JOBOT -Â The cooperatively organized platform for people offering time and skills and those searching for such.
– Is this how the future of matchmaking looks like?Â
Being bored by the tedious and time-consuming process of searching for jobs on one hand but also being critical of the often superficial criteria on the companies’ side when having to recruit employees on the other we felt there is a need to change something. To find out what’s lacking, we started by having a look at some of the existing platforms:Â
RESEARCH
There are countless online platforms which offer different services. Platforms as Indeed or Monster mainly function as online marketplaces for people searching for or companies offering jobs. Some platforms focus on very specific target groups, such as Workeer, or as well JobLab. While Workeer mainly focuses on to the support of refugees looking for work, JobLab is a platform which allows an easy matchmaking between freshly graduated students and companies offer internships or positions for young people.
What we like about JobLab is that it facilitates the process of matchmaking in many ways. But still, we get the impression that the criteria of choosing people are quite superficial.
Other services like for example the Swiss platform Ostendis offer a simplified recruiting system and enable recruiting companies to save a lot of time. On the applicant’s side, the process stays quite the same, as she/he still has to send in ordinary application papers.
And last but not least, let’s not forget about platforms as LinkedIn or Xing which are rather meant to build up a professional online portfolio and network then to offer and search for jobs at first place. Still having a well-updated profile on such platforms gets more and more important because companies often have a look at it while recruiting employees. Let’s have a closer look at LinkedIn. The platform is undoubtedly a great social media networking tool, and arguably the most professional of such tools available, connecting more than 100 million users. But as helpful as it seems, the online network does not come without disadvantages. Possibly one of the biggest disadvantages of LinkedIn, as with other social media tools, is the investment of time required to use it most effectively. While setting up a profile is relatively easy and does not require design expertise, the robust nature of the site means that there are many resources to navigate through, from Groups to Answers to making connections with others, which also makes it very time-consuming. One second big concern with LinkedIn, as with all social media sites, is privacy. While it is possible to manage your privacy settings on LinkedIn, the nature of social media means that at least some people will be able to see some of what you’re doing and saying some of the time. Managing and protecting your reputation online is important because what goes online stays online and can be readily shared with others.
“Think of your LinkedIn profile as your face to the world, but it won’t be useful unless it’s accurate, relevant and kept up-to-date.”
So what did we learn from the research?
While having a critical look at the existing services we detected different aspects:
- Recruiting employees but also looking for a job are very time-consuming processes. The existing services do their best to improve this situation but we think this should be possible on a higher level.
- One big concern is privacy. Companies do their best to offer secure services but the nature of social media and the internet by itself means that users are never 100% sure if their data isn’t visible for someone or gets used of the company for advertising purposes.
- What we missed on all existing platforms is the inclusion of voluntary work. As we think it is just as valuable as monetary work we think it should be possible to combine the two in one service.
- As well we think that there is definitely a lack of a system allowing the exchange of skills between users of the different networks – in our opinion such a service could get perfectly combined with existing services.
- And last but not least we are very critical of the superficial criteria which are often crucial while looking for employees on the companies’ side.
What does JOBOT do differently?Â
01 WE ARE A COOPERATIVE and support equal rights
JOBOT is built up as a cooperative. Therefore every private person and every company who joins the cooperative as a member gets part of the community and is able to take part in the discussion and process of decision making.Â
To ensure a participative way of working several tools are set up :
- An ethical charter as a set of commitments, practices, and behaviors chosen and adopted by the community which depend essentially on the participatory conception, design and the regularity of controls.
- participative conception and development of the future of the JOBOT community by voting (as you can see on the 3rd point below) or by working for the cooperative.
02 we care for your private data
As JOBOT is based on a blockchain system all data is absolutely secure. As a cooperative, we don’t have any interests in using our members’ data for advertising purposes or even sell it to extern companies or organizations.Â
03 we are sustainable
We at JOBOT consider different aspects of sustainability as very important. Hereby we don’t just talk about economic and environmental aspects but just as important: about social aspects. By voting regularly on the importance of different parameters our members set continually new standards and expectations for the cooperative. The certificate which companies can get as a reward is based on these aspects. More about the certificate is to find at the end of the article.
