Africa Internet Group which is a 33.3 JV between MTN, Millicom and Rocket Internet today officially launched its jobs platform Everjobs in Cameroon weeks after we announced the move that’s set to revolutionize the jobs sector in Africa.
Eric Lauer, Co-founder & Managing Director Africa at Everjobs told TechMoran that AIG chose Cameroon because of a number of reasons we hadn’t known earlier.
“Cameroon has good macro-indicators. Generally speaking a large population and a strong GDP growth and specifically for Everjobs, large local and international companies looking for strong candidates on one side and highly regarded and prestigious universities on the other side,” Lauer said adding the country had also suffered a strong mismatch between a very huge number of job seekers and a limited number of advertised vacancies.
Everjobs therefore sees opportunity to help decrease this mismatch between supply and demand and bring together job seekers and heads of HR.
Cameroon is also very start-up friendly eco-system allowing other African Internet Group companies to thrive such as Kaymu, Jumia, Lamudi, Jovago and AIG express.
Lack of transparency
Eric Lauer says Everjobs was also launched in the country because Cameroon’s labor market suffers from a lack of transparency on the current vacancies and a very unfair access to opportunities for candidates.
“The market is still affected by recruitment biases, be it through personal network-only recruiting or ethnical discrimination. Therefore I consider it one of Everjobs’ mission to help improve this situation,” Lauer says. “Having met a very large number of Heads of HR from the largest companies in Cameroon, I hear a lot a common challenge. There is a strong need expressed by Heads of HR to help facilitate recruitment, both in terms of reach to find the best talents (including repatriates who are Cameroonians having studied and worked abroad) and in terms of time spent screening candidates.”
Granular screening
Everjobs will offer granular screening to help firms identify candidates from a very strong demand from skilled graduates and a limited number of jobs in the formal sector. Everjobs, started two month ago with just two people is fast growing and will soon reach close to a dozen people.
Lauer says to make Everjobs a success in Cameroon, he decided to have a co-leadership with a healthy combination of an experienced local profile and a younger international profile. He thinks both have a lot to learn from one another and it always helps to have a sparring partner to bounce ideas. To help them build this company, they have a growing and 100% local team composed of ambassadors, content manager, HR specialist, PR who help Everjobs better serve its clients.
Why it took Rocket Internet too long to venture into jobs’ verticals
AIG says the jobs vertical should have been addressed 2 years ago when it entered the African classifieds markets of cars with Carmudi and Real Estate with Lamudi but the chance for it is that now it’s entering a lot of countries with lots of learnings from other classifieds businesses across Africa which the firm see as an upside.
“What’s more, we’ve had the time to develop a great product that is incorporating more and more innovative features. After Cameroon, in the next few weeks we’ll be going live in Senegal and Ivory Coast in West Africa and Uganda in East Africa. We currently already have teams on the ground there since a few months,” Lauer told TechMoran.
“In the mid-term we look forward to expanding in East Africa and North Africa, reaching approx.. 15 countries across Africa by the end of the year. Our long term target is to reach 20+ countries across Africa,” he said.
3 month trial period
On launch, Everjobs will be offering a 3 month trial period but employers using the service know they will be offered a fixed fee package after that to keep using Everjobs.
“There’s no catch on this and we’re 100% transparent with employers right from the start, as I believe that’s how we’ll build a trustful relationship over the long term. This comes from the fact that we’re bringing a lot of value to them : putting them within reach of highly skilled talents both in Cameroon and abroad across sectors with our very fast growing database of talents and helping to save time when recruiting by more easily screening candidates and filling urgent vacancies that can endanger a company,” Lauer concluded.