Fraudsters across the globe collect money by running fake online job boards and recruitment sites which trick unsuspecting job seekers into paying fees for interviews and job offers which are non-existent.Some of the job websites purport to have part time, full time job opportunities from both local and international firms. The fraudsters require an advance registration fee before they even know who the employer is.
Kenya’s BrighterMonday, which has operations around the region has launched an operation to ensure online job seekers remain safe by vetting each employer and even by visiting them door- to-door to ensure the employers really exist.
Speaking exclusively to TechMoran, BrighterMonday’s Marketing Manager Emmanuel Mutuma, said, “Beyond that, we ensure that the employers are who they say they are by getting them to provide certain documentation as part of our verification process. As a result we have been able to increase the amount of genuine job traffics such that of the many thousands of jobs we post in a month, only a single job might be reported in which cased we take corrective measures and first deactivate the job and then investigate the source.”
Mutuma says that ensuring that the source of the jobs is known to them personally and through previous working relationships, they have reduced fraud unexpectedly. The firm is also leveraging on its various social communities who alert any suspicious content on its websites regionally, refering to it as the firm’s very own “Nyumba Kumi inititative.”
Though there are hundreds of jobs boards in East Africa, and many others being launched daily, BrighterMonday banks on the fact that it’s local and understand Kenyan employers and their needs.
“We have invested in the infrastructure; the human capital and talent to engage these Kenyan employers, this has seen us serve 400% more Job traffic daily than our closest competitor. We have partnered with the Employers directly and in some cases their Recruitment agencies to ensure we provide the right talent to their organizations,” Mutuma told TechMoran.Backed by One Africa Media and working in partnership with West Africa’s Jobberman, BrighterMonday was founded in 2006 and has rose to be largest Job board in Kenya, and regionally. The firm has signed partnerships with employers in the region and is finalising plans to launch into new markets.
As a late entrant, Naspers’ Careers24 has failed to pick up in the East African market and has sites such as CareerPointKenya, and Kenyanjobs.blogspot.com beating it by job ad volumes and traffic before it nears BrighterMonday’s reach. Several startups are also banking on SMS to disrupt this market but BrighterMonday reaches both the internet savvy users using its email alert, web and mobile sites and SMS and is big on social media.
The firm is based in Nairobi and employs over 30 fulltime staff to verify its jobs and employers physically. It also has a fulltime IT team watching job listings in real-time to verify them instantly.