04 we fight for Equal Opportunities
While having to scan through countless CV’s, it’s hard to avoid tending to mainly search for a future employee with a straightforward career. As well classical CVs mostly highlight ‘hard skills’, titles, age, origin and gender and are not taking into account ’soft skills’ of people – as they would often be very valuable. JOBOT offers the unique possibility to find a number of fitting matches without looking at the people offering their time and skills themselves. How does this work?
It’s our vision to bring voluntary work to a higher level
– let’s make it visible!Â
05 we consider voluntary work just as valuable as monetary work
JOBOT considers enabling matches of commercial run companies and people looking for a paid job just as important as connecting people who are willing to do voluntary work with organizations or people in need of such. We believe that if voluntary work would get valued higher in people’s curriculum vitae, much more people would offer to do so for certain (empty) periods, gaining important and very valuable experiences. Therefore we at JOBOT value voluntary work just as much as monetary work. Members of JOBOT are able to include work experience they did on a voluntary basis into their online profile, as such it also gets included in their skill profile and adds specific values to it. People who are not able to find a paid job at first place are able to build up a valuable portfolio of various experiences – including hard and soft skills – over time. But that’s not it. Because we at JOBOT think that voluntary work should get valued as well financially if possible, income which gets generated by several fees paid by our members flows continuously back from the intern fund and allows to pay our members who are doing mostly voluntary work at least a small fee. By being a member of JOBOT companies therefore automatically get part of this circular flow.
06 we support our community instead of aiming for profits
The main goal of JOBOT is not to make profits but to connect people. Revenue generated through payments of memberships and transaction fees gets used to build up an intern fund. To explain this a bit more in detail, let’s get to the token system.Â
token systemÂ
The token system of JOBOT bases on two revenue streams – member fees and job offer tokens. Every single person, organization or company has to pay an initial fee in order to get a member of the cooperative. The amount of this fee differs from member to member and is depending on either the member is a private person or a company but as well on parameters as the size, the number of employees, yearly turnover but as well sustainability of companies. Additionally, to this initial fee users offering jobs pay a certain amount of tokens for every job profile they upload. Both token streams, the initial fee such as the fee for uploaded offers flow into the intern fund. The main idea of this intern fund is to ensure the maintenance and continuous development of the platform, a second one is to build up a credit which can get used to paying memberships of people who are not able to pay for it themselves. If someone has a very limited budget she/he can apply to get subsidized by JOBOTS intern fund.
T=Token
JOBOT want to ensure being accessible to everybody. It’s our vision to use the fund in the future as well to pay voluntary working members out of it. Â
Last but not least, let’s not to forget to explain shortly the intern reward system. As soon as there is a successful match between a user offering skills and a user searching for such, they both get rewarded*. Of course, these rewards could also get applied to other actions, for example, if someone is leaving a company and gets a positive feedback.
As we gave an overview of the concept in the first section we will dive deeper into the system into the following one – talking about the roles and possibilities of the different types of users:Â
user searching for skills – company
As soon as a company has joined in the cooperative as a member, it gets possible to set up a profile. The profile features information such as the name of the company, the sector the company is based in, the number of employees, important partners of the company or the yearly turnover.
Further on the profile allows to set up a set of values, important to the company. As the profile is set up and approved by the platform’s supervisor it gets visible for all the other members of the cooperative – including other companies but also private members. Additionally, it gets possible at this point to upload job offers. Instead of uploading a standard text the person uploading the offer sets up a set of skills and values which the company expects of its future employee(s). We name this set of skills the skillofilter. By admitting the set of skills and choosing the number of requested matches the work is done. Based on the parameters of the skillofilter the job profile gets automatically generated and uploaded to the system.Â
user offering skills – worker
As soon as a private person has joined in the cooperative as a member, she/he is able to set up a personal profile. The profile is private and just visible to the person himself/herself. Next, to an avatar of the person herself/himself, the profile shows private data such as name, date of birth and place of residence. Further on the member is able to fill in various information including education, monetary and voluntary work experiences, languages, social skills, and hobbies. Based on the changes of the profile, the so-called skillometer gets automatically adjusted. Just as already explained on the company side, every private person can submit his/her set of skills as soon as the profile is ready. The set of skills get coded and gets uploaded therefore in an anonymous form – the skill profile – to the heart of the system. While checking the profile on a regular basis and also updating the profile the member gets ongoing suggestions for job-offers, which have been matching by the system with his uploaded skillprofile.
