Business Business News Online jobhunting made easy, fruitful
Online jobhunting made easy, fruitful
- Details
- Published on Wednesday, 29 August 2012 00:00
- Written by IRMA ISIP
By A Web design Company
An online portal is making it easy to link Filipinos looking for jobs, and for companies wishing to hire temps for a one-time project that can be outsourced.
Australian firm Freelancer.com, the largest outsourcing and crowdsourcing marketplace in the world, has tagged the Philippines as one of the top countries among its network 234 that it launched the regional site, Freelancer.ph in 2009, two years after its inception.
It is in fact launching this month the website in Tagalog.
Camsy Ocumen, country manager, Philippines of Freelancer.ph, explains this is a platform that links freelancer and employers on jobs that can be done online.
Filipino jobseekers – called freelancers or users – can have access to global projects and international clients that would enable them to earn dollars without leaving the comfort of their homes. Filipino companies similarly gain access to a network of freelancers all over the world.
Founded in 2009 from smaller independent sites bought by its chief executive Matt Barrie, Freelancer.com has seen incredible growth to what it is today: over 4 million users around the world, in over 240 countries, regions and territories.
Ocumen said there are about 10,000 users online at any one time.
Over 2.4 million projects have been outsourced globally, paying out over $604 million to freelancers across the world.
According to its website, Freelancer works much like eBay — but instead of selling and bidding for goods, projects, services, and tasks are posted on the world’s largest marketplace. The site connects small- to medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs around the world to a global labor force.
Users or freelancers bid for projects posted by employers on the site.
In the Philippines, Freelancer.ph, employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software, writing, data entry, and design; right through to engineering and the sciences, sales and marketing, and accounting and legal services.
What makes this different as a tool is that outsourcing companies generally target western countries.
Ocumen said Freelancer.ph as a platform provides a 4-million strong workforce to literally any micro, small, or medium entrepreneur or budding entrepreneur with an internet access and online transaction capabilities, to anyone in the world.
Ocumen said Freelancer.ph now has 10,000 employers and 150,000 Filipino users or freelancers registered.
“Most Filipinos typically outsource Internet marketing related tasks such as article writing, re-writing, copywriting, and blog entry writing. Other popular jobs outsourced by Pinoys include web design and programming,” said Ocumen.
Ocumen said for a website with users from hundreds of countries, speaking and understanding English is a very valuable asset and Filipinos have the advantage.
Ocumen said Filipinos are also prized because they prioritize healthy professional relationships more than simply getting a big pay. They provide above average results to ensure costumer satisfaction with every transaction.
“Many of our freelancers already have regular clients who hire them directly through the site for projects,” Ocumen said.
Top countries which award projects to Filipinos are the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, Australia and India.
Filipino firms surprisingly award most of their projects to users in India, with users in the Philippines only next.
India is also the top competitor of the Philippines for similar jobs.
“With a lot of industries going digital, demand for digitization is also increasing,” explained Ocumen on the profile of jobs that freelancers get.
A close competitor in the Philippines is Jobs.ph but it operates in a slightly different manner.
Posting and bid for a project is free. Freelancer.ph earns through commission, charging freelancers a maximum of 10 percent of the total project cost for transactions and employers a maximum of 3 percent of the total project cost.
This commission is lowered to as much as 3 percent for freelancers and 0 percent for employers when they opt in to a membership package.
Freelancer.ph’s users who employ through the site have outsourced 20,000 jobs to countries including the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and US and UK.
This is but a reflection of the Philippines’ preparedness to tap portals such as this.
“The Philippines has always been ready; they just didn’t have access to the proper outsourcing tools that are both convenient and cost effective for them,” Ocumen said.
With 99.6 percent of the businesses in the Philippines classified as micro, small and medium and with hardly any resources, Freelancer.ph can offer them a flexile way to tap into a scalable workforce.
“They could outsource or crowdsource on a need basis and eliminate the costs of providing office space for talents that are only needed for specific projects,” Ocumen said.
The phenomenal success of the portal in the Philippines, Ocumen said, reflects the Filipino’s need for job opportunities that could compete with the salary of an OFW but would allow them to stay at home with their families.
She said this also reflects the need of Pinoy MSMEs to have access to tools that could provide them a more flexible and scalable workforce for a reasonable Pinoy price.
“Our 150,000 Pinoy freelancers include people who want to earn more but couldn’t stand the thought of living far from their families; full-time employees who need to earn more than what they’re earning; and moms - both married and single - who either want to help their husbands with their finances or need to raise their children by themselves,” Ocumen said.
Job mismatch is rare in Freelancer Before bidding for a job, users are required to fill out their profile - which generally works as their resume on the site. They are also encouraged to take exams and upload a portfolio to prove their skills.
After every transaction, both employers and freelancers are encouraged to provide feedback about their work experience with each other to help other users gauge whether or not a user could meet their needs.
Freelancer.ph is rolling out the website in Tagalog to create a better working experience and lead to more profitable opportunities for small business owners and freelancers in the country.
