When it comes to job opportunity, Luis J. Salazar personifies the power of technology to break down barriers, in language and in accessibility.
From directing the marketing and enterprise channels for Microsoft in Venezuela, then leading Microsoft’s middle-market division worldwide, and later becoming the General Manager and co-founder of Microsoft Office 365, his career arc has spanned continents as readily as networks, leading to the forefront of cloud computing.
Who better than Salazar to show the world how to connect millions of wage earners seeking hourly employment a better way to connect to a new job through the ubiquitous Cloud?
Salazar, co-founder and CEO of Jobaline.com and Miki Mullor, co-founder and SVP of technology, assembled a team of best-in-class software developers, behavioral scientists and marketers to create a mobile and bilingual hourly-jobs marketplace that enables the more than 75 million hourly workers in the U.S. to find and apply for jobs from any computer, tablet or basic cell phone.
With more than 60 percent of hourly workers preferring a mobile job search and 90 percent using text messaging, Jobaline.com’s platform seamlessly matches employers with qualified employees. By using Jobaline.com, it is not atypical for recruiters to receive up to five times more qualified local applicants in half the time, and save up to 80 percent in HR acquisition costs. Just ask his investors.
“We invested in Jobaline.com because it solves the key issues facing millions of hourly workers and their employers,” said Greg Gottesman, Managing Director of Madrona Venture Group. “Hourly workers use mobile devices as their primary connection point, but they can’t easily apply for jobs using their phones. Applications are in English when often the applicant speaks Spanish. If you’re an employer looking to hire quality hourly employees, Jobaline is the solution to connecting you with those who qualify and align with your needs.”
We got in touch with Luis to get to the bottom line on Jobaline.com.
Seattle24x7: Jobaline.com was founded in November 2012 and you saw 200,000 job applicants in your first year. Quite a milestone!
Luis: We are now closer to 250,000. Our vision is to make a positive impact in the lives of 75 million people who work hourly jobs – almost 1.3 billion people worldwide.
Seattle24x7: How do you define “hourly jobs?”
Luis: Very simply. The Department of Labor defines it as people who get paid by the hour. They are not salaried employees, but hourly.
Seattle24x7: Any specific types of employment?
Luis: 51 percent are in hospitality, which represents hotels, food and beverage, and restaurants, 16 percent are in retail and wholesale, and close to 3 percent are in construction. We’re aiming towards the end of the spectrum which is two thirds of the economy. This includes people who are working as front line employees at the U.S.’s largest companies, as well as in such jobs as landscapers, construction workers, electricians and janitors. That’s the largest part.
Seattle24x7: How has Jobaline.com improved the job application process?
Luis: This is one of the few segments where technology, instead of helping, has created friction and problems in terms of efficiency. The first thing to appreciate is that 80 percent of jobs are created by 20 percent of companies, the largest employers, yet only 15 percent of job related sites allow you to easily complete job applications via mobile devices.
Comscore just reported last week that in 2013 for the very first time more people accessed the internet from mobile devices than from desktop computers. Our own data in 2013 shows that 40 percent of people preferred applying from mobile devices, and in 2014 we expect over 50 percent of the traffic related to jobs and business networks will be from mobile devices.
The lack of mobile technologies is creating friction rather than helping a $350 billion industry, which is how much is spent on recruiting and retaining hourly workers every year. We have created technology in this marketplace to enable an efficient matchmaking of people to jobs, using ANY mobile device, or even text messaging.
At Jobaline.com, we’re aiming for a more inclusive society, so that everyone has a fair chance to get a good job.
Seattle24x7: Your system is lowering barriers to entry. It is accessible with a basic cell phone as opposed to a Smartphone?
Luis: Correct. And it is working fantastically. It’s beyond job discovery. We enable people to complete a job application using a feature phone. From an employer’s point of view, logging into their own dashboards, they cannot distinguish somebody applying via text message from someone applying through a typical Web browser. They see the same information. They can hear the employees voices. They can hear their answers relating to the specific job they would be doing. For example, if you were applying to be a barista, a common questions is, “If coffee tastes too acidic, how do you fix it?” Applicants can answer these question vocally.
Seattle24x7: How do people sign-up and get their resumes online in the first place?
Luis: Everything happens over the phone. There is no registration or uploading of a resume because 50 percent of workers using the system do not have a resume. During the interaction, we capture declared information – like contact data, employment history or specific skills – along with observed information – like geo-ip-location, voice inflection, pitch and tone, ability to follow instructions and timeliness. Using both sets of information, we transform that into an employee file where all of those dimensions are captured for the employer to see.
Let’s say you apply for a job today. The questions are: What’s your name? What’s your address? You answer all of that and more pertaining to that specific employer. The next day you apply to another job. We don’t need to ask for your contact information again or your name again. We would only ask a new or incremental question. So over time, in the process of applying to jobs, you build a richer and richer profile of yourself, without knowing it. As a result, you get presented with more job opportunities and introduced to more employers. You can do this through many devices.
