1. Lack of regional orientation : Most large job sites do not cater to regional diversity of a large country like India. Whereas national approach works fine with high skill, premium jobs, it does not fit in well with a majority of regular jobs. A regional website needs to align itself with the strengths, weaknesses, geography, language and culture of the region.
2. Fewer local openings : An overwhelming majority of jobs are local in nature. They require knowledge of local geography and language apart from local connectivity. The salary package too are generally designed with local candidates in mind. However job portals open up all the posts to the world without making any attempt to  segment candidates by geography, leading to problems both for candidates and employers.
3. Lack of lower end Jobs : Most job sites concentrate on the higher end jobs neglecting the lower end jobs which in turn employ the bulk of the population.
4. Lack of Temp Jobs, Unorganised sector Jobs, Fresher Jobs, Walk-in Jobs : Mainstream job sites have fewer openings of these categories which are ironically easier for candidates to grab.
5. Complex Job search : On most popular job sites, finding a job relevant to oneself is like finding a needle in a haystack. With so much information and very little segmentation, it is difficult to separate wheat from chaff.
6. Fake Jobs : Both paid and free job posts are vulnerable to fake jobs for different reasons. While portals that feature jobs against payment have an obligation to carry them irrespective of whether they are fishing for CVs for future use or for marketing their products. Free job posts on the other hand suffer because of lack of supervision over the quality of submissions.
7. Lengthy registration for Job application : Candidates are required to fill in their profile in the specific format of each job portal. This process is often cumbersome and repetitive in nature especially since most of the information is already available in their CV.
8. Privacy issues : The business model of all job sites that store candidate resume is based on selling private information to their clients. While most of the time this information is used to match job opening with candidates, it does leave the door wide open for spam and other misuses.
9. No feedback mechanism : None of the major job sites provide any meaningful feedback mechanism for candidates to discuss their experience of applying for various jobs.

Niyukti is based on a simple format where all the openings are listed along with Email-Id, Postal/ Walk-in address or Apply button. The candidate can directly send his application at the given Email Id or the Postal address or hit the Apply button. All he needs to have is a readymade CV in standard format to attach with his application. This facilitates easy sharing of jobs where any recipient can directly apply for the job instead of having to fill a lengthy form.

Beware of Job Scams

To a trained eye, the advertisement looked fishy from the first instance. But for thousands of unsuspecting candidates there is no way of knowing, until it is too late. Some of the important questions whose answer candidates should seek before applying for such jobs are given below:

1. Find out about the company that seeks to offer employment. How old is it? How many people does it currently employ? Search its website, Google search for any information about the company, speak to someone who knows about the Company etc..

2. Sometimes fraud is conducted using names of well known companies too. Try to find whether the advertisement is connected to the original company or not. Look for the name/log and compare the original company name/logo from earlier newspaper/ website. Check whether Emails use the company’s official domain name.

3. A demand for money at any stage – application, written test, interview, appointment letter, security deposit – should start the alarm bells ringing (with the exceptions of Government and Public sector jobs, many of which still insist on application fee) . Keep in mind that no good Private sector company would ask for money from candidates.

On the other end of the spectrum, a few candidates themselves walk into job scams with open eyes. They are ready to pay bribe for landing a job and they only cry foul if the promised job does not matérialise. It is advisable to stay away from such hoaxes. Please keep in mind that private jobs unlike Government job are not permanent and may even be terminated if wrong doing is discovered later. In case of jobs, if it is too good to be true, it is probably false.

Even online job sites are not free from the menace of fake jobs. Spam Jobs with locations all over the country are regularly posted to fish for CVs. These CVs are then used by job consultancies or worse can be sold off as personal database for Email/ SMS spam.  They can also be used to extort money from candidates or to sell them training services.There are other kinds of scam too including jobs that promise good money for online data entry and recruitment for ‘click spam’. Then there are emails that pop right into your inbox promising easy jobs in renowned companies. Mid way through the application process, money is demanded for taking the process further before interview, issue of appointment letter or final joining.

