By
Jason Boswell
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Jobberman employs 125 people in Nigeria and beyond
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Three students had time on their hands
in the summer of 2009 when their university lecturers in Nigeria went on
strike.
Instead of slacking off, Ayodeji
Adewunmi, Olalekan Olude and Opeyemi Awoyemi started an online job search
company.
Five years later, their start-up,
Jobberman, has got a multi-million dollar valuation, employs 125 people, and is
still growing.
While Nigeria is Africa's largest
economy it still has massive unemployment problems, in particular among
young people who are also more likely to be connected to the internet.
Jobberman has become the single largest
job placement website in sub-Saharan Africa, helping over 35,000 people find
jobs within the last two years.
The number of companies using the site
to find employees has grown from about 40 in 2009 to some 35,000 today.
Carrying between 500 and 1,000 jobs on
the site every day, the founders estimate that there are about 1,000 active
users searching for a job at any given time.
"The growth has been tremendous,
it's at rocket speed. One of the biggest challenges has been to keep up with
the volume of work," says Olalekan.
Overcoming
fraud fears
However, there have been other
challenges along the way.
"In the beginning a lot of people
did not trust an internet-based business because at that time a lot of people
were using the internet to perpetuate fraud here in Nigeria," he says.
But as other online businesses thrived
and became trusted, so Jobberman thrived. Companies would dip their toe in the
water with one or two postings and then when they trusted the site they would
come back.
In 2012 some of Jobberman's clients
wanted to use the site to find workers in Ghana and so the company took its
first work outside Nigeria.
Two years later it says it is now the
biggest online job site in Ghana as well as Nigeria.
The company is now expanding its reach
to Kenya with a partner called Brighter Monday. The partnership also gives it a
footprint in Uganda and Tanzania.
'They
found me'
Some people find a job through the site
without actually applying for one.
Amarachi Apakama uploaded her details
and was approached by a company to take the position of executive assistant at
a mobile phone content company.
"That really changed my
life," she says. "It was a morale booster. It helped my confidence -
the fact that my interests and my experience put together such a good fit that
I didn't have to apply for the job."
Multiplier
effect
"It is incredibly fulfilling
helping people to become economically empowered by getting job placements via
Jobberman," founder Ayodeji Adewunmi says.
"One company recruited more than
80% of their employees through the site. Another time, a director was able to
hire a former colleague in the United States to come and work for his company
here in Lagos. All amazing stories."
Olalekan Olude adds: "If you put
food on the table by virtue of getting a job for someone, that person also
fends for a mother, or a brother and you create a multiplier effect within that
household.
"And anytime we get to hear of
such stories, we are very, very happy. It motivates us, it makes us look
forward into the future and try and get more people to get more jobs."
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