Employ.ng

Employ.ng is the most affordable and accessible job platform for recruiting African talents for startups, SMEs and corporates. 

According to the Ecosystem Report on Nigeria Startup Scene by Tech Cabal, Nigeria have the largest concentration of tech hubs which is about 100 precisely. It also stated that Nigeria is third largest in the continent in terms of tech talent availability (83,609 developers in 2020) yet many startups find it difficult to access and retain these talents.  

Hence, the emergence of Employ.ng which is a job platform that helps startups recruit the best talents in the most affordable and unique way. Employ.ng unlike its competitors gives startup founders and recruitment agencies exclusive opportunity to post job offers on the platform. 

Employ.ng uses the human-centered design to research usability and facilitate market adoption by engaging National Youth Service Corps Members and recruiters in the entire design process. This made us brand ourself with user-friendly colors for millenials, GEN Y and Gen Z unlike our competitors. It also helped us build the necessary features.  

AI-powered search and retargeting feature enables job seekers on our platform to find jobs relevant to their experiences and expertise in the most fastest way. Jobs are also directed to the talents based on their historical search data.

Understanding the operating landscape of African environment and its issues of trust, we integrated Applicant Tracking System and built in AI-powered psychometric testing to verify the quality of talents. We also verify the competence of these talents through a post-assessment interview by our group of HR experts. Recruiters can also access the necessary information of the talents on the app.

We addressed the issues of trust from the end of the job seekers through the integration of a map navigation tool on the app for easy navigation and to confirm the authenticity of the job offer. We are also integrating teleconferencing tools on the app to encourage virtual interviews.  

We plan to assuage the employability gap by upskilling the job seekers through the in-app learning feature on the app. The content is prepared in English Language (UK) and translatable to five major languages which are French, Portuguese, Arabic to mention but a few. The content focuses on improving the softskills of our talents and facilitate skills acquisition as well. 

We also built the website in similar version to the app but here we enabled freelancers to showcase their services since most SMEs in need of their services might not be able to afford their salaries. Services would be charge on an hourly rate based on the agreement between the clients and the freelancers. 

Due to the juicy career opportunities for talents in the west, most talents seldom stay up to 48 months on their jobs. We address this issue of retention through our conditional policy to work at least 48 months for our clients before consideration of departure and give at least 3 – 6 months departure notice depending on the provision of ILO and employer's company policy.

Employ.ng is a one-stop recruitment for talents and businesses. It has two users which are the Employer and Employee. Employer is the recruiter which could be the HR of the recruiting company or an external recruiter or the founder of the company. Employee stands for the jobseeker on the platform. We used this labels for our recruiter and jobseeker because research shows Nigerians are very aspirational set of people.

Once the Employer completes his/her registration, he/she is required to update his/her profile because it increases the confidence of the jobseeker in applying for the job posted by the employer. Some of this profile information are industry, company description, location and contact details. The employer can then post the details of the job offer. The solution ie built such that the employer could post jobs for another brand underlining the role of recruiting agencies in Africa. Once the job is posted, the job can edited and deleted. The employer is notified when an application is made. The employer is allowed to view the profile information of the jobseeker and assess the best candidates through the ATS.

After registration, the employee is also required to fill in his/her skillset, contact details, about and work experience. He/she can now search for jobs relevant to experience and expertise filling all required information and then uploading his/her resume for assessment by the employer. He/she then see job location on the app for easy navigation and authentication. 

After registration is completed by the jobseeker, a notice for psychometric test is suggested for them to increase recruiter confidence. The jobseeker is also allowed to digitally design their CV for a fee depending on the quality they selected such as basic, modern or classic. 

The app uses technologies such as ATS and cloud services to save user information. 

According to Small Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) on the 2022 World MSMEs day, there are about 40 million MSMEs employing 87% of the nation's labour force. This underscores the increasing demand for creative and tech talents by startups and SMEs. So, our solution focuses on helping as many SMEs and startups achieve their recruitment goals in the most affordable and unique way. 

Most of these SMEs are playing in the manufacturing, agriculture, FMCG, fashion, entertainment and health sector. They have very lean recruitment budget and are in dire need for creative and tech talents for their graphic designs, digital marketing, web and app development roles among others. 

While startups playing in the finance, HR, health and retail space to mention but a few are heavily dependent on tech talents such as software engineers and devops teams to manage the development of their solution. 

