‘If anyone can beat Goliath, it’s us,’ says jobsDB CEO: Page 2 of 2

‘If anyone can beat Goliath, it’s us,’ says jobsDB CEO: Page 2 of 2Changing consumer behaviour, changing tech
 
Changing consumer behaviours and technology, especially on the mobile front, would be other weapons in jobsDB’s arsenal in closing the gap on JobStreet.com.
 
This is another why Malaysia, with its high mobile penetration rates, is an important market for jobsDB.
 
“Mobile penetration in Malaysia is right up there with Singapore and Hong Kong, where approximately 40% to 45% of visits to our sites are coming from some sort of mobile device, and Malaysia is not far behind at 30% to 35% and is growing quickly,” says Chng.
 
He says that mobile is also growing rapidly in Thailand and Indonesia, but starting from a smaller base of 15% to 20%.
 
The company indeed expects access from mobile devices to its sites would be more than 50% in two years.
 
“Malaysia is right up there in terms of the sophistication of users and jobseeker behaviour, and this means the market is growing and people are moving off their desktops,” says Chng. “And that’s good for us because we’ve invested a lot in mobile.
 
“In two years, when most people are coming from mobile devices, if you’re not really helping people search, apply and find jobs via mobile, then you’re really not creating value for jobseekers and employers,” he adds.
 
Which is why the company is dead serious about mobile. jobsDB has development teams dedicated to its various ‘product streams’ – such as candidate relationship management, search and matching and what Chng light-heartedly describes as “all that big data algorithm stuff.”
 
“What we’ve done is create a mobile stream that looks at every single aspect of our operations from a mobile perspective. It has its own group of people,” he says.
 
“And it’s not only the technology, which is important, but also about educating our users and employers on what this all means on how people search and apply for jobs,” he adds.
 
When asked to elaborate on how changing consumer behaviour affects jobs portals, Chng says that about seven to 10 years ago, people used to search for jobs from their desktop for about 12 minutes at lunchtime, from their office. Now however, with mobile surfing, the biggest ‘chunk’ comes during the transit to and from work.
 
There is also a higher incidence of ‘passive exploration.’ “These are people who are happy at their job and are not actively seeking new ones, but if something better comes up, they’d apply,” Chng says. “These passive candidates are accessing from the mobile a lot, and you’ve probably only got 10-20 seconds to capture their attention.”
 
Desktop still has its place, he notes. People who want to do serious, in-depth research on the company and the job will do it from the desktop.
 
“So we have created an integrated experience where if someone is exploring on the mobile, and something looks good, they can quickly save it; then they go home and open it up on the desktop and it’s there, and they can do their research,” Chng says.
 
“Things like that, for the mobile user, is what we think about – things like how to apply, and we make it easy for them,” he adds.
 
As for employers, Chng says it goes beyond just putting jobs ads on the mobile. jobsDB spends a lot of time educating employers, especially on its key accounts, on how to take ‘navigate’ the mobile Internet too.
 
“People write crap job descriptions, with long descriptions and all, and that doesn’t work on the mobile,” he says. “You’ve got to start using [bullet] points; you’ve got to start breaking down the highlights.”
 
The weekends are no longer the best time to post job ads either. “Our biggest traffic is on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, going to and from work, so if you want to attract a bigger audience, you come out on those days,” he adds. “Sure, the ad may be up for 45 days, but you want to catch them then.”
 
This also where jobsDB hopes to beat its rival, saying that its major shareholder SEEK has a long-term commitment to research and development investments, especially since it can leverage off its economies of scale.
 
“For example, for me to do a mobile app, I’m doing it regardless of what’s happening in Malaysia – it’s coming, it’s done, and should be released in the next four to five weeks,” says Chng.
 
“We already have a mobile app, but we’re releasing a brand-new app for the iOS and Android platforms,” he adds. “Malaysia will get that – it’s no extra money for me to do it.
 
“Local players can’t do that; and because our business changes so rapidly, the only player who can invest to win, is us,” he claims.
 
Challenges and the ‘touchy-feely’ edge
 
When asked what he sees as jobsDB’s main challenge, Chng however acknowledges it’s the competition, but notes there are others.
 
