Naukri.com’s parent firm launches career advisory website
Naukri.com’s parent firm launches career advisory website
Premium
People don’t just want jobs, they want advice on careers.
That’s what Info Edge (India) Ltd, the company that runs popular jobs site Naukri.com, discovered. The result is career advisory site Asknaukri.com. “In the offline world, people are always taking advice from parents, friends, seniors etc. We thought, through Asknaukri.com, we would have great potential to tap into this gap," said Sanjeev Bikhchandani, managing director and CEO of Info Edge.
The new site doesn’t come with a readymade revenue model, but Bikhchandani said that it would “get traffic, build stickiness, and bring down cost of new resume acquisitions for Naukri.com". He added that the company would look for revenues from the new site through advertising once it attracted enough traffic.
WorkEasy Solutions, a career planning firm, will provide Asknaukri.com with the required content. Bikhchandani said the company would pay WorkEasy for its expertise but refused to divulge the amount that would be paid. The counselling service, however, is free to users.
Their queries will be posted on the site, forwarded to a panel of experts, and responded to, within 48 hrs. “We are excited about associating with Naukri.com in the career guidance space. With Naukri.com being leaders in recruitment and workeasy having developed substantial expertise in the career guidance business, it’s a perfect fit and we are looking forward to a long and successful relationship," said Richa Saklani, co-founder of Workeasy Solutions.
Info Edge also plans to launch a mobile-phone version of the counselling service in the next three weeks. Apurva Kumar, the company’s vice-president and national head, mobility, ad sales, and new media investments, said Info Edge was targetting half a million mobile users in the next 2-3 months.
Queries will be made through SMS (to 5627) and the responses will flow the same route.
Apart from Naukri, Info Edge runs matrimonial site jeevansathi.com and real estate site 99acres.com.
The company, which was the first internet firm to go public in India in October last year, closed March 2007 with revenues at Rs147 crore. “Of the total revenues, our recruitment business contributed around 88% to the revenues, and jeevansathi.com and 99acres.com put in around 7%," said Bikhchandani.
Naukri.com gets over 80% of its revenue from leasing out its 8.2 million people-strong database to its over 20,000 corporate clients in the information technology, automobiles, telecommunications, banking and financial services sectors, while the remaining 20% comes from a mix of advertisements and job postings.
According to a joint study by industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International, India had 42 million internet users as on March 2007. This is expected to grow to 54 million by the same time next year.
"Exciting news! Mint is now on WhatsApp Channels 🚀 Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest financial insights!" Click here!