There are also about 100 talent incubation hubs who have trained over 83,000 talents but some of these hubs are finding it difficult to place these talents in well-paying jobs.

Every year, over 300,000 fresh graduates are mobilized by the NYSC for their compulsory one-year service to the nation. Less than 10% of the fresh graduates land jobs after their service. 

Employ would help as many SMEs as possible achieve their recruitment goals through USSD and SMS service. Majority of SMEs founders playing in the informal sector are largely offline because they use Low-End Mobile Phones (LEMPs) and are digital immigrant. Once they dial our USSD code, they would be asked to choose their preferred language since they mostly transact businesses in local languages. For a start, five local and international languages such Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Portuguese and French would be programmed into the service. Then they would be able to choose the industry, expertise etc of the talent they want and in less than five minutes they would be able to access their needed talents. This USSD and SMS service would help them access talents in the most cheapest, fastest and easiest way. 

Employ would help as many startups achieve their recruitment goals through her job platform since majority of the startups are digital native. They are most likely to use High-End Mobile Phones (HEMPs) i.e phones with internet capabilities. They can download our app from Appstore or playstore and carry out their recruitment process on it. For phone users with small storage size, diasporan market and other foreign customers, they can use our website to implement the recruitment process but talents needs to download the app to access other premium services like digital CV builder, in-app learning feature and job location-tracking. 

Employ helps fresh graduates (NYSC members) land well-paying jobs by upskilling them through the in-app learning feature to the expectations of SMEs who are more concerned with the skillset than their working experience. Since we have partnered with NYSC, all NYSC members would be encouraged to download our app through their dashboards (they would continously see our app notification anytime they assess their dashboards) before the completion of their service year. This service year could be used to garner high in-demand skills. 

Employ addresses the issues of talent and job accessibility for our target audience through the USSD, SMS and platform solutions. It would also help tackle the employability gap through the in-app learning feature and digital CV builder.  

It increases employer trust through psychometric test and ATS and post-interview assessment. 

It increases talent trust through the map-navigation tool for job-tracking and authentication. 

Barrister Jide Ologun is the chairman of the board. Jide has garnered over three decades of professional experience in law and close to two decades in Human Resources Management and Public Relations. Consequently, he is a member of professional bodies including Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM), Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM), Personnel Practitioners Consultative Association (PPCA), and Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).

He is a former chairman, Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, Lagos State Chapter, with remarkable international achievements. He is also a former chairman of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM) Ikeja branch. 

Barr. Jide doubles a legal advisor and HR mentor to the company. He oversees every contractual agreement with clients and recommend strategies for clientele management. He also exposes the unpopular recruitment challenges faced by recruitment agencies in Nigeria. He also recommend the best leadership practices to help the company scale and sustain itself in the current economy.

He also referred the company leadership to a management consultant who addressed the value proposition of the company, recommended a feasible go-to market strategy and actionable steps to achieving the business KPIs. 

Rita Babalola is a non-executive director of the company. Rita has over eight years experience in operating an HR company with outstanding feats. She is a member of NIM, National Institute of Training and Development (NITD), Institute of Management Consultants in Nigeria (IMC). Rita brings her wealth of experience in running an HR business to the company addressing end-to-end value chain of the company. Rita has consulted for over 500 businesses in Nigeria especially SMEs. She recommend ways to structure the business, addressed the user journey for SMEs and constantly provide counsels on exceptional service-delivery. She also monitors the work-environment to ensure it is safe for the staffs. 

Paschal Okeke is also a non-executive director of the company. Paschal has over four years experience in business operations and strategy. Paschal evaluates the business operations and give feedbacks on areas of improvement regularly. He also recommends growth strategy to increase customer adoption within the nation. 

Dr. Uchenna Uzo is a professor of marketing and academic director of Africa Retail Academy at Lagos Business School. He has close to twenty years experience in marketing management. He is a research fellow of the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research (SCANCOR) and the American Marketing Association. He is a member of the management board of Lagos Business School. He teaches courses in Marketing Management, Personal selling, Sales and Channel Management. Prof. Uchenna constantly offer counsels on the best marketing strategy to acquiring and retaining customers in the company. He offers a step-by-step guide to winning customers in Africa unstructured market. 