Seattle24x7: Are you able to authenticate or guarantee the identity and security of each individual?
Luis: Yes, there is an identity associated with a password, and the device you are using to call on to secure that privacy. We actually have double authentication and our data is encrypted.
Seattle24x7: Can you take us through the process?
Luis: Sure. Jobs are created in the system, either directly by an employer on Jobaline.com or indirectly by an employer that uses an Applicant Tracking System or distributes their jobs through large job boards that are our partners. Each job consists of a prescreening interview with voice based and text based questions selected by the employer and each job is assigned a unique URL and a unique text messaging code. Often employers take note of this text code, placing it in their window on a “help wanted” sheet. For example, Univision Seattle has been running a segment called “hot jobs of the week” inviting people to apply to those jobs via mobile devices, and we expect national expansion through different networks in 2014. In addition to the “weather segment” a “jobs” segment is popular and useful.
Seattle24x7: You are then able to filter the data according to desired qualifications?
Luis: Correct. Employers only pay for qualified applicants that met their criteria. Right now, the way the industry works, you publish a job, and if nobody applies you try again. If 50 people apply, you have to prescreen those individuals, and that consumes a lot of time. In our case, employers define their pre-qualification criteria in advance and they only pay for results. On the job seeker side, the process takes around five minutes, and there is absolutely no advertising because we want the process to be as friction-free as possible.
Seattle24x7: So Jobaline.com gets paid based on on the number of referrals who match the qualifying criteria as opposed to the candidate that a company hires?
Luis: Correct. We’re offering them a pre-screened list of candidates. On average, our users report savings of 5-10 minutes per applicant versus doing manual prescreening. When you think about the one billion pre-screening interviews done every year in this segment, you can imagine the economic impact this could have in the economy if we suddenly have all that productive time available at those large corporations. Would they open new branches and generate more jobs back into the economy? That is the dream.
Seattle24x7: Does Jobaline.com receive any percentage of the wages paid to the employee hired?
Luis: No. We simply charge the employer per lead. Starting at $4.95 per qualified job application. The status quo asks companies to posts a job, and this costs them anywhere from $25-$300 with no guarantee or prescreening. With us you pay per results; it is parallel to the disruption in the business model that Google brought to the ad industry with the cost-per-click model. We offer Cost-per-lead. Once you have those candidates in your mini-marketplace, you have those forever as your own virtual staffing agency. As candidates apply to other jobs, their contact info and skills, etc is updated in your database too.
Seattle24x7: Do you follow up on permanent hires like employment agencies?
Luis: The employer receives the complete profile information, with declared and observed information and a collection of those who applied for the position. They can see the people who live close by, how many qualify, and if the first employee doesn’t work out, they can call the next one on the list. They have their own virtual agency on demand to help with seasonal peaks or unexpected openings.
Seattle24x7: The system is also bi-lingual?
Luis: In the U.S., 20 percent of this workforce speaks Spanish; it’s a fact. But in some markets, for example, Miami, 40 percent of business owners speak Spanish. So, when I say the market place is bilingual, it goes both ways. A business owner in Miami or the Bay Area who speaks Spanish can use the system in Spanish to hire people that speaks English, so we like to enable both employees and employers.
Seattle24x7: Is the issue of employment documentation something you have to deal with?
Luis: We’re doing prescreening interviews. When the employee shows up for a final interview, that employer will follow the proper legal steps for hiring a new employee.
Seattle24x7: Are you in all 50 states?
Luis: We launched the company in Seattle last summer and the greater Seattle area; we launched in Miami; and then we launched in San Francisco Bay area. What is fantastic is that over our first summer we had 100,000 job applications, and 10 percent of the total hourly-workers population is in our marketplace throughout the three launch metro areas.
Seattle24x7: What is the greatest challenge when you are entering a marketplace? Is it difficult to create awareness and get people to participate?
Luis: Yes, that’s the biggest challenge of any marketplace – gaining liquidity of both, supply and demand. One thing we’ve learned is how powerful word of mouth is in this segment. People share a lot and really try to help each other. A few months after launching, we observed 10 percent of our traffic coming from referrals. Usually when you’re looking for a job, you’re competing with a lot of people for one job, but in the hourly-jobs segment, a construction company would be hiring several employees at a time. So one person may share this position with others and many people apply. It is easy to share a link or the text code. Also, since our process in advertising free, large businesses are promoting their jobs using offline media as they know job applicants will go directly to a job application; all of these things are contributing to awareness.
Seattle24x7: What’s the next step for Jobaline.com?
Luis: In 2014, we will be announcing several large partnerships with key industry players, keep on delivering innovation in real-time matching technologies and continue our geographic expansion. [24×7]
Jobaline.com is headquartered in Kirkland, Wash. For more information, visit www.jobaline.com.
