Quess Corp, India’s largest private sector employer, today launched QJobs, its proprietary platform to help blue collar job seekers find jobs closer to where they are, based on their interests and skills. The app which is currently available in five languages – Hindi, English, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu, is designed for both mobile and web based experience.
According to a survey commissioned by Quess Corp, demand for contractual employees and specialized gig workers have been up by 30 percent over the last year. As Organizations across the world are going through various stages of transformation the demand for contractual and the gig workforce is expected to increase, as employers variabilize their headcount and focus on outcome-driven programs.
Through its latest offering QJobs, Quess aims to address the issues of job creation, job discoverability and job matching by providing a comprehensive solution that allows employers to find the right talent, while allowing job seekers to showcase their skills and find employment closer to their location.
The App has advanced matching capabilities that not only help job seekers discover the right job at the right time but also provisions for the creation of a digital profile called “Job passports” that can be updated with their skills in a certain domain (from Basic English to Sales Proficiency etc.). Further, QJobs creates a long term career trajectory for blue collar workers, offering them access to resources such as resume building as well as certification modules, to develop new skills or upskill themselves over time and highlight the same, thus creating a pipeline of industry-ready talent that retains its relevance over time.
The app also has the ability to screen candidates based on requirements of the organization which posts the job. It comes with a skill verification feature which would help companies choose candidates who only have verified their skills using the skill tests within the App. For ex., an organization hiring for Sales Executives can only pick candidates who have cleared Basic English and Sales proficiency tests. This would help companies to fine tune their selection processes based on skills they would want the candidates to possess. The platform also allows for instant document verification, ensuring that selected candidates are ready to be on-boarded by employers making the recruitment journey quick and seamless.
A recent in-house survey highlights that a majority of companies in Bengaluru (90%) and Mumbai (86%) confirmed their intent to ramp up hiring for blue-collar and entry-level workers in the third quarter of 2020. 76% of companies surveyed in New Delhi also stated that they expected a surge of blue-collar hiring in the quarter ending September 2020. In the run-up to the festive season, with businesses gradually restoring operations to pre-lockdown levels, hiring in the blue collar space has seen a significant surge.
Top roles in demand
There has been a steady demand in job roles such as delivery staff, drivers, security staff, facility management staff, beauticians, maintenance workers, and others. A significant increase in the number of applications per job has been witnessed for many roles, such as in sales and marketing, and data entry and back office profiles, as compared to pre-COVID levels.
| Job Roles | Percentage increase in hiring |
| Sales | 187% |
| Marketing | 179% |
| Delivery Executive | 139% |
| Driver | 122% |
| Data Entry/Back Office | 115% |
| Teacher | 108% |
Factors leading to demand creation
In the wake of the lockdown due to the pandemic, several migrant workers were displaced, with states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Jharkhand seeing millions of blue collar workers returning from their places of work. Along with the Government of India’s efforts to reinstate these workers through schemes such as the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan, dedicated efforts by corporates have highlighted the urgent need for job creation, and simultaneously, job discoverability and job matching.
Through its latest offering QJobs, Quess aims to address these issues and provide a comprehensive solution that allows employers to find the right talent, while allowing job seekers to showcase their skills and find employment based on their location.
Sectors leading demand
With the shift to online or app-based consumption post-COVID, sectors like e-commerce, retail and FMCG are fast emerging as demand creators for roles like delivery personnel and sales executives. As consumer activity rises during the festive season, logistics is likely to drive demand. Further, sectors like banking and fintech are also seeing growing demand for administrative and back office roles.
Start-ups and SMBs too are beginning to explore the possibilities of hiring talent through aggregators rather than in-house, given the advantages in terms of saving costs and being able to readily onboard a trained resource with the requisite skillset. Additionally, there is also a rise in short-term demand for facility management services in the post-pandemic work environment. This is also boosting security services, as business premises are now looking at having fewer persons on ground and remote access control through a centralised command centre.
Sectors like Hospitality and Tourism that traditionally do well during the holiday season are witnessing a damper in light of COVID-19 this year.
Ajit Isaac, Chairman & Managing Director, Quess Corp, said, “As India’s largest private sector employer, Quess is taking the next big step in realizing its larger agenda of putting Middle India to work. In doing so, the company’s mandate is focused on providing dignity and social security to India’s vast lower income jobs. With Qjobs, we aim to offer a smooth and seamless job search experience that helps job seekers find the best suited job as per their requirements, while also ensuring that employers have access to a large pool of talent.”
Suraj Moraje, Group CEO & Executive Director, Quess Corp, said, “Blue collars workers have been amongst the hardest hit in the wake of COVID-19, and the need of the hour is to ensure that these workers are able to find employment, based on where they are located and what they are equipped to do. There are close to 6 lakh blue collar workers in the top three cities of India (New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru) alone, which highlights the fact that talent is abundant, implying that opportunities must be discovered and matched with the right talent to overcome the current challenge. With QJobs, we endeavour to create not only one-time employment opportunities for these workers, but a holistic career path for them to follow, where they can track their progress and work towards their goals in the long term.”
Sekhar Garisa, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Emerging Business, Quess Corp, said, “With QJobs, we hope to address the talent mismatch faced by the industry, which has been a long-standing concern. A consequence of resources not being equipped with the right skills required to fulfil a job role, talent mismatch can impact businesses adversely in the long run. By creating a pipeline of qualified, reliable and easily available talent for employers to tap into, we hope to reduce the time required to onboard talent, thus ensuring rapid uptake and deployment of resources from a varied pool of skillsets, which is customised to cater to the employers’ requirements.”