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Jobstreet.com eyes US, European markets
Kumarkaushalam
New Delhi: Jobstreet.com plans to broaden its focus from the domestic recruitment market to the US corridor in the next six months, and the European markets, especially the UK, Germany, France and Nordic countries, in the next 12 months. The career portal will now also work actively towards integrating its bouquet of recruitment solutions with an enhanced customer-fill approach. The Internet company will also be rolling out new recruitment packages with a sharp focus on sectors like insurance and call centres, besides maintaining thrust on IT and banking. Says Mr Pankaj Khanna, VP, business development, Jobstreet.com: "The Indian operations should become cash positive by December 2001." Since the Internet company started its revenue-based model in July 2000, around 250 companies have signed for a range of recruitment packages, ranging from Rs 4,000 for a retail product to over Rs 8 lakh for customised solutions. ``Our top 30 clients account for over 50 per cent of our revenues,'' says Mr Khanna. ``This year we will launch schemes to draw a significant number of corporates (to paid annual packages) from our existing base of 1,500 clients.'' Beginning April 2001, Jobstreet will start targeting the SME sector, especially corporates who recruit six to ten employees a year, with an enhanced software package which will rest on the clients' desktops. ``We're adopting a sort of ASP model,'' says Mr Khanna. ``The SME segment should give us healthy revenues.'' With its new focus on call centres (through its Delhi office) and insurance and banking (through its Mumbai office), Jobstreet.com expects IT services and telecom to contribute around 25 per cent to the revenues, banking 20 per cent, IT 40 per cent, FMCG 10 per cent and others like hospitality sector five per cent in the year 2001. The entry of companies like GE in the call centre business is expected to create a demand for around 50,000 jobs this year in India. The liberalisation of the insurance sector in next six months is expected to create a huge activity in middle managerial level job market. To meet this demand, Jobstreet is developing products for faster recruitment and creating HR intranet forums in Delhi and Calcutta. Mr Khanna says that the company will actively work towards ensuring fulfillment of its clients needs (customer-fill rate) rather than merely providing job alerts and job matchings to candidates. Adds he, ``we see our database of candidates more than trebling this year from two lakh now.'' Jobstreet.com has broadly classified two revenue streams: first, it has four recruitment packages - silver, gold, platinum and Platinum Plus - and second, it also offers value-added packages (like physical selection of candidates) for select clients. Specialised and customised packages like Platinum and Platinum Plus, pricedbetween Rs 3 lakh and Rs 8 lakh, account for over two-third of overall revenues. Some big companies which have picked up jobstreet.com's annual recruitment packages include HLL, TCS, PCS, IMR Global Nowell, I2 Technologies (eCRM), Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank, and Thomas Cook. Its select clients include: Mrotek, TNT Express. Jobstreet has offices in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, India and China; and also addresses the markets in Australia, Indonesia, Thailand and Hong Kong. Walden Inc had picked up a significant stake in the portal's parent company Jobstreet.com Sdn Bhd at an investment of $2 million in April 2000. In India, Jobstreet has offices in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and recently opened one in Delhi. Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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