(With Inputs from Rajiv Dingra)
ClickJobs.com, job portal from Consim Info group has unveiled a technology which aims at bringing recruiters back to jobsites by making recruitment extremely cheap. Whats more they also plan to reward job seekers for the same. They have also revamped the site’s layout.
The company has said that the technology is awaiting patent and has also termed it as blue ocean strategy.
Blue ocean strategy implies that a company build a product which creates un-existence market by creating value for stakeholders and thus Making the competition Irrelevant.
The new pay-for-contact model works by giving recruiters a chance to post jobs for free and perform unlimited free searches of resume databases. Currently many leading job portals charge both for posting a job and searching for candidates apart.
The portal would be charging recruiter only for job seekers which they try to contact and in turn job seekers would be given a fair share of pie by allotting them 50% of the value which recruiter pay in turn for contacting.
They would also be devising an affiliate system where job seekers would be doled out 10% commission when their friend’s contact details are viewed and 5% for their friends’ friends’ resume. This is similar to the Job Referral Sites.
As its clear from the chart below Clickjobs is certainly not among the top two jobsites in India in terms of traffic. There were also rumours on clickjobs looking to shutdown or strategic sellout sometime back. 
This means that this change is business model is forced move to bring in some revenues as jobsites across the board have seen a slowdown in revenues.
But on the brighter side this change in model may help attract smaller companies to clickjobs as the pay per contact model is low on cost and investment.
Whatever the compulsions, this is a move to monetize the resume database that they already have. The main problems with this approach are
1. The junior HR people will be wary of spending the money and would look for approval from above for every candidate that they wish to contact. This will create a lot of friction inside the hiring organization.
2. Traditionally, especially in India, there is a lot of drop-offs between first contact and interview stage. All this adds to the cost of each candidate who reaches the interview stage.
3. The HR team can no longer predict the cost of recruitment. With the annual subscription model or the pay per job posting model, you always knew how much it would cost you. Now that becomes variable.
4. I would guess that the success of this model will depend on the quality of the database, especially with respect to the contact information. With the proliferation of pre-paid phones and free email, the contact information on resumes get outdated very quickly these days.
5. The HR personnel need to change their behaviour. Today, they bulk invite hundreds or even thousands of people about the job opening and hope that something sticks and some of the recipients respond. But with this model, they have to do it a few at a time and this can add to the time it takes to line up candidates.
5. The longer it takes to find the candidate, the costlier it becomes!
6. Finally, the longer it takes to find the right candidate, the better it is for ClickJobs. And it is the exact opposite for the recruiter. This means that the interests of ClickJobs and its clients are not aligned. In fact, the interests of the two parties are diametrically opposite!!
Don’t know if such a pricing model can be a lasting model.
Full marks for trying something different, though. All the best to them.
@ sanjay
1.To clear dounts they would still be providing long duration resume access like before as they are not scrapping it altogether.
Click jobs faq
2.While acessing on pay per contact basis a recruiter gets all the resume details free like experience of a candidate and his complete resume only the contact information is blocked so I guess this will not delay the recruiting process.
3.This service is like micro recruitment solution for SME’s as they would be getting free job postings and can refill there account and pay only on the basis of per contact.Thus,This would be altogether good as many companies would post their job openings online and would help in filling digital divide gap.
4.The only thing which is of grave concern is that it would reduce the quality of job postings cos making it free will degrade it and even invite some qualified spammers.
the problem with this model like the referral recruitment model is its spammy in nature – specially rewarding the candidates is a no no feature – it will help get traction and attraction but sustaining that will be impossible as quality will drastically suffer
this doesnt solve any gap from recruiter perspective – the issue with mass portals is lack of quality, its like searching a needle from a haystick in some HR’s words – so better they had spent time/energy is comingup with a model to solve that gap rather than becoming another mass spammy platform !
Niche platforms like http://www.MbaNaukri.com may just be a much better solution !
Sanjay,
Its far better than putting up a jobsite and actually doing a recruitment consulting business, like many of the start-ups are doing now.
Bhavana,
Dream on
Its true that there is a space for “Niche Jobsites”. But these Niche Jobsites should address a “challenge” that prevails in the recruitment space. Just by putting up a tinpot and calling it some XYZnaukri is sheer waste of time. get yourself a job or change track. Pls dont waste time running a jobsite , just for the heck of it.
Clickjobs,
The “address a challenge” rule applies to you guys too!
“But these Niche Jobsites should address a “challenge” that prevails in the recruitment space. Just by putting up a tinpot and calling it some XYZnaukri is sheer waste of time. get yourself a job or change track.”
Well said!!
Been in Jobportal Sales for more than 10 Years
Few pratical Issues with this model:
Companies are already paying leading Jobportals for Unlimited DBS and JP. What’s that Clickjobs is offering different?? ( Database is again duplicate of Naukri / Monster / Timesjobs..)and why to pay more when the recurter is not even sure the intrest level of candidate.
@ Sanjay
Recuriters are looking for Instant Access, not to wait for Clickjobs to sent in the response and then contact the candidate ( By that time some other consultant whould have sourced same profile)
This is tried and Failed model ( Pay/usage) by portals like Jobstreet and Careerbuilder in India in 2001-2004.
There are enough Players in jobportal Industry. If Clickjobs can come up addressing issues which otherwise not been taken care by the industry leaders, then i think it would make a difference.
All the Best