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(
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
Portal
# to be able to conduct online
Video-Interviews of
ANY number of jobseekers from
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,
mobile
* An Employer can pull " resume alerts "
matching
his posted job and download those
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