Shina Ajoye is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the company. Shina has garnered close to seven years experience in business development management and over five years in project and product management. He has worked and volunteered for several national and international brands such as Binance Africa, HULTPRIZE Foundation, Zenith Bank and National Association of Nigerian Students amongst others. He has interfaced with over two thousand NYSC corpers during his service year. He has also worked with several creative and tech talents across several industries. 

Research results from 32 NYSC members and HRs over product development 

Research results from users for the design process

We involved our users in the development process of the app. 

The two links attached above lead to the results of research carried out during the design and development process of the app. 

Starting with second link, we commenced the design process by asking unbiased and important questions from our target audience (fresh graduates and business founders). The questions were prepared from our brainstorming process. We addressed the question ensuring that it is completely objective and unbiased.

We then built a survey form using survey monkey. We decided to use survey monkey because it has a more user-friendly template. Then the survey was shared on WhatsApp channel to our target audience for feedback. 

The feedback was used in the design process as seen in the UI. 

For the first link, we curated the questions from our  brainstorming session. We evaluated the questions to ensure that they are unbiased and objective. Then we sent it out to over 100 NYSC corpers and HRs, sadly only 32% filled the survey. The medium was WhatsApp broadcast. We then used the feedback to prioritising the product features and commence by building the most important features first before moving to the least important features. We then sent the apk file of the app after its first development to our beta testers group to get constructive feedback. Then we modified the app based on their feedback before launching it on playstore. Although more features are currently built into the app, so a more updated version of the app would be uploaded by the first quarter of 2023. 

Employ is Africa foremost inclusive one-stop recruitment platform that fully leverages technology to digitally upskill talents and increase talent accessibility for SMEs and startups in the most cheapest, fastest and easiest way. There are several recruitment brands that focuses on the facilitating recruitment process and verifying talents but very few focuses on upskilling these talents digitally. Infact most of these brands recruit majorly for startups and large corporations, none of them focuses on the informal sector. 

Employ solves the issues of talent accessibility for SMEs through the use of USSD and SMS service. This approach helps 71% of the mobile users who are offline (due to cost of data purchase) to access talents in the easiest, fastest and more reliable way. It also enable SMEs founders with Low-End Mobile Phones (LEMPs) without internet capabilities to participate in the recruitment process. 

Our mobile application would also serve the startups,  recruiting agencies and large corporations since they are digital native. The in-app learning feature increases the employability of our candidates through enrolment for series of our in-demand courses that are pocket-friendly and scenario-based. Our mobile application also contain a map navigation tool that allows talents to navigate their way to the employer and confirm the job authenticity. Our application also contains a digital CV builder that helps our candidates design their CV in a professional and attractive way. 

Employ would rapidly change the market dynamics because several startups and SMEs would rapidly jump on any solution that can facilitate process in the most fastest, easiest and cheapest way. Our solution would gain the trust of the SMEs brand across the continent because of USSD and SMS option which is very nascent in the Africa recruitment sector. Several established brands might be tempted to also replicate this strategy but our 30-year patent should give us a competitive advantage. The USSD and SMS option would also gain customer trust because most business owners or agencies are seeking ways to find space in their phones. Unlike our competitors who depends on their application downloads to generate income, we would leverage a website, our mobile application, USSD and SMS strategy like most financial institutions have used to build brand equity and establish themselves in the market. 

At the heart of our innovative solution is talent accessibility for SMEs, these SMEs have long been neglected by well established recruitment brands because of the informal nature of transacting business. Research has shown that these businesses employ over 70% of the current labour force of the nation. One of the challenges that might have scared off these established recruitment brands is the low educational level of the players in these informal sector. Whilst these might be true, most financial institutions and TELCOs have successfully used the USSD and SMS service to increase participation in these segment. 

So, our goal is become the foremost recruitment brand facilitating the participation of SMEs in the recruitment process in Nigeria and then Africa. We want to help as many SMEs acheive their recruitment goals in the most fastest, cheapest and easiest way. This directly leads to the rapid reduction of unemployed youths in the nation and continent. 

We also intend to increase talent employability in Africa. In the last seven years, the number of African startups that have secured funding has increased by 46% - a growth rate is 6 times faster than the global average. What this means is more startups would emerge, recieve funding and have more financial capacity to invest in recruiting the best talents for their firms. Although most mid-level talents in Nigeria travel overseas for more lucrative job opportunties and working conditions. Employ is focused on accelerating the emergence of more competent talents for startups, SMEs and large corporations. We intend to do this through our in-app learning feature and 6 month to 1 year internship with talent accelerators in the country. We are certain this would help as many startups meet their business goals as well as help more jobseekers land well-paying jobs in the country. 

