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The new employment exchange

Kanchana Suggu

If you are an Indian -- and here we aren't only addressing the geeks -- and are seeking a job abroad (and, oh well, maybe right here) and you aren't necessarily keen on living the American dream, then there are sites besides monster.com to go to.

We're discussing one JobStreet.com, an Asia Pacific online recruitment solutions provider, which launched its e-recruitment services in India today.

In India, JobStreet.com has come in a little late perhaps, preceding it being stalwarts like naukri.com, jobs.com and careerindia.com.

"But they lack the technology we have," claims Sudhir Sethi, Director, Walden India.

If you are a little worried that your surreptitious job-hunting efforts will be reported back to your boss, JobStreet says you needn't worry.

"JobStreet will continue to maintain its stringent security measures to ensure complete privacy for both the employer and the jobseeker," says Suresh Thiru, chief executive officer. We guess you can take him at his work. JobStreet is only the second company to be awarded the TRUSTe certification for privacy and confidentiality.

But even if it's entered the Indian market later than may perhaps have been ideal, it already has a strong presence in countries like Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Founded in 1995 in the Asia Pacific region, it now has a base of over 200,000 members (jargon for job-seekers) and 2,300 companies, including multinationals like Shell, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Citibank, Motorola, DHL and what have you. In India, they began operations in March.

And if you worry about fees and suchlike, JobStreet, like most other job sites, demands no fee for posting resumes, but the companies that register with the portal have to cough up $ 100 per position per month. In India, they've translated that to Rs 4,000 rupees though, during the hype-in period they're all giving it away free of cost. There's no charge on successful hiring, even after the initial phase. The officials tell us that about 10 Indian firms have already registered with them.

JobStreet.com wants to focus only on Asia, not Europe or the US, but haven't quite ruled out the possibility altogether.

"Everyone is US-centric or Europe-centric. We want to tap the large reservoir of human capital that Asia offers. We also want to be Asia's channel for NRIs who want to come back India. We provide mobility within and outside countries," says Malek Ali, VP, International.

Once 'members' have registered their work experience and career preferences, they can also use the portal's in-built search engine LiNa to dredge up suitable matches. They are informed via e-mail of available positions after scanning through a database of over 10,000 positions across India, the US and the Asia Pacific region.

An online application facility and an online test is also available. About 100,000 job applications are processed every month. And that finally translates to about 13,000 jobs.

In India, they hope to generate over 100,000 jobs for Indians worldwide in IT, finance, FMCG, manufacturing and retail.

The site's interim CEO is Suresh Thiru

JobStreet's clients in India include firms like Intel, Dell, Sun Microsystems, MindTree Consulting and Motorola.

Walden International Investment Group, the international venture capital firm that manages funds in excess of US $ 1.2 billion has made an investment in jobstreet.com to the tune of US $ 1.8 million.

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