Job Scam Notice

In this way, both online and print medium suffer from fake jobs. Some people contend that free online job posts lead to junk and fake jobs. However this may not be necessarily true. The newspaper spam posts are all paid and so are most of the online posts. They all ride the credibility of the newspaper or the online platform. The media in turn absolve themseleves of any liability of wrongful exploitation through a disclaimer notice warning candidates to ascertain facts before applying. So what is the one thing that stands between real and fake jobs? It is effective moderation. Ironically there is even less motivation for effective moderation for a paid job post than the free one.

All jobs posted to Niyukti are manually moderated . In fact we reject many more jobs everyday than those that we publish. Experienced HR professionals moderate each and every Job post that appears on our website. At times a series of questions and responses from employers precede the actual publication of a Job post. Does this mean that we eliminate fake jobs entirely? No, but we do have a much better track record of identifying fake job posts and posting the real ones. Candidates can also report problems faced with specific job posts using our Blog and Facebook page.

Informal Sector dominates employment in India

Unorganised or informal sector jobs are like the iceberg below the water surface. They are the bulk of our employment, yet job sites do not make it easy to list them. This is because a majority of such jobs target illiterate and semi literate population so they are not ideally suited for online hiring and are also not remunerative for the job sites . Niyukti by keeping jobs posts free and local makes it easier for at least some informal sector jobs to list for e.g. Shop salesmen, Drivers, Hotel staff, small factory employees etc.

Temp Jobs or Flexi Jobs are the the new age contractual jobs that are the fast catching on. They carry most of the benefits of a regular job but  are a lot easier to get on account of being contractual. Temp jobs are also useful for Freshers because they provide invaluable experience. Jobs that do not compulsorily require experience are tagged as ‘Freshers’ on Niyukti. Similarly openigs where all those interested can walk in for interviews are tagged as Walk-in on Niyukti.  Walk-in Jobs fit in very well with the local nature of Niyukti pages. All in all, a conscious efforts is made to promote ‘under the radar’ segment of jobs on Niyukti.

Few Job sites overflow with Jobs

The chosen few websites overflow with so many jobs that it is not possible for any one to keep a track of all the jobs being posted on them. Usually all major job sites provide a search tool to find jobs relevant to a candidate. But even the search tools require a higher level of intelligence to use them and adapt them for personal profile. It depends on the keywords that one uses to find the jobs, else they might just miss them.

Niyukti on the other hand provides a simple date wise serial list of openings for each separate region. Further the quality of job posts is given more importance than quantity, leading to a more manageable list of jobs. All in all one can easily track jobs relevant to them at a particular location on a daily basis  and immediately apply for the same once a suitable opening is found. ‘Labels’ (tags) are used to provide a list of job posts based on category, level, sector or location. Over and above all this there is Google search to search Jobs based on Company Names or Keywords.

On Niyukti.in the low end jobs are specially categorized as Simple Jobs. They are jobs that usally pay less than Rs. 10,000/- P.M. but are easier and faster to get. By keeping job posts free of cost and restricting the details required for posting jobs to bare minimum, Niyukti makes it easier for smaller employers to list their jobs. It also focuses on the low end segment by following a simple format of datewise jobs listing without any complicated registration forms for candidates. In this way, it aspires to reach a much larger audience, especially from the smaller towns.

There are several reasons for creating Niyukti.in website. Most of them are related to problems that existed with the present set of national and international job sites:

1. Need for regional job site
2. Fewer local openings
3. Lack of lower end Jobs
4. Difficulty in searching Jobs
5. Lack of Temp Jobs, unorganised sector Jobs, Fresher Jobs, Walk-in Jobs….
6. Listing of Fake Jobs
7. Lengthy registration for Job application

In the next posts we shall consider each reason in detail.