Relief for Frustrated Commuters: Search for jobs by distance

South African job portal aims to bring relief to frustrated urban commuters with the birth of its new Job Navigator (job search by distance) feature that will be introduced to the market on 18th August 2008.

The Jobs.co.za website is the first website in South Africa to showcase its job advertisements on an interactive map that allows Job Seekers to easily find job vacancies in close proximity to home. Job Seekers enter the keyword of the job function that they are interested in, and then select the maximum distance that they wish to run a search on, from their preferred location and navigate on the Job Navigator to find jobs within the selected proximity. The map pops up icons showing where there are matching jobs within the selected criteria with a link to the list of job results.

This useful piece of technology has been added to the job portal as part of Jobs.co.zaís commitment to deliver user-friendly, Job Seeker centric functionality to South African Job Seekers. Gillian Meier, CEO of Jobs.co.za says: ìCommuters are frustrated with having to sit in traffic on the way to and from work. Not only is it frustrating and time-consuming, with rising fuel costs, commuting to and from work is becoming exorbitant. We recognise this and so, to assist in making their lives easier, we give the Job Seeker the ability to save their favourite jobs from their job search results into their saved jobs folder to apply to them later. Job Seekers are also able to give their jobs a star rating to remind them of which jobs they should apply to firstî.

A job site should be developed in such a manner that the system does the job hunting on behalf of the job seeker. Continues Meier, ìIn a country where bandwidth costs are high, Job Seekers cannot afford to sit online for hoursí having to search for jobs and capture lengthy CVís to be able to apply for jobs.î

Once a Job Seeker has saved a job in their favourite jobs folder, they will be reminded to apply to that job in time before the job advertisement expires. To enable the system to work for them, Job Seekers can create RSS or email job alerts to be sent to them on a daily or weekly basis.

To apply to job advertisements the Job Seeker will then need to either upload or create a targeted CV, however Job Seekers need only register with a Profile indicating their most desired job preferences to benefit from the time (and annoyance) saving functionality offered by Jobs.co.za.

Jobs.co.za will be marketing the Job Search by distance in an advertising campaign across various mediums such outdoor, radio and online and will be giving out three GPS navigation systems at the end of the campaign period to three registered Job Seekers.