InfoEdge* operated job portal Naukri.com has introduced a ‘Follow Recruiter’ feature, which allows job seekers to follow particular recruiters on the portal and keep a track of job postings. Job seekers can search for recruiters to follow based on the recruiter’s location, their designation/role (are they hiring managers, company recruiters, HR professionals, or placement consultants), levels of hiring (do they hire for middle management, junior level, senior management or top management), hiring company, and job type & industry. Updates from followed recruiters can be viewed on the job seeker’s profile page. It’s possible to filter out only job updates, which a good option as otherwise the important updates from a job seeker’s perspective might be difficult to identify. LinkedIn allows users to follow companies and receive updates, including job updates. However, it doesn't allow users to follow individual accounts. Recruiter Connection: Earlier this year, Naukri had also rolled out a paid product called Recruiter Connection that allowed job seekers to search for recruiters hiring in particular domains and send them personalised messages. Users needed to purchase credits from the site to use this service. Our Take: Why this is important So far, job portals have been about allowing companies to list jobs, and jobseekers to contact them, and/or, allow recruiters access to a database of resumes to directly contact companies for a fee. Large job portals like Naukri operate on the latter model, apart from making a little money on banner ads on their site. Thus, though recruiters are central to their…
