Exclusive Interview

JobsDB: A Better Year with Better Initiatives

Signs of economic recovery are showing everywhere in the world and Malaysia in particular is in for good times with rise in trade figures reported recently. When it comes to employment business are expected to relax their intake policies and there will be whole new challenges for the human resources (HR) department. And JobsDB Malaysia would be more than happy to be of assistance, says its general manager. Timothy Hor

According to Hor, with the signs of economic recovery showing, the online recruitment agency and HR solutions provider was already gearing up taking up the position of “Jobs Advocate” for jobseekers and employers alike.

“We already saw signs of recovery end of last year,” said Hor. “Malaysia’s Economic report 2009/2010 noted that major manufacturing sectors in the country such as the electrical and electronics (E&E) industry reported improvement in sales orders and had started to re-hire workers.

According to the report, the unemployment rate increased to 3.6% (3.3% in 2008) in the second quarter of 2009 but the labour market was expected to improve with employment increasing 0.1% in 2009 to 11.6 million workers. Job vacancies for the first 8 months of 2009 increased by 25.9% to 884,437 it said.

Juicy Proposition

Kicking off the year would be collaboration with the Chinese free newspaper, Red Tomato, a totally unique proposition for posting job advertisements across three channel – unheard of in Malaysia at least.

This will be a unique foray for a company more known for pure online presence, as Red Tomato is a free newspaper, with over 165,000 copies circulated in Klang Valley.

“This will be the first time in the history of recruitment where job advertisement would be made available as full colour ad in newspaper , in our online jobs portal, JobsDB.com, and on our sister organisation, 88DB.com, a social media portal,” said Hor.

In fact, this is not what would one call unprecedented, but a natural step the company is taking as it goes inline with its mission in being Jobs Advocate to the job seekers and bringing stronger values to hiring employers.

“Employers will have wider reach through this package,” said Hor. “This means their job posting will be accessed by 500,000 visitors per month on JobsDB.com, 800,000 visitors per month on 88DB.com and with 165,000 thousands of physical newspaper copies per week,” he said.

Finding Your Voice

This year will also see the company conducting various workshops, including the most important and often neglected part of job seeking process, the resume writing, as part of its Finding Your Voice initiatives.

“We will now have a better database of resumes and employers can now have access to assured and confident candidates, who are better motivated and are driven to love their career,” said Hor.

The workshops will be conducted in a newly setup training centre next to the company’s current office in Wisma UOA, KL, and will also be brought to the roads, namely in colleges and universities giving fresh graduates an insight on preparing for the real world outside their dorms.

Career Expo 2010

Better news awaits employers as come 7th of May this year, the JobsDB would be organising Career Expo 2010 at KL Convention Centre that will see participations from multi-national corporations, government linked companies as well as small medium enterprises.

This will be the fifth time the company is organising the successful series of events which saw participations from the likes of Panasonic, RHB Bank, Ricoh, Parkson, Star Cruises Adecco & Volt Asia among others.

With tagline, “Tons of resume, Zero paper, 60 Days of Exposure,” the career expo would be a unique experience for job seekers and potential employers alike. In fact, this fair will see few firsts.

“First and perhaps the only career fair in Malaysia to utilise the latest e-recruitment technology, paperless & on-the-dot upload of resumes,” said Hor. “Also, it is first and perhaps the only career fair in Malaysia that offers you two months of exposure, prior to and after the event.”

The participants can not only dispense with the papers, they have face to face meeting with their prospective employees and in addition to that, enjoy two months of branding and awareness. Unheard of, unless we are wrong.

“We, at Jobs DB are giddy with excitement with the activities that we have lined up for our job seekers and corporate members. Rest assured, 2010 will definitely be a better year for everyone,” said Hor.

Jobs DB Malaysia is part of JDB Holdings headquartered in Hong Kong. In Malaysia alone, the company has over 580,000 job seeker members and over 12,000 employer members. Worldwide, spanning over 12 countries, the organisation has over 10 million job seeker members and over 160,000.