Earlier April this year, Ren approached me on the idea of JOBi. I was skeptical at first, thinking this is just “another job portal“.

After few heated discussions, (that is how we like to get it done. :p ) I realized there is a much bigger problem we are trying to solve. Which I can relate as being a hiring manager for the past 8 years. I also owned a bar for 4 years. Our founder Ren is also a co-founder of MyBurgerLab so we can definitely relate all the real world problems we are facing.  Let’s first look at the reality of hiring, especially part-time hiring is challenging:

• Information Mismatch
• Communication and Engagement
• Trust
• Part-time hiring is different

Information Mismatch.

A lot of jobs are posted on a piece of paper in front of a shop, on a newspaper, or through job agency. We could all agree this is not efficiency. The part-timers don’t have any choices other than the shops that they walk by, and the employers only could look for candidates that walk in. This is year of 2015. We have all the web and mobile technology to make this happen. It’s been done and there are job portals out there, but what could JOBi do differently?

Communication and Engagement.

How many times you send in your application and only left in the dark for the next don’t-know-how-many weeks. Each step of the process from viewing your resume, to shortlist or decline. There are all business decisions that could be easily communicated to you with ease by the employer. We actually build it as part of the employer flow so that you as part timer will get notified right away. (This is a feature coming very soon.) With Mobile App also under development, you will get notified with these activities first-hand to stay informed.

Trust.

This is a very important factor when it comes to retail business hiring and also a serious consideration for part-timers. As an employer, you want someone that is trust worthy to handle all the cash and goods. And as a part-timer, you want to make sure you get paid promptly. This is where our rating and review system is aiming to do. (Of course there will also be some moderation going on and all ratings will be kept anonymous.) On top of that, we are hoping to get part-timers and business certified. Meaning that our business team will conduct some background check and noting your information for future reference. Certified individuals and business will get an automatically boost in view ranking. (This is work in progress.)

There is no silver bullet. 

Part time hiring and applying is difficult. And JOBi feels your pain, of all the things we talk about above, we don’t stop just here. We also want to help with things like schedule management, payroll and much more beyond that we can’t fully disclose yet. There are so many pain points that we want to help people to address. It’s not a easy task but here at JOBi, we strive our best to achieve these visions, and hopefully one day JOBi makes part time easy 🙂

JOBi CTO, Yang