part is they have not followed it up with another post announcing the winners.This should have been corrected.

Despite putting posts few and far between, they have managed to gather 1274 followers in last 1 year , which is quite decent number.

Naukri.com is no doubt the most popular Job Portal in India. if they give more focus to their fan page, they will be able to make a good follower base here. It can help them connect with their customers in a better way and they can communicate their messages  and gather feedbacks easily.

Why I Like Naukri's RSS Feed Feature

As we know RSS(Really Simple Syndication) feed is a great way to find website updates in your desktop or Web Reader without going to the website again and again.

RSS  ICON

I used to browse through a lot of sites to gather information. It was really painful to check individual websites or blogs for new updates. Then I found  Google Reader and ever since I get to check all the new updates of  my favorite sites in the reader in-box.Things have become easier and less time-consuming for me.

 Job-seekers check Job portals religiously to find new suitable jobs. It can be painful sometimes.In order to solve this problem, now job portals are giving RSS feature(albeit less used) where you can get new job updates in your reader without going to the portal each time.

Here I checked this feature for India's two most popular Job Portals, Naukri  and Monster.Both portals have categorized jobs feeds by functions like IT , Finance and Accounts, Human Resource etc. Once you subscribe to any of these categories to your feed reader you can get new Job updates in your own system. 

Monster Job Updates RSS Feed

Naukri Job Updates RSS Feed

Link to Naukri Job Updates RSS Feed:

http://jobsearch.naukri.com/mynaukri/mn_newsmartsearch.php?rss=1

Link to Monster Job Updates RSS Feed: 

http://jobsearch.monsterindia.com/category/rss_index.html

However, I have an issue with this feature. It has got some limitations. The categories  decided by the portals like, Accounts and Finance, Human Resource etc are quite generic and  will give feeds of new jobs across locations and experience . So out of lots of job updated only few will be of your use.

However Naukri portal has a lovely  solution for it. Apart from the above mentioned RSS feature Naukri also has an RSS feature in the search page. Here first you can give a search according to your choice, for example: [Key word:(Recruiter or Recruitment) Exp:3 yrs Location: Bangalore]. Then once you get the results, on the upper right corner you can see an RSS feed icon. If you click on that icon, you can add the search result to your reader. Now the great part is this feed will only give new job updates matching to your search preference. In this case only recruiter jobs, with 3 yrs experience with job location as  Bangalore will show into your reader.

Naukri Job Search Page RSS Feed

Now all you have to do is - give a Job search, add the feed to your reader and daily check new jobs in your reader inbox. As simple as that.A great tool for job seekers.

I have been using this feature for quite some time and I can vouch for its usefulness.

If anybody is using this feature, kindly give me your feedback.

New Job Share Option For Recruiters in Naukri

Naukri has recently added a new feature for recruiters - when you are about to finish a job posting a window appears which allows you to share the job in different social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Brijj.I have earlier mentioned that Naukri has already started many twitter channels where they share job links for specific skill sets.

So,I feel this too is a timely and welcome step.

When there is a huge discussion going on whether social media will take over job portals as the major source of recruitment for organizations,job portals  have to find new ways to reach more audience.What they can do is, use social media to share their job links.This way they can spread the reach of their jobs significantly.Now social media will complement job portals instead of posing competition.Naukri has realized this and already working on this line.

This new feature by Naukri will encourage organizations to open their official accounts in different networking sites(if not done till now) and use them to share their jobs.This is the beginning of changing recruitment scene  in India and it will lead other job portals to follow the steps.

In fact I think Job Portals should give a "share" button with every job post(like we use in blog posts) , which can be used by both organizations and candidates to share jobs in their networking sites.[Update]Apparently both Naukri and Monster have share option in their job pages.My mistake.[Update]

Activity of Popular Indian Job Boards on Twitter

Recently I was checking the presence of Popular Indian Job Boards  on Twitter and their activity. 

Here is what I found:

Presence of Indian Job Boards in Twitter

Clearly you can see, Naukri has been the most active among among all the job boards in terms of using twitter as a branding tool as well as in terms of spreading information about new jobs. They have created 5 twitter channels based on different skill sets ie@naukri_java, @naukri_mktg, @naukri_online, @naukri_hr, @naukri_it  .Whenever a job is posted in Naukri, they share the link in related twitter channel.A java engineer can follow their @naukri_java channel and be updated about all the java related openings posted in Naukri. Apart from this they have their corporate account @naukri also where they share new information about their company.This account is basically for  their branding purpose.Interestengly they are organizing contests in twitter for their followers too! 

Talking about other Job boards, Times Jobs has an official account@times_jobs where they share link of their official blog's new posts, which I think is very limited use of the medium.

Coming to Monster, I dont think Monster India has any official twitter account(they have their international account of course). I found one Monster India account(@monsterindia) in Twitter, but looking at the passiveness there, I am not sure whether it is authentic or not.

Jobs Ahead and  Shine.com don't have any Twitter account.


With advent and spread of new media entities like Facebook and Twitter, organizations are more open to using social media for their hiring needs and thus reducing dependency on job boards.

In India however, not many companies have Job channels in twitter till now.

But before it's late,Job Boards should pull up their socks.There are many twitter specific job sites in the market and they are doing pretty well.So I think, Job boards should also start their Job channels and spread their jobs through Twitter. This way they can do the job posting for their client on twitter apart from their own site which will give the jobs more visibility and thus they can serve the clients better.Client will also be happy! 

Naukri has already started on this line. Lets see when others follow the suit.

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