Finding a job made easy

Finding a new job has never been easier.

This was the message of multinational website Jobstreet.com, which says the majority of Filipino job seekers were turning to the Internet—instead of physically going from office to office—to look for  employment.

“We have observed that most jobseekers are young people. They are very tech savvy and they want things fast and easy. So to them, the best way to apply for new jobs is by going online,” says Yoda Buyco, marketing head for Jobstreet Philippines.

Earlier this week, Jobstreet unveiled its partnership with Globe Telecom for the release of the “Tattoo-Jobstreet” Internet stick.

“Tattoo-Jobstreet” allows users to browse the Jobstreet website and look for new positions, even when they do not have any load.

This year, about 480,000 Filipinos are expected to graduate from college to join the ranks of more than nine million unemployed. They will be competing for open positions enough for only one in five applicants, Buyco said, citing government data.

Buyco says in 2011, 40 percent of all available jobs in the Philippines were posted on Jobstreet.com.

Of the two million openings in 2011, three out of four were targeted for applicants with one to four years work experience.

About 64 percent of available positions were for local posts while the balance represented overseas jobs.

Buyco says based on Jobstreet’s 2011 data, the “hottest” jobs expected in 2012 were in the engineering and technology, customer service, information technology, finance and sales sectors for those looking to work in the Philippines.

The hottest jobs abroad, meanwhile, would be in the engineering, blue-collar work and healthcare areas.

Of the top three ways people look for new jobs, topping the list was by going to online portals. Getting jobs through referrals and walk-in applications occupied the second and third spots.

Meanwhile, employers too are having an easier time finding the best talent from a large pool of applicants thanks to the Internet and sites like Jobstreet, Buyco says.

She adds Jobstreet’s back-end algorithm, which relies on key words and factors to create a list of the best-suited applicants to specific jobs.

“This algorithm ranks the best applicants for a job based on their resumes,” Buyco says. “This saves a lot of time for companies and makes looking for new employees easier,” she says.

Jobstreet, which is based in Malaysia, has operations in eight countries in the Asia Pacific region. In the Philippines, it is the biggest job website with a market share of about 68 percent that makes it more than twice the size of its nearest competitor.