Job portals ride on good times

Mary Christina (name changed) had a dead end job at a garment export unit in Bangalore. After three years of working six day weeks and almost no holidays, visiting a job consultant was out of the question.

Today, Christina is on a two week vacation after landing a job as an analyst at consulting firm Accenture, all thanks to a few clicks on Monsterindia.com.

Clearly, job portals are thriving, and how. One of the few survivors of the dotcom bust, more than half-a-dozen job portals made their debut in the last five to six years. Today, only a few "� Naukri, Monsterindia, Jobstreet, Jobsdb and Timesjobs "� seem to have any relevance with the online job seeker and are profitable.

The size of the Indian e-recruitment industry is pegged at Rs 80 to Rs 100 crore and it is growing by 40-50 per cent annually. It accounts for almost 20 per cent of the Rs 500 crore total recruitment industry.

Look at the way how one of the first job portals "� Naukri set up in 1997 "� has expanded. With 27 offices in 25 locations and revenues of Rs 22 crore in 2003-2004, revenues have shot up to Rs 45 crore last year. It wants to be a Rs 100 crore company by the end of this financial year.  Why are job portals flourishing? For one, many overseas Indians are returning. Then there is the inherent DNA of a job portal which does not have to rely on just online advertising for revenues. They have twin revenue streams from both corporations and candidates.  For job seekers, developing a resume, getting alerts, posting it on the site or sending it to job consultants costs between Rs 650 and Rs 1,250. A combination of two or more services can go all the way to Rs 3,600.  More than 90 per cent of the revenues of job portals are derived from corporate sales. Companies shell out between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 lakh by way of annual subscription, giving them access to the resume database and post vacancies.  IT services major Cognizant spends about 7 per cent of its recruitment budget on job portals.  According to S Venkatesan, the company's vice president, global resource management, with more than 35 e-recruitments a month, about 9 per cent of Cognizant's global recruitment is online. And what kind of people are hired online? "Job portals are best for junior level recruitments and to tap returning Indians," he says.  Also, Venkatesan claims that e-recruitments provide around 40 per cent relevant results versus barely 10 per cent from print ads. "Portals are much faster and help most in identifying niche or specialist skills," he adds.  Most Indian job portals have forged international alliances "� Timesjobs with Careerbuilder, Jobsahead with Monster, Naukri with Hotjobs and CyberMedia with Dice.  With Monster's acquisition of Jobsahead in 2004, the company's brand equity, coupled with its marketing and financial muscle, makes it to most job seekers' and corporations' wish list.  

"India is extremely important because the market will grow as internet penetration is low. Companies are realising that this is a great way to hire. We have a global talent pool and this will become important as a labour shortage is likely to hit the US in 2007-2008," says Dhruv Shenoy, vice president, marketing, Monster Asia.

Many job portals have also forged alliances with the print media "� Deccan Herald (Avenues), Hindustan Times (Power jobs), New Indian Express, Free Press Journal, and The Telegraph. Here, portals post their requirements in the print media while promoting the job offerings of the latter.  How are job portals viewed by traditional job consultants? "There was a fear that job portals would replace traditional recruitment companies, so they launched their own portals in response. From being competitors we have moved to using their services," says E Balaji, executive director, staffing solutions group, Ma Foi Management Consultants.  Ma Foi uses job portals to both post job requirements and mine their large resume database. "If you have Rs 5 to Rs 6 lakh, you can sign with all three (Timesjobs, Monster and Naukri). We source 2,000 to 3,000 resumes every month," adds Balaji. Only two to three candidates out of 50 applications end up with jobs.  That's because of the low internet penetration "� about 25 million users. So job sites have resorted to online activity by participating in and organising job fairs, seminars and other human resource events.  Being a new entrant in the resume database, for the past few months, Timesjobs has been holding job fairs "� Big Leap "� in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune. These are used by companies in the business process outsourcing (BPO), information technology, training, retail, insurance and banking sectors.  

Says R Sundar, director, corporate, The Times" group: "The 1.5 million resumes on Timesjobs.com have been there for less than a year."

For companies, job portals are a boon, adding one more avenue to the recruitment game. With a 33 per cent turnaround time, they are considered faster than traditional recruitment routes. And with e-recruitment on everyone's agenda, job portals are here to stay.  As Monster Asia's Shenoy puts it: "Job portals are changing the paradigm of recruitment. We are at the edge of a huge revolutionary change, this is a large market."