Unemployment is a massive global challenge with over 70 percent of the youth unemployed and out of gainful unemployment in major markets across Africa, Kenya included.
Educated youth spend endless hours moving from one office and applying for millions of openings hoping to get a job and move out of poverty. Kenya’s Brighter Monday wants to solve this. The app is helping users search and apply for jobs at the comfort of their homes via its mobile and web apps. We wanted to find out the user process and if the online job hunting service provide a good enough solution to serve as an alternative to tarmacking?
Let’s find out in this in-depth review of their mobile app.
Interface
The color scheme of the application is red and white, those have been the official colors of Brighter Monday even after they changed their logo. The red is not the screaming kind, it’s more of maroon, but forgive me if there is a better name for that shade, men aren’t color experts, you know.
Main page; featured job listings
The moment you get into the app, you are presented with the featured job listings. They are presented in small card like layouts which have the logo of the employer, the job title, name of the employer (company) and a snippet of the job description.
All the menus are placed on the slide out tab. To reveal it, you have to start the slide from the very edge of the screen; otherwise you will end up tapping a job listing. Some applications like Twitter allow you to simply access the menu by simply sliding your finger without paying much attention to where the action was initiated.
The menu does not have a help section which is unfortunate, but then again getting your way around the application is so straightforward that omitting that section is forgivable. Due to the same reason, the app does not come with a tutorial.
There are some inconsistencies in the application user interface, for instance, the ‘contact us’ page takes you to the website instead. The website takes your contact details and lets you type in your query or call their help desk. It would have been better if Brighter Monday made a consistent native UI experience through-out the app.
Functionality
Brighter Monday is available in three countries, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Oddly, I clicked the Google Play store link on the Brighter Monday website and was directed to their app, however, I was not able to download it due to the warning ‘This item isn’t available in your country’ despite the fact that I was downloading the app from Kenya. It’s either something wrong with my location settings or a glitch that the company should look into. Luckily, I managed to get the app from other sources.
When you open the app for the first time, it dives you straight into the job listings. As I said in a previous review, this move is perfect for first time users who want have a test drive of the app before they sign up on it. You are only asked to sign in when you try to apply for a job or use other personalized options.
Speaking of applying, once you click a job post, you are taken to its description. At the very top, you get a small but crucial breakdown of the job, it includes details such as where it is located, salary, if it’s full time or otherwise and finally the date it was listed. This information will help you decide if the job aligns with what you are looking for, if it does, you can go ahead and read its full description; this feature really saves your time. Scrolling down the page brings the full description, responsibilities, qualifications, and what the employee is offered. Below it all is an apply button, when clicked, the user is taken to the employers website. It is good to note that the job descriptions can be shared with friends in case you get something that would interest them.
A profile helps employers to decide if the job seeker is well suited for a given position. The Brighter Monday app lets you have a very comprehensive profile. It covers everything from experience, education, associations, languages, skills and much more. It even has a completion percentage meter that lets you know how close you are to filling up all the sections.
In case you want to get a more focused list of jobs, you can filter the search results based on location, categories (accounting, healthcare, etc) and type of work (full time or otherwise).
Alternatively, you can get alerts for job that might suit you. These alerts are defined by the user based on location, category and work type. Any job that aligns perfectly with your defined alert will be notified to the user. This is really neat feature that would save people the time of skimming through endless lists of search results. It is a form of job list uniquely tailored to you.
With all these features, it is easy to see how Brighter Monday is more effective at finding jobs than doing it the manual way. In fact, looking at some of its reviews on Google Play Store, some users praise it for successfully helping them find jobs from the comfort of their homes. The application has a 4.3 out of 5 star rating which is testimony of its flawless nature. So, if you are looking for a job, or simply want to help out a friend, Brighter Monday is the platform for you, go ahead and download their mobile app.
Pros
- Straightforward and intuitive interface
- Free of charge for job seekers
- Available in all of East Africa; Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania
- Job description has time saving features as well as in depth information for interested users
- Alert feature informs you of a job that suits you even when you are not inside the app
- Applying for a job is just a click away unlike in newspaper classifieds
Cons
- User interface is not consistent in the contact page, directs you the website instead
- No help section for those who might need it
- Accessing the slide menu can be a hit or miss action.