JOBOT STORIES
An additional function of the profile is a monthly/yearly cake diagram. While scrolling through his/her personal development of diagrams every member gets able to follow her/his personal activities in the different sections – the cake diagram represents the member’s individual JOBOT story. Every week one member of the community gets interviewed about his/her story. These stories get published on the Blog of JOBOT. The main aim of the blog is to display a range of different job profiles and unique stories.
By giving insights on other members lives and their nonlinear job-stories, we at JOBOT hope to encourage our members to find their very own way of how to live and work as well as to inspire them to build up their very own set of values and most important, being proud of it! Â
 As the illustration above shows the skill profile, uploaded by the user offering skills gets matched with the job profile, uploaded by the user searching for skills in the heart of the system. As there is a fitting match both parties decide to whether or not accepting the match – if they both do they will get able to see each other’s profiles. This is the moment when the duty of JOBOT is done. The two members meet each other independently.
Companies might get surprised by the person they will get to meet because him/her has been chosen partly by serendipity. But we at JOBOT believe: Surprises will mainly lead to positive experiences!
JOBOT certificate
To reward companies who trust JOBOT and work with us we’ve set up a certification system. Every company who is joining the cooperative gets one star to start with. Based on a value system which gets set up by the community, joining companies are able to grow the number of stars over time and gain a higher ranked level. The different levels of certificates which can get gained on JOBOT are approved internationally and will support a positive reputation concerning a sustainable and fair set of values of the joining companies.
What are the main advantages of JOBOT?
As more and more people haven’t got a linear curriculum vitae but are finding their very own path through different jobs and phases of education, it gets often very difficult to match themselves with the expectations of companies’ job offers. Let us tell you about two examples:
PERSONA 01 – ZORA 32
Zora is 32, completed an apprenticeship as a floristic and studies product design afterward. After several internships and two years of traveling, she worked as a stenographer for the theater Basel. Besides her 60% job at the theater, she is running her own little business as a florist for weddings. As the boss at the theater changed she isn’t that happy anymore in her current job and therefore would like to find something new, which turns out to be very difficult. Zora doesn’t want to work fulltime as a florist again but also don’t want to go back to work as a product designer in an ordinary studio. Although her experiences are very broad and valuable she still struggles to find another job and gets more and more unhappy as the weeks pass by. Looking for jobs on ordinary platforms doesn’t really help, there are tons of jobs but it’s just very hard to find a fitting match.
PERSONA 02 – PEDRO 45 – owner of the company refurnish
On the company side, we would like to introduce you to Pedro. Pedro is 45 running a small business around handmade upcycled products. As he got a father some weeks ago Pedro would like to spend more time with his family and therefore is looking for somebody who could run the shop on some days and also assist him in the workshop, crafting the different products. He already advertised the job on a job platform, but that didn’t help much – he has got around 150 CV’s and just doesn’t manage to scan through all of them himself.
when jobot enters the scene…
As Pedro and Zora both get to know about JOBOT via friends they both decide to set up a profile and get members of the cooperative. They are very interested in how it works and how the future of finding a job and employees could look like. As soon as Zora has submitted her skill profile she gets an alert – this has been a quick one! Her first match is Pedro. As it sounds quite interesting she decides to accept the match and they meet one week later. Zora has never thought about running a shop and using her skills as a product designer so much hands on – but it seems to fit just perfectly. When we visited them half a year later the two have teamed up and Zora is now also selling her flowers, which accompany the beautiful furniture and products of Pedro just perfectly. As thy got very good friends Zora also started to babysit the 2 children of Pedro 2hours a week – in exchange for all the lunches that Pedro is cooking for her at work.Â
Pedro and Zora are still very happy about their match which got possible because of JOBOT and just a tiny dose of serendipity.
Do you think as well that this vision of matchmaking should be part of our future? Feel free to contact us on:
carla.crameri@students.bfh.ch
rahelursula.inauen@students.bfh.ch
loisemariececile.pignat@students.bfh.ch