Chef
Kunal Kapoor, executive sous chef at The Leela in Gurgaon and a judge
on MasterChef India, remembers posting his resume on Naukri.com 10 years
ago, a move that was unusual at the time, especially for someone
engaged in the culinary arts. Kapoor had just put in his papers at the
Taj Holiday Village in Goa after working there for four years and was
looking to move up to a sous chef from being a senior chef de partie.
Two
months after uploading his resume, Kapoor got two interview calls
through Naukri - from The Park in New Delhi and The Grand Hyatt in
Mumbai. In the event, he didn't pick either but opted for a job in the
Gulf with a higher pay package.
"At that time, applying through a
portal and getting calls for interviews for a profile like this was a
rarity," Kapoor recalls. "Internet penetration was not high, and there
were hardly any new jobs as most of the chains in the sector were either
selling off hotels or cutting down on expansion plans. My colleagues
were amazed and asked me if I could post their profiles too," he
laughs.
That was then. Today, profiles of chefs and bartenders
are commonly featured on online portals, which once seemed to be
confined to postings by IT workers looking to change their jobs (or
people like Hari Sadu's suffering colleagues in Naukri's ad).
Kapoor's own recruitments for The Leela through online portals has at least doubled over the past 2-3 years.
"In
our industry, where people are always on the move, it helps to have an
easy to access database of job-ready , mid- and entry-level
professionals through online portals," says Kapoor, who has not deleted
his profile and still gets calls from people looking to hire a sous
chef.
Other professions listed on portals include yoga
instructors, heads of weightloss centres and deep-sea divers. Interest
is high among recruiters and prospective employees for such professions.
Apart from the above jobs, Monster.com features spa therapists,
masseurs and massage chair technicians.
"A decade ago, it was
primarily IT, but now people are reaching out to job portals to find
jobs across industries," says Sanjay Modi, managing director of
Monster.com for India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
"Mobiles
and social media have made it easier to search for jobs and one is
seeing out-of-the-clutter requirements. When there will be more
employers deploying online space, it will be easier to attract seekers
as well."
On Careesma.in, a job site run by Spanish company
Groupo Intercom and launched in India in June 2011, profiles such as
those of models, actors, photographers, bartenders and even doctors
constitute about 5% of overall listings.
"Earlier, such
profiles, considered non-corporate in nature, were closed through word
of mouth referrals or agencies, but with youngsters increasingly opting
for unconventional career choices, around 35-40 of the profiles listed
each month are for such roles," says Sudhanshu Arora, co-founder,
director and country manager, Careesma.in. The portal recently clinched
the hiring of a deep-sea diver.
Andaman and Nicobar Tourism,
which has also sought a deep-sea driver through its website, is open to
exploring whether listing such vacancies on a job site makes sense, said
a board spokesperson. The candidate for the board is expected to have
passed a secondary school examination from a recognised board, along
with having knowledge of diving and the ability to swim for three
minutes and float for seven.
At beauty and healthcare chain
VLCC, much of the hiring for non-managerial roles — dieticians, slimming
and beauty therapists - takes place through online portals.
"Hiring
of such non-managerial staff through online job portals has gone up by
nearly 7-8 % over the last two years," says Sandeep Ahuja, managing
director , VLCC Health Care.
Online hiring works especially well
for sectors and industries with high attrition rates as in the
hospitality industry. Finding candidates is one of the biggest
challenges today for any recruitment manager, says Vidyashankar S,
director of human resources, Grand Hyatt Goa.
"It is highly
important to have a ready database of potential candidates to meet
current and future hiring needs," he says. Leena Mogre's Fitness centres
have hired lifestyle consultants, gym managers and sales and weightloss
heads through portals in the past two years.
"The churn is high
for such profiles and portals make it easier for HR to sift through
multiple resumes for shortlisting ," says Mogre. There is substantial
demand for unique or unusual talent across all sectors at TimesJobs as
well. "Having an unusual or unique profile, skillset or experience can
have very high value (and therefore be very high paying) for a specific
company, but employers do not accept such unique profiles' resumes prima
facie and seek greater insight with a more comprehensive view of them
before they contact them for interviews," says Vivek Madhukar, COO,
Times Business Solutions.
Such candidates need more than a
resume to showcase their talents - videos of events and award functions
or slideshare presentations are needed to make a mark, he says.
The
attempt by online portals to gain access to a wider user base through
new features and integration with social media platforms such as
Facebook and LinkedIn has also led to an increase in online hiring for
such profiles.
For instance, TimesJobs has global connect, a
feature that enables users to link all their professional online
identities and work to their TimesJobs.com resume. It allows a professor
to share his lecture, an architect to display project photographs or a
designer to showcase a recent fashion show by linking chat IDs,
professional profiles, websites, blog links, and work samples and videos
to the resume.
Greater internet and mobile penetration has
enabled users to reach many more users than before. For instance,
Naukri.com's Android app launched last month, has already been
downloaded by more than 2.9 lakh users.
Online job sites also
make finding someone a less cumbersome process, which makes it a boon
for PK Mukherjee, 70, who runs Fair Deal Recruitments based in Kolkata.
Distance hasn't prevented him from recruiting doctors and nurses for
hospitals in areas such as Pilibhit, Hoshangabad, Shahjahanpur and Akola
through portals for his clients. "At my age online portals offer the
comfort and ease of recruiting from home and widen my client base," he
says.
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LG
is slated to unveil its curved screen smartphone G Flex in India on
December 11. The company has sent press invites for a launch event to be
held in New Delhi.
Yahoo has reportedly acquired an online platform for live concerts, Evntlive, for an undisclosed amount.
Gurgaon-based
online health store Healthkart has named former Farmville executive
Gaurav Agarwal as its chief technology officer and head of products, an
announcement that highlights Indian internet companies' focus on
attracting managerial talent as they look to ramp up operations.
So,
you've selected the gadgets to give your loved ones, and you're at the
checkout line. Suddenly you're asked if you want an extended warranty or
protection plan for a modest sum, and the line is piling up behind you.
Do you opt for the foot-long receipt with terms and conditions that
you'll have to keep in a secure place?
Google is
speculated to be working on a Nexus TV that with run on Android and
stream videos from YouTube along with offering a selection of video
games.