Recap 2008: Online Jobsite/Recruitment Space
Starting today till the end of the year we are going to be posting vertical specific recap posts analysing the year 2008. We shall call these the Recap 2008 series. So stay tuned to WATBlog to recap and refresh WAT all happened in the WAT (Web, Advertising & Technology) Space..
Today we look at the online jobsite/recruitment space that primarily consists of major players like naukri.com, monster.com, jobstreet, yellojobs, shine.com, clickjobs and careerbuilderindia.
Starting with Jobs.. Jobs space which has created one of the biggest companies in the internet space in India i.e. Infoedge (Naukri.com) saw some interesting trends in the early part of the year. At the start of the year we saw a push towards online referral recruitment and players like yellojobs, reffster and earlier techtribe as well as the latest entrant iRefr.com all indicating towards a trend in referral recruitment. Yellojobs had broken ties with NDTV in 2007 and was was upbeat on recruitment space in the early part of the year but in the last three months the economic slowdown hit the world and recruitment as a space has completely slowed down.
An indication of the slowdown was the Naukri Q2 results and even though Sanjeev Bikhchandani defended the results in another interview he also admitted slower future growth. Also its a no brainer to figure out that when more layoff news is coming through then hiring news it means the jobs space has to be hit. Amidst all this chao of layoffs naukri went mobile with a tie up with Mobisoc. There was also the entry of International Jobsite Careebuilder which went the tie up route first with Sulekha and then with NDTV to power their jobs section. There was also the entry of meta search player simply hired into the Indian market in the later part of the year as 25% job cuts were being expected in India.
The year has been a rather silent one for monster though in the early part of the year they did launch jobs search on mobile. The big news in the jobsite space this year has been the entry of Shine.com from eFirefly Ventures (The Venture arm of HTMedia). Shine did a lot of tv advertising as well during the year. Not sure how they are faring in the last 3-4 months with the slowdown though. By the end of the year Naukri announced an interesting foray into the fresher jobs market via Firstnaukri which we analysed in detail.
Update: Forgot to mention Timesjobs in the above list. They had not much to talk about besides for the viral they launched. Not sure it added anything to their bottomline though.
All in all the year 2008 was a depressing one for the Online recruitment space with the slowdown hitting the market hard by the end of the year. Most of these players would be looking at 2009 with nervousness and praying that people recruit more and layoff less.
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Hi Rajiv, there are more innovations coming out. We at http://www.Talentty.com are about to launch “ProfessionalRanking” solutions and few other new media solutions.
We think the industry slowdown is right time for re-visiting and offer new services in online recuitment.
Thanks,
Santosh
Hi Rajiv,
Rightly Said, More layoffs than hiring across industries. The effect has been varying across sectors. Most of the broad based hiring portals will have to adjust their sales strategy accordingly. The good part is post slow down (If it lasts long) there will be surprises in the online Job portal space. Some players will come out stronger than they were after the slow down.
On a different note, We at iRefr.com will move to a public beta soon with some first of its kind features.
Cheers
Supreet Singh
http://www.iRefr.com
So much is happening in the online space and yet unemployment makes a big noise here in india. Tell me, how are the job portals taking up this unemployment crisis? Has it eroded their business or has it opened new opportunities for them?
Among the online referral portals, I think Yellojobs.com is faring quite well. Good opportunity to earn rewards starting from 5k.
Hi Rajiv,
Certainly there’s gonna be lot of lay offs to happen in the coming months, but the job portals can look these lay offs as an opportunity. The people who are being laid off can be approached by these online referral portals and can surely be referred in some of the companies where hiring is happening. The referrers can even earn a handsome reward by doing so. One of the job portals I came across is Yellojobs which has lots of jobs with good reward amount.
Instead of criticizing the current market scenario people should come up with more and more ways to help those who get laid off.
Hi Rajiv, Good Summary
Hay Surpreet, I checked out iRefr.com. It looks refreshing. Wish you all the best.
Hay Birat, This article is about job portals. The growth of job portals is directly proportional to employement scenario in market so it makes sense to talk about it.
Hay Aashish, I think you are right these layoffs may actually help these referral portals if they can capitalise on it.
But I disagree on your point about yellojobs. In the whole year I never came across anyone who has got a rewards from that site and I know some guys who had actively done referrals.
While on Jobsites a new trend is being created towards ‘Local Jobsites’ for Tier II & III citites listing simpler and localised jobs. One such local jobsite for real jobs in bihar – Bihar Jobs and in U.P. – U.P. Jobs
Rajiv,
you forgot us (www.thehiringtool.com)
No issues dude…there’s always next year
Happy new year !!!! see you at Proto 09
Nice summary Rajiv,
Since most of the companies are cutting costs, online recruitment solutions can be much more cost effective over other mediums like print.
So, I see this as an opportunity and it is the time we should focus on innovations.
Cheers,
Satyajeet
Hey Rajiv,
Economic slowdown definitely hit the recruitment overall globally, but rightly said above that the internet recruitment program has given a most cost effective and effective ways of Hiring… for example.. the referral recruitment service initiated by Yellojobs.com followed by some others… have broken the traditional ways of recruitments.. employers pay when they hire… friends get reward amount when their referrer gets hired…
I m sure e-recruitment market would see more of it…!!
