Job hunting in Ukraine via Telegram, Viber, Facebook, and job search sites. Photo: unsplash / @ firmbee
More than half of Ukrainians have already become users of social channels: social networks and instant messengers. And they have learned to hunt for jobs there. This is a blow to traditional services, but not the final one. And that's why.
Where applicants are hunting for jobs
According to the IT company GlobalLogic, by the beginning of 2021 the number of users of social channels in Ukraine exceeded 26 million (this is 26% more than in the previous year).
According to a study Employer brand research 2021, 30% of respondents used these channels to find a job. The share of traditional sites (Robota.ua, Work.ua, Grc.ua, and Olx.robota) is still high—49%. But searching through the social channels increased by 10% over the year, and through the traditional ones—by only 1%.
This is what the results of this study look like. More than half of the respondents were looking for a job on social channels such as Facebook, just over a third—on Telegram, and a quarter—on Instagram:
- Facebook—66%,
- Telegram—34%,
- Instagram—25%.
What to choose: Telegram or reliability
The easiest way to choose a channel for job hunting is to decide what is more important to you: promptness or safety.
The traditional sites place ads for money, which means that there are more wealthy employers there. According to Karine Makiian, PR manager of the recruiting site Work.ua, job search sites check every company and vacancy that is reported. In particular, they examine what the company does and how sustainable its development is.
"But the soft spot of these resources is practically no feedback," Tetiana Pashkina, an expert in the labor market, says.
It's different on social channels.
"There is an unspoken rule in Telegram: if a candidate has sent us their CV, we must reply to them within 24 hours. And on a traditional site, we may not respond at all. And no one will know whether we get a CV at all," Olens Zhurochkina, co-owner of the recruiting agency Opeople, explaines.
But there is a lot of so-called information noise and ads from unknown companies in messengers. Therefore, you can get into serious trouble there.
"For example, a so-called employer may ask you for your passport copy, ostensibly to check your professional aptitude before a telephone interview. And later, when you send a copy of the document, it may turn out that a bank loan was given to you."
Tetiana Pashkina
labor market expert
Nevertheless, all these shortcomings do not negate the significant advantages of the social channels. Unsurprisingly, they grow faster than the traditional ones. According to Jooble recruiter Olena Zhyvets, many now have limited finances and are short of time.
"One can find a job via Telegram, Viber, or Facebook in one click. In addition, it is easy to segment the search: work in IT, side work, work for students, remote work," the recruiter notes.
Alternative job hunting
The competition between traditional channels and new media leads to the creation of resources that try to combine the advantages of both approaches.
For example, IT specialists, who in the majority were looking for a job on traditional sites, will now first of all go, for example, to the same Djinni, a Ukrainian site for anonymous job search for IT specialists. And in order to fend off the information noise and scammers, they will create a profile not in the usual, but in the professional network Linkedin—and the job will find a candidate on its own.
Companies’ corporate homepages also work well for these job seekers. There one can directly view information about the vacancy and the company, Zhyvets explains.
Where applicants will hunt for jobs in the near future
The situation with job hunting in Ukraine follows the global trend. The only difference is that fewer people use traditional channels there. They are partially replaced by the good old Google search. But messengers are out of favour there.
According to Randstad Employer Brand Research 2021, globally, 32% of job seekers go to job search sites (Indeed.com, Monsterboard, Jobs.com, Recruit.com) first. 25% of the respondents google, use personal connections and contact recruiting agencies. Social channels account for another 25% of those surveyed. But there are no messengers among them.
Tetiana Pashkina notes that the share of job search services will gradually decrease in the same way as happened with advertisements in the print press, without which it was difficult to get a job 20 years ago. And now Internet resources have completely replaced them. It will be the same with the traditional websites. They will remain for a small number of connoisseurs.
But new services will appear that will try to embody the strengths of traditional recruiting, and the need for a structured dissemination of information about a job or applicant’s skills and business proficiency is not going anywhere and will even become more and more important.