While looking to recruit field sales representatives for the ecommerce company, Bijnis, where they worked at, Suyash Jain (a graduate from University of Petroleum and Energy Studies) and Rajat Agarwal (a graduate from IMT Ghaziabad) found a huge dearth for suitable candidates.
“We searched on almost all reputed job sites, but were not happy with the listed CVs,” says Jain.
“Alongside, I was getting to know that several field workers were being laid off by big companies, but they were not available on job portals,” he adds.
That’s was when the two decided to look for candidates outside job portals.
“On April 27, through the news, I got to know that an Indian company had laid off 300 employees. I was shocked, and wanted to do something for these people,” says Jain.
Both Jain and Agarwal, then, created a detailed Google Form and uploaded it on social media on May 1.
Within 24 hours, over 100 job seekers responded with their applications.
Continuing with their research, they got to know that Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru had the maximum layoffs, the most hit were people in sales, marketing and business development.
“We found that mostly freshers and very senior employees had lost their jobs,” says Jain. By May 7, they launched Covid-19 Free Jobs Forum to help the pink-slipped get jobs.
The forum works both ways. Job seekers can submit details of their education and work experience, and recruiters can register to show their requirements.
“We have a database of nearly 12,500 job seekers and over 500 recruiters from a number of cities and varied job domains that is shared with verified recruiters,” says Jain. The good news: this forum is totally free of cost.
“It is a complete non-profit social initiative to help job seekers in this situation.
We don’t charge the HR or the job seeker,” says Jain. What measures have they taken to protect the candidate’s details from getting into the wrong hands?
“We share data only on personal requests. Before sharing personal details of candidates, we double check if the company in question is genuinely hiring.
:We don’t share the contact details of our candidates, otherwise,” assures Jain. How many have been helped so far? “About 500, who we know personally.
Since there is no binding on the candidate or the recruiter to share the information about whether they have got a job/candidate, we don’t know the actual figures. But I am glad people are being helped,” says Jain, who has hired three interns for collecting job seekers while he and Agarwal liaison with HRs. The duo will soon launch www.freejobsforum.com to build more trust among jobseekers and job-givers.