Get Jobs off the Street 

If Wall Street is the financial capital of the world, Jobstreet.com
aspires to be the human capital of the world, said Founder and CEO Mark
Chang. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, who started
the online job recruitment and matching service in 1995, is among the
ranks of successful dotcoms in these days of dot bombs. 

Even though Jobstreet.com is an outright pure play in the e-commerce
arena, Chang, however, does not view it as a novel dotcom. "It is run
like any other business with enough collections to keep it going," he
said.

The successful strategy is sweetened by the validation he receives from
numerous visitors to the portal who have thanked him for helping them
secure jobs of their choice.

"I was trying out different businesses on the Web -security, banking,
travel and even radio - apart from jobs and what compelled me to stick
to jobs were the users who came back to say that they had been
successful in getting a job through us. It is a good feeling being able
to help someone," he said.

Today JobStreet.com is among the oldest Internet recruitment Web sites
in Asia-Pacific, with its comprehensive suite of interactive services.
More than 8000 international and local Asian corporations currently
recruit from JobStreet.com's pool of over one million users.

Users who sign up with Jobstreet.com do not have to fork out a single
cent to post their resumes. Employers, however, pay between US$50 and
US$150 for every position filled through the pay-per-use model. 

"It can be one or 10 jobs for that position at the same price," said
Chang.

The right job

Chang views jobs as an important aspect of a person's life and believes
that people are better off using his site to get a job they truly want.
"Life can be miserable if you are in the wrong job. Moreover, jobs are
not transparent enough as there may be right jobs out there of which you
are not aware," he said. 

He pays a great deal of attention to matching his clientele's needs and
much of the time is devoted to fine-tuning the matching process. "Unlike
most job sites that post jobs, we develop the back-end system of the
resume processing part for our customers."

Dell APCC is among Jobstreet.com's earliest customers. According to its
director of human resources and administration, Tan Aun Gim, Dell opted
for a virtual job placement process in addition to advertising for
manpower in the traditional media.

"It turned out to be a good tool as we are able to store the information
and retrieve it later. Initially we received about 2000 applications a
week before it stabilised to 1000. But we do expect the numbers to rise
again because of the impending recession this year," said Tan.

Jobstreet.com provided Dell with junior and middle-level positions for
its manufacturing facilities in Malaysia and India. Senior executives
have also responded to placements at Dell but have to undergo a more
stringent screening process.

"We also gave Jobstreet.com some pointers on how to improve their Web
site and tailor it to meet our needs. We also have a system in place to
track the effectiveness of the tool. The yield rate from 1000
applications was 60% in the early days. Now the return rate is not as
high as it is only natural because we are older and the street is also
getting crowded. We have more wisdom [when it comes to selecting
candidates," said Tan.

According to Chang, Dell had conducted an internal study that showed it
would take 48 days from the posting of an advertisement to the day of
making an offer through traditional media. "Our system cuts that process
down to two days."

A load of the mundane processing activities such internal processing of
each candidate, scheduling appointments and accompanying paperwork
undertaken by Jobstreet.com do ease workload of human resource personnel
at each company. "We take a load off them and they can concentrate on
the interview and hiring the right person."

While most companies are happy with Jobstreet.com's subscription-based
model, they argued that prices should be lowered in order to stay
competitive. "There are many players such as JobsDB and Monster.com in
the market and Jobstreet.com will need to diversify and translate that
database to something of more value to customers," said a personnel
manager who declined to be named.

Chang countered that their pricing includes a resume management software
that is thrown in for free while other online recruiters charge for
additional services.

Beyond the street

Dell's Tan suggested that Jobstreet set up another Web site that
exclusively serves regular customers. "They need to go beyond the job
[search and match service]," she said. Yet Chang does not see
Jobstreet.com heading in that direction. He claimed that Jobstreet.com
is far more elaborate and complete compared to their competitors. 

"We are happy to work hand-in-hand with MNCs as we are geared towards
large organisations, identifying their needs and tailor-made to meet it.
We are constantly making improvements which I believe puts us ahead of
the rest."

Chang is setting his sights on China after a successful debut in India
recently and believes that India and Asia will be the main providers of
human capital to the rest of the world.

"We are now looking at China as we see equal potential there," he said,
adding that they did not make in-roads earlier due to the language
differences.

Among the challenges that Jobstreet.com face include low Internet
penetration in the region. "We have to get to the stage where the
Internet is pervasive as the telephone right now in order to reach out
to a wider user base," he said, adding that the current pool comprises
20% fresh graduates and 80% working adults.

Changing the mindsets at MNCs is another hurdle, as many prefer the
print medium as a means to find potential employees instead of the
cheaper method offered by the Internet.

Yet Chang is determined to realise his vision of building Asia as the
human capital of the world. 

"Twenty years ago, it was about money, market and people. Now it is the
reverse - people, market and money. I believe that once you raise the
right human capital, you can easily raise the financial capital. The
value of a company lies in its people, not its fixed assets."

By Anita Devasahayam , 1-May-2001, Published in Intelligent Enterprise 
Asia