Everjobs CEO Gives tips To fresh graduates and unemployed people on how to get their dream job,JOBS IN UGANDA,ONLINE JOBS
Eric Lauer, the Everjobs Africa CEO visited the Everjobs Uganda office last week, during which time he held this interview. In the interview, he expounds on what Everjobs is all about; revealing what inspired opening their office in Uganda and the future for the job portal. He also tips fresh graduates entering the job market and the unemployed people in general on how to land their dream job.Here are the interview excerpts:
• Eric, please tell us about the foundation of Everjobs?
The launch of Everjobs started in 2015 with a simple truth: young professionals in Africa struggle with finding a job in the formal sector. This is caused by several factors, like structural ones, as there is a huge amount of jobs in the informal sector across Africa. But there is also an information gap, as many job young job seekers do not have information about vacancies offered by top employers in the country. Therefore it is the main goal of everjobs to make these vacancies easily accessible to job seekers to give equal opportunities to everyone. At the start of our journey, we noticed that no pan-African career portal enabling Africans to easily access career opportunities in other African countries exists. As African markets are getting more and more integrated our teamthought it would make sense to make all career opportunities available across Africa.
• Why do you believe in Everjobs?
Three of my main passions brought me to Everjobs: Africa, Digital and Public sector. Before I joined Everjobs, I was a management consultant for the world leading consulting firm McKinsey, where I had some engagements across Africa. They were mostly in French-speaking Africa and I was really excited by this experience. There wear many challenges but even more opportunities, fueled by an economic boom and a population driving for a better life. So I really wanted to participate in the African success story.
Further I am really passionate about digital and the digitalization of traditional economies. The re-shaping of sectors, like banking or tourism, through the digital revolution fascinated me- and I have participated in various digitalization projects in my previous career for large multinational corporations. And the recruitment industry is also part of this huge change.
Lastly, I was since my high school time highly interested in public sectors issues, especially economic and social policies and politics. In Africa unemployment is a huge issue and social unrest, and I am pretty sure that we as Everjobs can make a change for good in Africa.
So by adding my three passions with a bit of risk-taking or foolishness you automatically arrive at Everjobs, the pan-African job portal.
• So Eric you have told us a lot about the development of Everjobs, where are you currently?
The development has been full of adrenaline so far but there are still a lot of things to do. But actually I am really impressed by the fast speed of our growth – I have launched on average one new everjobs country office every month. Currently we are already operation in West and East Africa. In West Africa we are operating in Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Senegal. East Africa was our second step with starting here in Uganda. Just recently we opened our offices in Tanzania and Ethiopia.
• So what is your plan for the future?
Our plan is to run business in around 20 African countries by end of 2016. My vision is also our hardest challenge: getting Everjobs accessible to African SMEs. They need to have access to the best talents to expand and they now mostly recruit by word of mouth, which limits them tremendously. I’m sure that Everjobs can bring a revolution to the human capital of SMEs and small family business in Uganda and entire Africa.
In the many meetings I have with Heads of Human Resources one issue is always brought up: the huge gap between the skills on the CV and the actual skills on the job. So I also aim for Everjobs to have a big impact on employability and close this gap. We’re working hard to reach out to leading education facilities like universities, to put online quality content from our partners in many industries and career advice to reduce this gap. Downsizing this employability gap will make this talent revolution actual.
• Eric, as career portal you are not just improving recruitment, you are also employing a lot of people. What is the human side of Everjobs?
Our staff size is also growing very quickly. Taking together central and country teams we are employing around 100 people and this number will grow up to 300 people in 2016. Just take Uganda as an example, we started this year with one person in office and now we already have a team of five. The team is still growing, planning to open up some internship opportunities soon.
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