Most of us have had to go through periods of mini crisis and stress when trying to hire a reliable housemaid, or call up a plumber or electrician at short notice. Well, it’s because most of us are not aware as to where to look for these professionals. Here’s where Babajob.com steps in. It’s a site that offers you all the help you need, in finding the right personnel for your home or office. Most importantly, the site babajob.com provides a platform for many blue collar job seekers to find the right job for the right money.
This unique portal was founded by Sean Blagsvedt in the year 2007and he is focused on finding employment for people in the informal sector. Right from its inception in the year 2007 to until recent times, the organization has witnessed impressive growth. Sean Blagsvedt was previously in program management and advanced prototyping at Microsoft Research India.
Currently, the Babajob team consists of 25 members, spread across offices situated at Bangalore and Patna. What makes babajob.com successful and effective is its effective use of technology to connect employers and bottom –of-the-pyramid informal sector workers like maids, cooks, and drivers and so on, with the goal of creating a scalable, replicable and highly profitable and effective solution. Here, they create greater market efficiency in the informal sector through voice and web features such as SMS, USSD, automated voice systems and operator manned call centers that enable employers and job seekers to find each other. “Everyone deserves to get a better job, no matter what their income or skill level and technology can help to enhance the ability to hire more efficiently, “- says CEO Sean Blagsvedt.
While at Microsoft Research India, Sean worked very closely with the Technology For Emerging Markets Research Group, whose aim was to study and invent new ways of using technology to positively impact the social and economic development of the world’s poorest 4 billion people. Sean was aware that in order to make such a system functional, he must keep in mind that most low income workers of the world may not be literate, or own a mobile phone, or if literate, may not have ready access to the internet. Most often, people in India find jobs through people they know, and they prefer to hold down jobs closer to home due to the heavy traffic plying the roads these days. Probable employers too prefer to employ personnel, whom they can trust; more often than not, it’s the just -not-knowing that causes people to miss out on better suited opportunities.
Through Babajob.com, Sean attempts to digitize this process and get the word out to provide an incentive for the folks in between an employer and employee to connect people together. By utilizing web and mobile technology, Babajob engages a wider audience creating greater efficiency for employers and also deepens the social impact on job seekers. Prospective employers can conveniently browse job seeker profiles based on salary, location, language, employment background, skills and references. What’s more, this portal offers several fee based services to assist in the matching and hiring of job seekers.
Babajob services are available in all the major cities of the country and they are now testing out a new voice application that can communicate the necessary information into regional languages. The ultimate goal is to transcend the language and literacy barrier.
Babajob is the right solution for a country that is socially and linguistically diverse, and where literacy is a major point of consideration, all the while attempting to make the information accessible. With a firm belief on the transformative power of software on society, Babajob.com is social entrepreneurship at its best. Using a blended business model that aspires to combine a revenue generating business with a social value generating component, Babajob.com gives us a brief glimpse in to the newly emerging trends in Indian economy.
Valsala Menon: A writer by profession, a journalist by intuition and an author by passion. Has worked with several start-ups and acclaimed magazines and dailies and has explored several beats of writing. Formerly Associate editor, Ability Foundation, Adyar, and also Associate editor, Eves Times, a citizen centric magazine. Regular contributor to the Chicken Soup series, with work published in many. Currently penning down her first novel, she is always game for challenges in the literary space. Drop a mail : valsala.menon7@gmail.com
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