News
Finding a job via mobile: a new Eastern and Central European trend
Smartphone owners in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria can now view online job offers at the bus stop, on the train, or in a café, not just in front of a PC. The ONREA team has researched the range and usage of these services in the individual Eastern and Central European countries where ONREA has partners. So what does the situation look like?
The Polish Pracuj.pl launched its mobile version this year. When users find an interesting job offer on their Smartphone, they can forward it to their e-mail account. The job board has a specially designed advice centre suitable for those accessing the site via their mobile.
Bestjobs.ro in Romania has operated a mobile version for about 4 months now. People who access the job board from a mobile can register, apply to job offers and attach their CV to correspondence. Romanian job seekers can now spend their spare time in a worthwhile way: as they wait for a tram, or if a friend is running late, they can now browse, find and apply to the job of their dreams.
The same service is offered by the Czech Republic’s Jobs.cz, which is currently running a trial version. ‘We introduced this service under the impetus of roughly 25% of our users who, a poll showed, would be interested in this option,’ says Alena Burianová from LMC, the company who operates Jobs.cz. She claims that the typical service users are professional IT workers and middle management technology buffs. ‘Even such a narrowly defined target group consists of tens of thousands of people in the Czech Republic alone,’ says Alena.
In certain respects, however, job board services seem to be ahead of their time. ‘We started thinking about introducing a mobile version of our site three years ago,’ says Andryi Khraban from the Ukrainian server Jobmarket.com.ua. ‘But the market is not mature enough. This is mainly because mobile internet connections are still too slow and too expensive,’ claims Andryi.
In Bulgaria, Jobs.bg launched job ads using progressive i-mode technology. However, despite its widespread popularity in Japan, i-mode never caught on among Bulgarian users. At the same time, a WAP version of Jobs.bg has been available since 2005. However, WAP technology hasn’t been popular in Bulgaria. 'In September Jobs.bg will launch Vodafone Live version of the website in partnership with Mobiltel, the largest mobile phone operator in Bulgaria,’ explains Veneta Cholakova from Jobs.bg.
Thanks in part to the tremendous range of job offers available on the Internet, Internet users are several times more likely to change jobs than the rest of the population. This was proven by a Factum Invenio survey conducted for LMC in the Czech Republic. Internet users have also become accustomed to browsing job vacancies to remain up to speed about what is happening in the labour market and to know their value. There is every indication that for these people browsing job offers will soon become a key function of their mobile use.
18.08.2008