JobsDB enhances app, eyes another year of 7 per cent growth

The move is aimed at maintaining the overall growth rate of recruitment via JobsDB at last year’s level of 7 per cent, in the midst of a rising trend of freelancing and start-ups in Thailand that could affect the size of the potential pool of people seeking ‘formal’ jobs.
The jobs website, which has been running in Thailand for 15 years, yesterday unveiled its findings on the trends in job recruitment, with online being the most popular channel for both candidates and hirers.
On the online platform, the top channel is job websites, followed by search engines, e-mail and social media.
Noppawan Chulakanista, managing director of JobsDB Thailand, said that according to the company’s in-house survey, mobile was now the most popular channel for candidates searching for a job.
The company has therefore improved its JobsDB app, making it easier to use and more efficient in terms of searching and applying for a job via key new features, including “Profile” and “Search by salary”, she said.
The “Profile” feature enables a candidate to post his or her profile, instead of a full resume, in only three steps, while “Search by salary” addresses a candidate’s financial needs, since salary is an important factor when changing a job.
“The move is aimed at helping increase the numbers of [JobsDB] website visits from 30 million last year to 37 million visits this year. Of the 30 million visits, around 61 per cent were made via mobile devices, including phones and tablets, and via both the mobile site and our mobile app. We expect this percentage will increase to 70 per cent [this year],” she explained.
Last year’s 30 million website visits were made by members and non-members, she said, adding that the JobsDB site currently has 1.5 million members and around 1.2 million resumes.
While membership is not required in order to visit the website, it is needed before a resume can be posted.
At JobsDB, there are currently around 40,000 hirers with 14,000 vacant job positions – that is, posts that have been alive for 30 days.
The top required positions are in sales, information technology, engineering, marketing and public relations, and human resources and administration.
Noppawan said that in Thailand, the potential working population totalled around 38.9 million people, while the unemployment rate was just 1 per cent.
However, within this 1 per cent, almost half of the unemployed have a bachelor’s degree.
Moreover, the rising trend of freelancing and start-ups in the Kingdom could affect the number of people seeking employment through JobsDB, while recruitment is tough since hirers clearly need the right candidates to fill the jobs that are available, she said.
 “Our service is to help both hirers and candidates succeed in their job recruitment and search,” said the managing director.
As JobsDB has a presence in four markets in the region – Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Hong Kong – candidates can apply for jobs in any or all four seamlessly.
JobsDB’s revenue comes from advertising, and from two types in particular: job ads and banner ads located on the website.
The enhancement of the mobile app will attract more people to use JobsDB’s job-seeking service, and should therefore increase the company’s income, he said.