No Surprise Here !
------------------------
Today’s Business Line carries following news :
Article goes on to list why there are so few takers
I am not surprised , since I had envisaged this in my
following blog / email ( to concerned Policy Makers )
I had also given specific suggestions ( and offered my help ) to morph it into a National Job Portal
Considering that lack of sufficient JOB-CREATION is likely to be the central
debate in months to come , I hope the Policy Makers , will find a few minutes
to read this
Sunday,
7 February 2016
TOWARDS A NATIONAL JOB PORTAL ?
Economic
Times ( 06 Feb 2016 ) carried a news report titled :
"
Labour Ministry Ties Up with Cos for National Career Portal ( www.ncs.gov.in ) “
THE
REPORT :
Says
, the Ministry has signed MOUs with :
Uber / Monster.com / Quikr Jobs /
Babajob.com / Tech Mahindra / Indian Staffing Federation ( ISF )
(
Strangely , I failed to find any mention of these MOUs on NCS / MonsterIndia /
Babajobs web sites ! )
PURPOSE
?
"
It will provide its partners with the huge Aadhar-verified database of
authentic job seekers "
HOW
MANY ?
"
35 million authentic jobseekers and 900,000 employers have registered on the
portal so far "
WHAT
ELSE ?
"
The government has taken the initiative to link all 878 employment exchanges on
a national platform "
MY
TAKE :
This
is a step in the right direction
I
hope , it will lead to the creation of a SINGLE / CENTRAL database
( of jobseekers' resumes and employers' vacancy announcements ) , which can be
freely " accessed " from ANY job portal of India , by anyone ,
any time
*
By Jobseekers ,
# to search online job advts posted by ANY Employer ( Indian or
Foreign ), on ANY
Indian Job Portal, ANY-time
# to be able to apply against ANY jobs , directly from mobile or online
# to be able to REGISTER ( Submit Resume ) on ANY Indian Job Portal
*
By Employers /
Recruitment Agencies,
# to be able to post their Vacancies from ANY of hundreds of Indian Job
Portals (
after registering )
# to be able to search resumes and download any number , without
restriction
# to be able to shortlist candidates and send Interview Calls, directly
from ANY
Indian
Job Portal
# to be able to conduct online Video-Interviews of ANY number of
jobseekers from
ANY Indian job portal
On
22 July 2015 , I had
sent following email to :
*
Shri Bandaru Dattatreya ( Minister for Labour ) ('bandaru@sansad.nic.in' )
*
Secretary , Labour ('secy-labour@nic.in'
)
*
Directorate General of Training ('feedback.dget@nic.in'
)
*
Chief Ministers of all the States
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear
Sir :
On
20 July 2015 , our PM , Shri Narendra
Modi-ji launched a career portal ,
NCS
claims to bring together on a single platform , Career Centres ( re-named
Employment Exchanges ? ) / Job seekers /
Employers / Career Counsellors / Skill Providers
/ Local Service Providers etc
Whereas
this is a great initiative , it seems the web site has got launched despite any
number of glitches , such as :
*
" Site Map " missing
*
Links not clicking
*
Pages not loading
*
Databases missing
*
Content confusing
*
Naming misleading... etc
As
if this is not enough , most of the Registration Forms , carried unnecessary
and irrelevant data-fields , such as :
*
Aadhaar Number for Employers / Placement Organizations ?
*
Employer Company Executive to provide personal Aadhaar Number ?
*
Employer Company Executive to provide Gender / DOB / Father's Name ?
A
Local Service Provider does not need to select ( from a drop-list ) , what kind
of service does he provide. But he must mention his
"Affiliation" ?
A
Jobseeker does not need to provide :
*
Edu. Qualifications / Institute attended / Exams passed - and when
*
Previous Employment History ( for experienced job seekers )
*
Years worked / salary drawn / designation held , in each previous job
I
suspect , there is some another form hidden somewhere , which , a job seeker
will be asked to fill in later , just when he is ready to click " Apply
" against a job searched after several hours !
But
, these are minor defects that can be rectified soon - and without much
difficulty
But
here is the worst part !
Apparently
the web site does NOT
want job seekers and employers to get motivated enough to
register !
Here
is how :
#
EXPERIENCING THE FEATURES
Job
portals all over the World , enable any casual job seeker to be able to search
the online database of posted / live jobs , even if he is not registered
But
he cannot " Apply Online " , unless he is registered and logged in
It
is no different than a shop-keeper allowing you to roam free thru the entire
shop , without asking to see your Credit Card !
