Cape Town-based company Byte Orbit, has launched a mobile application that will have an employer know about their potential employee before they get their resume and thus evaluate if they are suitable for a position and if they can fit in with the company’s culture before setting up the interviews.
Known as Impress Me, the app is a video based mobile application that gives the job seeker an opportunity to visually impress the prospective employer with an unique 60 second video selfie. The idea is not to convey your resume through in 60 seconds, but rather to give an introduction about yourself and why you would be suited for the advertised position.
In an interview with HumanIPO, Martin Ras the Chief Operations Officer at Byte Orbit said that said that from a company perspective they realized that although a resume conveys most of the information that we require prior to doing an interview, it fails to convey the personality of the job seeker.
“With the latter in mind, with any recruitment process the employer wants to 1) Understand whether the candidates skill-set is suited 2) whether that candidate will fit into the company culture. Therefore if the employer can have a glimpse of the prospective job seeker and their personality prior to inviting them for an interview it will streamline the process of recruitment,” said Ras.
“Ultimately, the job seeker needs to prepare themselves for the potential of being invited to an interview, so what better place and opportunity is this not for them to actually practice and perfect their interview skills,” he added.
Impress Me is available on the Web : AndroidVersion) and iOS Version platforms.
Job seekers can browse, search and apply for positions on the web and the mobile applications for free. In order to apply for a position a job seeker first needs to register on the mobile application. Once registered, they can take a 60 second video selfie from their Android or iOS device.
They can retake the video as many times as they want and then only submit the video once they are happy with it. The video is unique and the job seeker can only use the video once for a specific position that they are applying for.
Employers can register via web or mobile and can post up to 5 positions for free at any one time. When a job seeker applies for a position the Employer receives a push notification on their mobile device along with an email to advise that a new applicant has come through. Logging in from the web / mobile they can now view the 60 second video and contact the job seeker directly via email or mobile.
“Impress Me will introduce a model whereby Employers can purchase credits for a variety of additional features. These features will include things such as the opportunity to post more than 5 positions, get featured on the listings page etc,” said Ras.
While the company is planning on an international roll out, it is however currently focused first on getting the offering perfected for the South African clients before implementing it abroad.
“We are confident if we can get it right for the South African market our journey into other countries will be a bit easier,” said Ras.
“ We are focused on quite a sizable target market in South Africa. With an unemployment rate in South Africa of almost 26% we are aiming to assist a part of that specific market by providing them with an alternative recruitment platform. Also very importantly we are focused at SME’s, Corporates & Recruitment Agencies that are looking for prospective job seekers,” he added.
