A
guiding hand
If you’re at a loss about what to do regarding
career options and where to go to get the right information, check
out JobsNet. Vidushi Seneviratne has more
You’ve just sat for your Advanced Level eamination…
a series of questions about what to do with your life lie ahead
of you. Your parents think you’ll be quite at home being a
doctor (since you’ve already studied medicine for the A/levels),
your interest in the arts wants you to go through life lost in classical
languages and the theatre of the world, while the voice inside your
head is telling you to explore a career in creativity… Typical
scenario in the life of a young adult?
If
confusion and too many options is your problem, your solution might
be literally just a click away. Providing modern employment that
goes beyond conventional recruitment, JobsNet hopes to develop and
implement a service facility for seekers and providers of all employment
including self-employment. “We match the needs of the employers
and the job seekers, and are basically an information source regarding
employment,” says Dileepa Manawadu, Head of Marketing Communications,
at JobsNet. “While job orders are sent in by employers, job
seekers feed in information regarding their bio data as well. Then
all the information goes into a common database, and an automatic
matching is done between the needs of the employers and the job
seekers. If the numbers of availabilities exceed the requirement,
we do a further screening and limit it,” she said, explaining
the basic process followed at JobsNet, adding that the entire procedure
takes about two hours.
A
project of the Ministry of Labour Relations and Foreign Employment,
this information centre is a public sector – private sector
partnership. Representing the combination of the public sector with
the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, you also see the support and active
participation of the private sector in this unique partnership.
The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce manages JobsNet, and while it was
initially funded by the Royal Norwegian Aid Agency (NORAD), the
Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) funds it at present.
“The draft national employment policy has formulated seven
initiatives, and implementation of the seventh initiative, which
is ‘Creating an Employment Sourcing and Delivery System –
under the National Employment Policy of Sri Lanka,’ is what
we at JobsNet do,” says Dileepa.
The
Technical Collaborator for JobsNet is the International Labour Organisation
(ILO). From the second year onwards the project is being supported
by ILO with a dedicated project management unit.
So
how exactly does JobsNet help you find employment? “You can
either visit us at our 17 centres around the island, or get registered
with us through our website which is www.jobsnet.lk,” says
Dileepa. The central database of JobsNet is located in the Colombo
head office connecting 17 JobsNet Service centres. The database
carries information of jobseekers, self-employment seekers, companies
(as members) who register with the system, and will continue to
service these registered persons and organisations throughout. “When
visiting us, you should bring your birth certificate, identifications,
documents proving education qualifications, as well as a set of
photocopies of all these documents. For all those of you registering
online, when you need your CV sent to the employer, you need to
bring these documents with you to a centre, since we need tangible
evidence of your certification,” explains Dileepa. “Though
our services for job seekers is free of charge, the employers who
get in touch with us regarding recruitment need to pay a fee.”
Going
onto explain how the recruitment is done, Dileepa adds that pre-interviews
are held at JobsNet, where eligibility, working conditions and salaries
of the job seeker’s intended job are discussed. “We
then send in the job seeker’s CV and next direct the person
to the employer,” says Dileepa.
JobsNet,
also provides career guidance and counselling for those registered.
“We also hold workshops for individuals registered with us,
and organise seminars for schools, on request,” she said.
Identifying skill and training deficiencies, directing for training,
providing information on Job Market trends, skills required and
training institutions, career guidance, membership to employers
and training institutions, job matching on demand, web-based job
matching, web advertising and assessing and developing business
plans and marketing plans for self employment seekers, are the other
services provided.
“We
also have a career aptitude test which is a computer based test
and we recommend it to students who have done their O/levels. For
this you have to visit us at the centre and a fee of two thousand
five hundred rupees will be charged,” explains Dileepa.
Email
job alerts is another facility offered by JobsNet, where you will
be informed of suitable employment opportunities. Training referrals
which is information regarding the kind of training needed for specific
jobs, is also provided by JobsNet. “One of the main problems
young people have is that they don’t know where to go to get
information regarding training for various careers. We have a collected
resource base of what is available and where, so that these young
people can be guided in the right direction,” says Dileepa.
A
serious lack of direction and negative attitudes towards certain
job categories due to poor knowledge is the main problem faced by
young people today. The lack of career guidance is another such
problem. This is what JobsNet strives to do. |