SA turns to SMS recruiting
The race is on for more and more innovative ways of using SMS messaging applications as more services are mobile-enabled. South Africa has a mobile handset penetration rate of over 95%, meaning that text messaging applications can easily cross demographic and situational barriers. One such innovative home grown company is SMSjob.
SMSjob is not a recruiting agency but a rather clever bi-directional mobile advertising service concentrating on casual labour opportunities. It not only takes adverts from those seeking services but also from those offering them. This SMS service creates an interactive platform providing easy access to local services. SMSjob charges a R5.00 weekly subscription charge and your details plus cell number are added to the database. The interesting thing about this SMS service is that you can advertise for the service that you are looking for such as a painter or gardener or mechanic etc or you can advertise your own service and the area that you want to work in. Both potential employers and employees simply sent an SMS to 31919; they will then receive a reply SMS with further instructions on how to progress with submitting their details.
A similar service was launched in Tunisia in March of this year, the mobile operator Tunisiana, charges a set price for ten job offers from their SMS-based job search service. There is a gap in the South African market for services catering to lower income groups that have mobile access but perhaps not landline or internet access.
There are already over 4 billion cellphone handsets on the planet, with many more expected over the next five years. There is no getting away from the fact that the cellphone is more ubiquitous than landlines, telephones, television, than newspapers, than personal computers and they are people’s most treasured communication device.
Most recruiting agencies concentrate on higher levels of management and professional positions whereas these two services, which make use of very simple bulk SMS messaging gateway application programming interfaces (API’s) and two-way SMS messaging options, are able to reach out to a vast labour pool and the people who want to hire them, perhaps for odd jobs, small jobs or part-time jobs.
The business model is simple, the costs low and the potential profit margin very high. There are a variety of SMS Gateway API’s that would enable bulk SMS messaging, personalised messaging, two-way SMS messaging plus administrative back-up and real-time monitoring of SMS messages sent and received.
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