Featured Startup Pitch: Nanojobs is connecting laborers in India to better job opportunities by bridging the gap between newspaper classifieds and online job sites

By Anupam Sinhal, co-founder and director, Nanojobs.com

Elevator Pitch: NanoJobs.com—A job-portal for finding your basic staff like drivers, security guards, delivery boys, helpers, computer operators, etc.

Product Overview

NanoJobs.com is a job portal for the unorganized sector skilled and unskilled job seekers like drivers, security guards, mechanics, electricians, receptionists, maids, secretaries (whose salary is less than Rs. [Rupees] 30,000/per month). Major other portals require the job seekers to register themselves onto the portal. But a majority of skilled-and-unskilled labor who fall under the salary bracket either do not have the mechanism to register themselves onto the portal or do not have a grasp of English. Owing to this, a virtual demand-supply problem is created. There is a huge demand for such category of job seekers because they are required by almost every organization. Classified sections of almost all newspapers carry advertisements from desperate employers seeking job seekers. Similarly, job seekers are desperate for jobs. But there is no mechanism in place which can connect the two. NanoJobs.com strives to bridge this gap. We make the job seekers fill a physical paper application form at our various outlets across the city. That paper application form is further converted into a digital resume by the backend team and uploaded online. The job seekers can also give a missed call at our toll-free number and we arrange a call back to the job seeker. All this is for FREE of cost. Employers can now view the resume on NanoJobs.com and call the job seeker. So, a maid or a driver who does not understand English can also get their profile created on the portal and employers can offer them a better job.

Founders’ Story

The founders, Vickash Chowdhury and I, come from a background of white collar manpower management. We have over seven years’ experience of successfully running a job consultancy with more than 300 major clients. In the year 2010, we stumbled upon a new client—a brand new fleet taxi company in Mumbai that wanted over 4,000 drivers. We quickly realized that this requirement could not be fulfilled with the existing portals, since the drivers were not educated enough to create a resume online for a job. So an on-field activity was conducted and we were successful in delivering the same to the client. But then a bigger question was raised: similar to drivers, there are over 1,000 categories of workers who are similarly not that educated enough to create a resume onto the existing job portals—so how do they make themselves available to prospective employers? That was when the idea of NanoJobs.com came to life and we developed a portal with the focus on enlisting only those job seekers who are the backbone of every organization and who are not capable enough to create a resume online. So the employer and the job seeker is now not dependent on over expensive newspaper classifieds or word-of-mouth.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

Marketing and promotion of NanoJobs.com is the key to its success. Until and unless prospective job seekers know that there exists a product in the market which can help them find a better job, the product cannot be successful. We have targeted public transport systems for the marketing of the product since most of this genre of job seekers travel by public transport, especially in Mumbai. The job seeker can give a missed call onto our toll-free number and register themselves.

Market Opportunity

In every organization at least one support staff is required behind every three employees. So, an average 20-employee organization would require at least six support staff. This may include delivery boys, security guards, housekeeping staff, etc. The increasing number of newspaper classifieds is proof enough that the demand-supply gap is increasing.

Also, as India is growing, the illiteracy rate is also going down. For example, the son of an electrician is now educated enough to find himself a desk job. He would never want to become an electrician if he is educated. That means that the demand-supply gap is only going to increase in the future. In a survey done by us, a local Mumbai-based newspaper had over 7,500 requirements of such staff over a period of seven days. And this is just one newspaper. With the sizes of cities growing on a daily basis, more-and-more people are looking for jobs closer to their home.

How We Differentiate From the Competition

The mode of collection of data is the biggest differentiator for us. We do not rely on mentorship or on job seekers registering themselves onto the portal—although we also have such features, but they are a good-to-have feature on the portal. We have a very big on-field team whose work is to collect the data of such job seekers since they are the lifeline of this business. Also, a portal has been designed keeping the employer in focus. We were quick to realize that the job seeker might never logon to NanoJobs.com but the employer would. So, the portal is employer-centric.

Also, our quality control is very stringent. The class of people that we cater to change their mobile phone numbers on a regular basis. So, eliminating those job seekers from the database to avoid wasting time and resources to the employer is very important. We make sure we speak to every job seeker at least once a month via our in-house call center. We also undertake elaborate job fairs and other campaigns which spreads the awareness amongst the job seekers—something our competitors are failing to do.

Business Model

Our business model works on credit-sale-of-system. The bio-data or resume of every job seeker is available on the portal for FREE of cost. But their contact details are not shared. To view the contact details, the employer has to purchase credits. For every contact detail viewed by the employer, one credit is consumed. In case there is any mistake in the profile, we revert the credit without asking a question. The price of credit varies with the size of package—from Rs. 12 to Rs. 50. We also have unlimited packages for bigger organizations and job placement consultancies.

Current Needs

We are currently looking for account managers in Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and Delhi regions.

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Company: Nanojobs.com