He
knows that a customer gets motivated to " Buy " , only if he gets to
see the goods on sale !
Ditto
with a casual Employer Visitor
Job
portals allow anyone to search and look at resumes
But
he can download only if he is registered / logged in
Usually
, job portals " hide " contact details on the resumes , when viewed
online but downloaded resumes carry full contact details
This
is because , job-portals , make their money from Subscriptions from Employers (
usually 95 % of the incomes of Indian Job Portals )
They
cannot afford any casual visitor to reach out to the jobseekers , bypassing
them !
They
make their money , by acting as " Gate-keepers " between the
job-seekers and the employers
I
am sure , this ( making money by acting as an intermediary ) , cannot be the
intention of National Career Service - since , rightly , it is FREE for
employers as well !
I
believe NCS intention is to ensure that no vacancy remains un-fulfilled for
more than a few hours !
#
JOB / RESUME ALERTS ON
MOBILE
On
the web site , I could not find any provision ( downloadable Mobile App ) thru
which ,
*
A job seeker can " pull " job alerts " matching his resume and
can apply online ,
directly , from his mobile
*
An Employer can pull " resume alerts " matching his posted job and
download those
resumes with just one click on his mobile
We
must remember that millions of job seekers in remote corners of India have no
access to a PC
But
, soon , all of them will have internet-enabled smart phones !
#
JOB FAIRS
On
the site , there is a provision to search for info on ground-based Job Fairs
taking place in different parts of India
But
, for a job seeker located in Coimbatore , there is no use getting info about a
job fair taking place in Kolkata !
Same
with an Employer
Why
have portal designers shied away from a " Virtual Job Fair " , where
both , the job seekers and the employers can conduct Online Interviews , using
Video ?
Not
difficult , considering that all mobile phones / tablets carry a camera and
Skype / Face Chat are free !
Technically
, it is a simple task to create a million Interview Cabins online , which any
registered Employer can " book " for a specific date / time / period
and conduct online interviews
A
million online interviews can take place simultaneously , with no constraints
of either time / space / distance !
That
would encourage even employers located anywhere in the World to conduct
interviews of Indian job seekers
If
, India wants to train 40/50 million youth who will constitute " Export
Surplus " , as per Shri Modi-ji , then this feature is a must
#
COMMON SHARED DATABASE
Today
, in India , there are hundreds of job-portals , each having its own database
of Jobs and Resumes
And
, barring a few big ones , most of these offer FREE service to both , the
jobseekers and the employers
Many
have only " local clientele " ( both job seekers and employers )
But
a job seeker who is registered on portal A , can search only those jobs which
are posted on that portal
Same
with employers searching for resumes
Neither
resumes , nor jobs posted on portal B can be accessed by visitors of portal
A !
Like a MTNL subscriber not being able to dial anyone
other than another MTNL subscriber !
This
severely limits their usefulness
NCS
should enable ALL such job portals to ,
*
Deliver their jobs and resumes , into the CENTRAL DATABASE of NCS
*
Deliver / display all of these to any visitor of any participating
partner portal
Within
a short period , this feature would generate a database of millions of jobs and
hundreds of millions of resumes , accessible from a thousand partner job
portals
Just imagine the exponential increase of usefulness
thru " Network Externality "
#
MOBILE APP - " JOB-POST "
Today
, NCS web site boasts of only 1684 registered employers !
India's
3 major job portals show some 50,000 + registered employers
Then
there are approx 50 million MSME , who have never advertised their vacancies on
any job portals !
May
be because they don't have PCs / broadband connections
Let
NCS web site enable them to post their jobs, using a simple Mobile App, " Job-Post "
There
is no reason why their 12 million vacancies every year, should remain "
Un-Announced " !
Then
there are many other features that can bridge the DIGITAL
DIVIDE between the jobseekers and the employers
If
desired , I would be happy to share my thoughts / notes / codes etc with NCS or
Ministry of Labour and Employment , drawing upon my past efforts at designing
of following job portals :
RecruitGuru.com
/ GlobalRecruiter.net / IndiaRecruiter.net / World-Wide-Jobs.com /
CustomizeResume.com / ResumesExchange.com / OnLineJobsFair.com
18 Jan 2018
www.hemenparekh.in
/ blogs
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