Expected salary not as important as skill-set, background-check, referral, and location of the candidate, say employers.
New Delhi, September 12, 2017: If you thought that your expected salary is the strongest reason for a potential employer to either accept or reject your application then you could be wrong. A survey conducted by Frost & Sullivan for OLX, India’s largest classifieds platform across household items, cars, motorcycles, real estate, and jobs, has revealed that 66% of employers look at skill-match more than anything else as the key quality in a potential employee.
The survey, which was conducted in the first-half of 2017 has revealed the hiring-trends for jobs across ten metro and non-metro cities in India. The report covers over 4,500 respondents, and assesses current trends, opportunities, and challenges faced by job seekers, and employers in the country.
OLX is the largest classifieds platform in India with 80% market-share of the consumer-to-consumer (C2C) trade, enabling job-seekers to directly contact employers and vice-versa. It is the largest hyper-local jobs portal in the country, allowing candidates to find jobs in their vicinity. Since January 2017, the number of job applications going through OLX has increased by four-times, and the number of employers and agencies listing on OLX has jumped by 250%. In categories such as Delivery and Collection, Hotel Executives and Accountant, 80% of all jobs posted on OLX get more than 40 views.
Said Amarjit Singh Batra, CEO, OLX India, “India’s large base of working population is skewed towards the youth. Increasing access to internet and growing aspirations of the young working population, are creating new opportunities where technology is bridging the gap between job seekers and employers. Our growth in the jobs space is a result of the largest and active localised jobs on the platform, which allows job seekers to explore openings in their vicinity. This serves as a source of employment for job seekers to find opportunities nearby and facilitates employers to hire relevant employees within their region.”
Key Insights from the Survey
What Employers Want:
While skill-set match is the most sought after quality, experience, background-check, referral, and location of the candidate are other key factors that employers consider above expected salary. Employers also prefer applicants who live in the vicinity, 55% stating this was an important consideration.
An examination of the industry revealed that there is maximum demand for candidates in real estate and IT/BPO industries in the metros, while in non-metros, there is greater demand in manufacturing /engineering, FMCG, and logistics/warehousing and automobile industries.
While scouting for candidates, getting applicants who meet the job-requirements becomes top priority for employers. Hence, ability to get pre-screened candidates and quickly fill positions has become the primary motivator for selecting a particular channel for talent recruitment.
Even though half the employers acknowledged that online portals offer a large database of candidates meeting employer’s requirements, hiring agencies and referrals remained the most preferred channels to fill positions for them.
What Are Job Seekers Looking for:
The survey also revealed that more than 60% of the job-seekers looking for grey collar and blue collar jobs are graduates. More than one-third of these job-seekers are between 26 and 35 years of age.
As per the survey, Internet adoption and usage is high among the job seekers. Three out of four job seekers have access to the Internet, with a whopping 80% of them accessing Internet over their phones.
Job referral is the most preferred medium for 34% of the respondents while finding a job, closely followed by 25% who preferred online medium. Job seekers have a strong preference for online channel due to its easy and convenient access and the large number of jobs that candidates can apply to.
Overall, the key challenges faced by job-seekers while searching for jobs are that they often do not know where to look for jobs (19%), they feel that there are not enough jobs (18%), and the job details are not clear in the jobs that are out there (18%).
Employment Agencies:
Employment agencies prefer their own database for hiring over any other medium. This is followed by the use of field agents, and referrals for recruitment.
However, the survey also discovered the drawbacks of these mediums. Field agents are often unable to provide fresh and good quality candidates who meet the required job criteria, while the agencies’ own database is often not updated. Referrals do not always work for all job profiles, and often fail to provide complete information on the potential candidate.
Metros versus Non-Metros
The survey also points to some key differences between metros and non-metros when it comes to job trends. Jobs close to one’s home are coveted in metros, and become the most important reason for taking interest in a particular job profile, with 26% of the respondents claiming so. In non-metros on the other hand, it is the reputation of the company that is the primary motivation for considering a job.
Said Nandini Kelkar, Research Director, Customer Research Services, Frost & Sullivan, “Matching skill-set and relevant work experience of the potential candidate is the key requisite for the employers of temporary jobs. While they acknowledge availability of a vast pool of potential candidates on the ‘Online’ platform, it is their need to frequently and quickly source candidates with verified backgrounds and credentials, that urges them to rely on ‘Offline’ channels, like hiring Agencies and referrals, for recruiting temporary workers. These, hiring agencies usually fall back on their existing databases which are often out-dated, and their field-agents too are sometimes unable to provide the required profile. This need-gap, provides an immense opportunity for temporary job employers and hiring agencies to access the ‘Online’ platform for sourcing right candidates. There is a growing talent pool in the ‘Online’ platform, as about three-fourths of such job-seekers have regular access to internet and are aware of online job portals.”
This survey was conducted to assess the temporary jobs market, and all related data from this study are pertaining to ‘temporary’ jobs, in which, the nature of working arrangement between the employer and the employee is not bound by formal written contracts.. Depending on the nature of the job, temporary workers can skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled.
OLX- Frost & Sullivan Methodology
The report covers over 4,500 respondents of which 4,000 were job seekers, 200 employment agencies, and 300 were small office/home office (SOHO), Small & Medium Enterprises, and MNCs spread across ten cites. The cities covered in the survey include Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Indore, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore and Bhubaneswar.
The research followed a qualitative and quantitative method across 10 cities in the country covering 2 town classes – 5 Metros and 5 Tier 1 cities. The cities covered for this survey are Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Indore, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore and Bhubaneswar. A random sampling methodology was used to identify over 6000 sample respondents and 317 employers across these 10 cities. The sample was spread across both Males / Females, in the age group of 18-60 years, belonging to SEC A/B/C households. Pen & Paper interviews were conducted among the selected respondents.
About OLX India
OLX is India’s number one consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace. It is India’s largest marketplace for pre-owned cars and motorbikes, mobile phones, household items, and jobs and real-estate. OLX offers fast and hyper-local way for Indians to sell, buy, and rent pre-owned goods and services. As pioneers of ‘We-Commerce’ in India, OLX brings sellers and buyers together for win-win exchanges.
OLX was founded in 2006, and is backed by Naspers, which is a global Internet and entertainment group and amongst the largest technology investors in the world. OLX is present in 40+ countries across the globe, and is the market leader in most of these countries. In India it already has 80% market share of the C2C online trade. OLX is the number #1 buying + selling mobile App in India according to Google Play store, and is currently trending at 3.4 billion page-views a month (March 2017). OLX India has won prestigious industry awards and accolades and was recently recognized by the prestigious ‘Superbrands’ in 2016.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today’s market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies?
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