Naukri.com's latest ad outing seeks to rescue the frustrated job-seeker

The campaign highlights that every individual has diverse job needs. A chat with CMO Sumeet Singh.

Online job portal Naukri.com’s iconic 2006 TVC ‘Hari Sadu’ is still fresh in the minds of audiences. The ad featured a grumpy boss expressing displeasure at his subordinate’s work. The latter then spells out his boss’ name with adjectives that best define him: “H for Hitler, A for arrogant, R for rascal, I for idiot...”

Sumeet Singh, CMO at Info Edge India, the parent company of Naukri.com, shares that their research, back in 2006, suggested that most people don't leave jobs. They leave bad bosses.

Today, with the dynamics of the COVID pandemic and fast-paced lifestyles coming into play, many professionals are re-aligning their priorities. But, unlike earlier, there is no common goal that most people are looking for. The platform’s latest research indicates that every individual has his or her own diverse needs. This led to the campaign ‘My Kinda Naukri’.

Singh points out, “In our conversations with job-seekers, we realised that the pandemic caused a lot of anxiety. Many people were asked to leave their jobs. Many were in the process of being laid off. This pattern was noticed from the start of the pandemic, until November 2020.”

The reason behind doing this campaign now is that many jobs are back in the market. Singh informs that jobs are back in not just the tech sector, but also the sectors that were adversely hit by the pandemic, like hospitality and travel. Naukri.com felt that it was important to speak to job-seekers and tell them that there are jobs in the market now.

“We also noticed that the pandemic made many job-seekers to introspect. There are multiple reasons why job-seekers are now looking to switch jobs. And, there doesn’t seem to be one particular big insight that would marry a large proportion of the cohort,” adds Singh.

Through #MyKindaNaukri, the platform aims to encourage professionals to secure their dream jobs and become successful. The platform seeks to provide an opportunity for frustrated individuals to get a job that suits their interests and matches their skill sets.

The campaign has been conceptualised and created by Naukri.com’s internal team. The team came up with 15 short and long-format videos.

Sharing how job-seekers’ demands have changed dramatically, Singh says that they now prefer working from home or remote working, as most of them have moved back to their hometowns. Second, many tech professionals have upskilled over the last two years, which has led to many demand for jobs in the emerging technologies space.

The campaign uses a 360-degree digital media mix. The reason for this, Singh shares, is that job-seekers, today, are spending most of their time on digital platforms.

“Even if they are consuming content, be it sports or reality, on television, they are actually consuming it through OTT. Hence, a large portion of the campaign includes YouTube videos and OTT,” informs Singh.

The campaign also includes a few static and video branding campaigns through social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. There are a few markets where audio works well. So, there are some audio pieces in the campaign too.

One of the things that the pandemic witnessed was the increase in the number of resignations. Professionals were looking for better jobs, not just in terms of hefty salaries. They also wanted to take up challenging roles.

Singh points out, “When there is a lot of attrition, it means that there is growth. This means that companies are creating jobs. And, when a lot of job opportunities are created, there will be attrition. Naukri.com benefits when these things happen because there are more recruiters coming to the platform and finding candidates. Also, there are more candidates, who are looking for opportunities.”

Apart from Naukri.com’s direct competitors like shine.com, monsterindia.com, timesjobs.com and the likes, there are many other aggregators that have come up in the industry. Social media platforms like LinkedIn have also changed the way people now network and look for better opportunities.

Speaking about the rival landscape, Singh mentions, “The competition and other aggregators have not impacted us at all. We are the dominant player in the market and have above 80% share. When it comes to the competitive landscape, different cohorts exist. For example, in the premium tech cohort, one or two players have emerged. We are observing them because these cater to niche segments.”

As per Singh, there are two areas where LinkedIn works - when recruiters are looking for a very niche skill or for senior-level hirings. “Many executive-level hirings happen through executive search firms and LinkedIn. It also happens on Naukri.com, but we do not have a very large share of senior-level hirings. Our main share of hirings come from the 0-10 years of experience category. For executive-level hirings, LinkedIn is our competitor,” shares Singh.

One of the challenges for online job portals that Naukri.com has attempted to solve, is the need for the right kind of assessment mechanism for entry-level jobs. In the case of freshers, who are looking for jobs, assessment becomes very important for recruiters because the CV does not say much, in terms of experience.

As per Singh, assessment of technical skills is easy, but evaluating certain soft skills can be challenging for recruiters. Naukri.com has recently acquired DoSelect, an HR tech start-up, to help the employers during the screening and assessment process.

Additionally, for certain sectors like hospitality, retail, call centres, etc., where soft skills like communication, language ability and presentation, are critical, recruiters like to see the video or audio profiles of candidates. Naukri.com is trying to figure out how to provide such profiles to recruiters, while also training the job-seekers to create them for the platform.