In the year-end earnings call in April, Info Edge MD Sanjeev Bikhchandani had said that they’re evaluating the freshers segment, and may be launching a site within 6-9 months. With the Q2 having ended, and no earnings results yet, Info Edge has announced that they’re launching a job site called FirstNaukri targeting freshers segment, reports FE.

The site isn’t live yet, but what’s interesting is that they acquired the domain name from FirstNaukri Solutions Pvt Ltd, around 6-9 months ago. Here’s a screenshot of the old site (via Sitereviewboard)

While one may argue that they are just carving one particular segment out of their main jobs site Naukri, this is a segment that requires separate focus: most jobs on job sites seek those with work experience. A separate site for freshers will allow them to have a separate team focusing on this segment, and effectively keep the same users within the Naukri ecosystem from the time they seek admissions (Shiksha) to when they’re looking for their first job (FirstNaukri), and finally, job switching (Naukri).

This is by no means a new segment: JAM Magazine, a youth-centric magazine had launched a job site called JobOKPlease last year. Rajiv Dingra of WATBlog had a job site called jobs4freshers, but that now appears to be defunct. Any others?

Update: other sites targeting freshers include Hello Intern, Freshers World, …

What Naukri Can Do Differently

At present, Naukri lists only 3967 jobs for Freshers and Trainees, though I suppose freshers would also apply for jobs that require only 1-2 years of work experience. I also think that Naukri should approach this segment a little differently; they already are in touch with colleges for their educational portal Shiksha.

They can allow colleges to host portfolios of their students online; remember, private colleges like Amity, Wigan & Leigh and IIPM pitch their placements to students in order to get admissions, and this would address a pain point for their placement committees, by allowing recruiters to go through the profiles online. That, however, will require a regular interface with colleges, and getting all the colleges to put up student profiles will be quite a pain. They might just go in for a simple marketplace model.

Disclosure: I own an inconsequential number of shares of Info Edge (India) Ltd

Classifieds, Info Edge (Naukri), Jobs
Tags: Classifieds, FirstNaukri, Info Edge, Jobs, Naukri

1. Another website that caters to freshers and even students is:

   http://www.hellointern.com/

   Posted by Ankesh Kothari | October 6, 2008, 12:22 pm

2. Thanks for the mention nikhil.. I can possibly write a research report on the freshers market.. But more on that at WATBlog but I have just one comment to make.. This is a tough market and subscription revenue might be hard to come by from the employers.. What they might have to look into is how to charge freshers (and obviously how to collect the payments as they may not have credit card and it may be micro i.e 500 rupee transactions) and also how to build a community of freshers with an ad revenue model.

   Posted by Rajiv Dingra | October 6, 2008, 2:09 pm

3. Hi Rajiv,

   I don’t think its possible to make freshers pay - that’s a recipe for failure…freshers can put up their resumes at naukri, timesjobs, clickjobs, jobstreet etc for free anyway, though it isn’t a segment. There are other fresher sites as well. This is a resume database business, the larger the database, the greater the marketability.

   I’ve mentioned in the post that money could come in from the educational institutions - they have a certain budget allocated to student placement, and Naukri can host a student portfolio for a college at FirstNaukri and help reduce their placement costs.

   Apart from that, though ARPU will be lower, they can also charge companies to browse the database and post requirements for freshers. I really don’t think asking freshers to pay is a good idea.

   Posted by Nikhil Pahwa | October 6, 2008, 2:23 pm

4. I wonder why nobody is referring to http://www.Freshersworld.com

   This is a site that exists for long for freshers. I think they are very near to job sites like timesjobs or shine.com though they operate in this niche area.

   Posted by Alex Abraham | October 6, 2008, 2:54 pm

5. I suppose, FirstNaukri’s main target would be campus recruitment just like cocubes.com. “Virtual Campus Recruitment” is one big concept which is yet to be exploited in Indian market.

   I heard many a times in my discussions with all the job portal companies that they are seriously looking at this segment. We almost signed an agreement in last Oct with one of the India’s biggest internet/media company. Anyways, it didn’t workout at the last moment because of some change in management and subsequently in their strategy.

   However, nobody was talking about a recruiter/employer subscription based revenue model. They are not looking at just gathering resumes and listing jobs.

   All are talking about creating a great technological platform which will help companies and colleges to collaborate seamlessly, in the process, reducing the cost, time & effort in the recruitment cycle.

   some other points that came up in our discussions:

   (1.) Setting up a quality assessment system. Or collaborating with some existing company in terms of designing and conducting written tests.
   (2) Cutting down the training cycle of companies by providing training in the campuses to the recruits after they get selected
   (3) Setting up a channel/collaborating with a DTH provider, to broadcast employer related content. this helps in brand building as well as in educating students about industry

   Revenue Model: (1) selected jobseeker pays one/two months of salary. (2) Employer pays for branding (2) Employer pays for recruitment services (3) Employer pays for training services (4) Colleges pays for branding (5) Colleges pay for training services (6) Colleges pay for technology usage (pay-per-usage)

   If InfoEdge can put a long term vision in this venture then I am sure the market is too huge and waiting to get captured in a big way. This can even surpass Naukri’s current revenues in 2-3 years of time.

   However, if it starts to see as just another portal and doesn’t put emphasis on offline strategy, then I doubt about the propects of this venture.

   Anyways, its good that some action started again in this space.

   Posted by Srini | October 6, 2008, 7:08 pm

6. I think its a smart move.With the economic slowdown more and more companies are moving towards hire graduates rather than postgraduates, especially Investment Banks and Consulting Firms. There are companies which are recruiting graduates from Delhi University this year at salaries of 15 to 20 lacs. The job portal business in my opinion is more driven by Avg CTC of candidates rather than experience. If the CTC is touching 15 lacs then i dont think Naukri (with its brand) should have a problem. It should be able to get companies to pay up in much the same way as it does currently.

   Posted by Shiv Bhaskar Dravid | October 6, 2008, 7:28 pm

7. Freshers by the sheer word means no experience. So as a recruiter how do I evaluate what I am getting? Experience also tells me that why academic excellence is important in some positions, it means little in most. What is important is the individual and his soft skills, language exposure etc etc.

   I dont believe many organisations will go online to recruit freshers. The deciding factor will be face to face. After all, all MBA institutes insist on selecting their freshers only after a face to face..why would organisations recruit without that.

   Paying to get a job sounds like a bribe or paying some fly by night operator getting me a job in dubai…very very dodgy!

   Posted by MobStir | October 8, 2008, 12:19 pm

8. well they have already pulled a number of chairs either way, so why bother about slicing the first blodders. These job dot coms make more mess than they clean

   Posted by m led | October 9, 2008, 11:44 pm

9. Nikhil,
   Thanks for the mention and same to Ankesh too.

   We started hellointern.com after our first-year of engg, when we four of us faced hardships in getting internships in spite of being from iit b for the sector is pretty disorganized and jugaad oriented.

   We have not yet implemented the revenue model yet as our operating costs were low and we wanted to capture market quickly. And out of 140 companies 80 were startups. We see a clear demand in startups as it aint easy for them to enter campuses and project their brand to attract students.

   Posted by snehal | November 3, 2008, 1:20 pm