Thanks
R
1. Stop advertising your sites through fake profiles here. Get life guys.
2. There is hardly any sensible entrants in the Job Space during 2008.
3. “Reward the Referral” will be a flopshow in India. If you want to know why?.. Please meet 10 search firms and employer orgs.
4.Dear wannabe job site entrepreneurs , Please meet 10-20 clients before you give shape to your stupid ideas. Work on something that works in Indian recruitment landscape.
5. Stop assuming that “oh..the indusry size as of now is Rs.500 crores with a predicted CAGR of 35% in the next 3 years.. so even a 2-5% market share is like 10-50 crores “. Check with the Shine Management as to how difficult it is to rake in the current revene of Rs.5 lacs per month for that site
6. Stop beating around the bush. There are may other domains that requires substitutes…focus there. Job is probably the most difficult category guys. Blow your hard earned money elsewhere.
7. Rajiv….. Techtribe has shut shop…. Yellojobs is not even earning their petty cash… Shine is bleeding… careerbuilder doesn’ have more than 50 paying clients… Hence … the year 2008 is a pathetic year for this space.
My dear Jingle Bells,
I don`t know what good facts and figures you have to point out the above.. Reward the referral is widely accepted by lot of named organizations..!! .. might not have been accepted by you.. so that’s a different story..!! not a Flop show at least..!!!
Any entrepreneur, who wish to get into any start up, of course will not be stupid to shape up their ideas for nothing.. thanks for your advice!!
with regards to your point no. 7.. I would just like to say that this is an era for “THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST”.. there could be several reasons for shutting down an operation, not only that they could not compete.. Companies with broader and long term vision, often doesn`t think of their current losses or earnings.. There are lot of big companies who are still incurring losses for years and are still operating..!! not for today but for a wonderful 2mrw..!!
So as per the recruitment industry goes, Jobs will be there , so the Job seekers and the employers.. and this industry will surely grow.. no matter what you and me discuss..!!
Very Happy New Year to you..!!
Hey Rajiv – Nice synopsis
Jingle Bells – Your analysis is quite incorrect and seems an outburst from limited information, I must say.
The year 2008 has seen a rapid evolution in the jobs space… new breakthroughs like listing of infoedge, new innovations like yellojobs.com and techtribe.com, new sites like shine.com and every damn site that exists now is earning their bread. As I see it, in times of recession & slowdown, two big concerns that emerge are – “Hiring slowdown” and “cost cutting”. As a result, employers who had multiple job portal subscriptions, now have just one, guys who had multiple recruitment vendors – now have consolidated towards the ones with least cost & flexible payment terms, people are moving towards pay per success models and yellojobs.com is much in demand.
Perhaps some of these players are doing a good job of not spending wildly on marketing and hence the general public know little about them while they focus on revenue generation from handful key clients.
What makes me wonder is how big names of 2007 like jobstreet.com, cybermediadice.com, timesjobs.com & NDTVjobs.com are either dead or on the verge of dying now…which shows that network18 group, cybermedia, TBSL (Times group) & NDTV respectively could not help giving it shape despite their monetary strengths. TBSL which owns simplymarry.com and peerpower.com apart from timesjobs.com are known to have exceptionally fallen with their COO being asked to leave, as a result.
Classifieds firms like sulekha are also gaining shape and hope to have a good future. The country is moving towards internet rapidly and I’m sure 2009 will be an era for the indian online industry.
Santa surely brings some cheer back, although he has come a bit heavier of Jingle Bells. Well put Santa.
Dear Expert Claus,
None of the sites mentioned by you are even earning their Petty cash expenses ( Tea, staff welfare etc).. Check with their respective team.
FYI..None of these “handful” of clients pay. Almost 99.99% of the listings in all these jobsites are free. Getting a company to post for free is also not an easy task dude.
Its easy to give opinion sitting outside..get inside and experience..you’ll know how painful it is.
Talking about innovation, I know of only one jobsite which came up with an innovative approach, trying to create a solid niche. I dont wanna mention the site here. But they’ll kick some ass for sure!
@Papa Santa ,
Companies with broader/long term vision are not supposed to downsize too
.. Leave that word “Long term” for heaven’s sake. Indian internet industry have suffered enough and we’ve all realised that its very important to survive in the short-run to be able to see success in the long-run. (Survival = Eaning salaries and expenses). Enough of emotional statements coated with American sentimentalism with completely flawed logic. Common sense is the new mantra dude… and Internet Industry has a serious lack of it. Especially the dudes who come up with a job site, without any specific research.
Well,
I am quite late to jump into the conversation, but, I kinda agree partially with all of you. The job market is bad for any new startup, but at the same time there is still scope, it all depends on how you execute it.
Its like the Gutkha market in India, a very abstruse comparison, but an effective one nonetheless. Will you being an entrepreneur enter the Gutkha market with so many major players? I guess NO;however, there are so many players entering the market every year and getting their rightful share out of it.
It is the product they get into the market and the problem they are answering. If you have a unique problem that you answer within the job market, then I say, there is a scope for growth.
In place of fighting here with fake names and defending your sites, I say you guys should go back and earn some profits and end the year on a positive note.
Happy New Year !!