We intend to increase trust in recruitment process. Due to the emergence of fake job alerts, pseudo-talents and unsafe nature of the nation, we are keen on providing a secure recruitment platform where recruiter can be assured of recruiting the best talents without being defrauded and talents can confirm the authenticity of the recruiter before proceeding to physical interview. It is the major reason we integrated the map navigation tool as well as virtual interview option to increase trust on both ends of our customers. 

Employ is built majorly on AI. The wishes of users to interact with tailored content are ever increasing. This means that users are seeking intelligent software with greatly individualized user experiences (UXs), not only adaptive user interfaces (UIs). We are building an unsupervised machine learning program into the app to help jobseekers easily locate relevant jobs to them. The technology would learn the search activity of jobseekers and interactions with certain job content. It would also use the data generated from the in-app learning feature and demographic data of users.

 It would then make job search more efficient and well-tailored over time. It would also help recruiters achieve their recruitment goals faster through advertisement since the AI is familiar with the each talent job interests. 

Our solution is built on mobile application and website because internet penetration and mobile phone usage in Africa is rapidly increasing. So, the mobile application would enable users to access to jobs and talents at anytime and any part of the world without hassle. The application also houses technology like map navigation tool which is critical to gain the trust of our users. It would help job users easily navigate their way to the recruiters and confirm the job authenticity. 

Our solution currently serves over 100 users. We currently work with big brands like UBA Group, SLOT systems Limited and Meta to mention but a few. We plan to serve 10,000 users across Nigeria in 2023 through our partnership with NYSC, SME associations and talent accelerator hubs. By second half of next year, we would be introducing our USSD and SMS service which would catalyse growth by at least 1000%. 

We might not be able to rapidly build the USSD and SMS service faster because we are bootstrapping to carry out internal operations and build our other touchpoint (the website) is also capital-intensive. We are also in the product development phase as more features are regularly built into the mobile application. 

Employ has two group of partners for funding and market access. 

• Business communities and support groups: Bank of Industry limited (BOI) and SMEDAN for investment and market access. We participated in one of their sponsored business innovation program which qualifies us for funding. This investment would go into product development and marketing efforts. BOI is also giving us access to the ecosystem of SMEs that they have helped financially to scale. Since BOI has helped thousands of businesses, this market access would help us increase user adoption and attain profitability. We also partnered with SMEDAN (the foremost MSME association in Nigeria) to gain access to the portfolio of businesses they are currently serving. 

• Talent accelerators: Netrepreneurs, Grazac and Utiva for access to ready-made talents. 

Employ is a B2B and B2C company that help SMEs, startups and large corporations achieve their recruitment goals which is primarily competent creative, management and tech talents. We do this through our DO-IT yourself and DO-IT For Me model. Most SMEs and startups are likely to handle the recruitment process by themselves through our solution (DO-IT YOURSELF) while large corporations love to outsource recruitment process, so we handle it for them (DO-IT FOR ME). We charge SMEs and startups 7% of the annual salary of the recruited talent and charge large corporations 10% of same. 

We also generate revenue from talent enrolment for our courses on our in-app learning platform. There are several courses on technology, business and leadership on the platform. The cost of each course is fixed based on the local market price and demand. 

We also generate revenue from the digital CV builder where they can design their resume in a professional way. We have three templates such as basic, modern or classic. We charge $2 for basic cv, $3 - $4 for modern resume and $5 for classic resume. We have several samples for each templates. 

These are our three main revenue streams. 

We are still conducting research on the mode of transaction for the USSD and SMS service but we are certain that payment would made by users through their banks and possibly their recharge cards. 

We intend to raise funds through the following media 

1. Product sales: since we have developed a first MVP for the solution. Sales generated from this medium would be reinvested into the product development. This would help our investment readiness as major African investors are interested in the numbers. 
2. Grants and investment: In the last seven years, investments has increasingly flowed to local startups. We intend to participate in as many competitions as possible to raise grants to acheive our dreams. 
3. Loans: Through partnership with several banks, we intend to raise enough capital to catalyse the completion of the solution. Since we are successful with BOI, we hope to successful with others.