“The challenge for our business in any country is to hire the right people who fit in with the jobsDB values and culture, who really buy in and drink our Kool-Aid and who really believe in what we do.
 
“We’re quite open about what we want to do, and we step back and ask what the purpose is of us as a company: Why are we here? It’s to help improve lives by helping people find the right job. Not any job, but the right job.
 
“And we’re trying to help countries and their economies grow by helping companies find the right talent,” he adds. “Now, this may sound pretty high-level, touchy-feely, but it actually goes into what we do.”
 
This is why, he says, the company doesn’t do stuff like boosting the number of visits via artificial means. It wants a higher job ads share, but doesn’t “want crap jobs,” says Chng.
 
“We want to understand jobseekers’ needs. It’s very easy in any business to make the first sale – you can always find somebody who’s willing to give it a shot – but it requires the second sale, and repeat and growing business, to be sustainable.
 
“So that purpose we talked about – that’s the key to our sustainability. It’s the same in Malaysia – yeah, we’re growing fast, but we want to be sustainable. And if we’re creating that value – which is helping job-seekers and employers match, through the use of technology, through our sales and marketing and our platform, then we will survive anything, because we’re providing that value.
 
“That’s drinking a lot of juice, but we want our people to be seriously thinking about it. Even if you’re in sales, and you have your targets, you’ve got to be thinking about how to help the jobsDB mission.
 
‘If anyone can beat Goliath, it’s us,’ says jobsDB CEO: Page 2 of 2“We stand for something, and we use technology to drive this outcome. And that has been a large cultural shift for us in the last two years,” he says.
 
The company believes it can also offer an edge to Malaysia’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups, which is why it is supporting Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd’s BizSmart Academy (pic), an online platform aimed at the newer generation of SMEs.
 
“This is right down our alley,” says Chng. “The new generation of SMEs are technology savvy. The Internet is a great disrupter, and while big companies have also benefited from this technology, the biggest beneficiaries of this disruption have been SMEs.”
 
SMEs, especially the smaller ones, used to have to hire by word-of-mouth or by putting up a notice on their window, which is not the best way to get good results. But now they can go to a portal at jobsDB and for RM99 for a post, get to advertise their vacancies.
 
“They can write, they can tell their stories and have effectively unlimited space to do so, and then access hundreds of thousands of pageviews almost instantaneously,” says Chng.
 
“That helps them so much to get the right person. That’s the Internet as a disrupter: We’re making the market transparent, we’re reducing the transaction cost, and the SME is the biggest beneficiary of that,” he adds. “As an online business, we just love the idea of doing this.”
 
Alliance Bank also launched an SME Innovation Challenge, an American Idol-like contest for SMEs, which recently announced 13 finalists from 200 entries.
 
Chng is also a judge on the competition, joining others such as SP Setia Bhd chief executive officer and president Liew Kee Sin; Leaderonomics chief executive Roshan Thiran; Microsoft Malaysia’s Azizah Ali; BFM 89.9 founder and managing director Malek Ali; SMI Association Malaysia national president Teh Kee Sin and Alliance Bank executive vice-president Steve Miller.
 
“It’s very positive for me to be on the judging panel with … some of the best entrepreneurs in Malaysia,” says Chng.
 
“Two of the biggest reasons why SMEs struggle to grow is access to financial capital, clearly, and lack of human capital – how do they find it? Where do they get it from? And that’s where we can help,” he says.
 
He points out that SME owners generally hold down a multitude of roles within their companies – they’re the sales director, the human resources manager, the managing director and the operations manager, and “sometimes mom-and-dad too.”
 
SME owners generally only have time to look into hiring at odd hours, at which time it may be too late to call someone to put in a job ad in a newspaper or magazine, but online jobs portals provide self-service portals allow them to do at any time they’re free to catch a breath.
 
And that’s why jobsDB is upping the ante in Malaysia – because it can make a difference and bring real value to the people and the companies here, claims its CEO.
 
“That’s part of the reason why I’m here,” says the Malaysian-born and Melbourne-bred Chng. “It’s important for me that, you know, that my relatives in Malaysia know whom I work for.”
 
“I don’t want to hear my aunties and all saying ‘Yeah, you know, my nephew works for JobStreet.com – that sort of just kills me,” he chuckles.
 
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