A thirty year old New York City College of Technology graduate in Computer Information Systems has decided that his search for suitable employment since his return to Guyana from the United States a year ago is over. Instead, he now seeks to make a living helping other people find jobs.
Earlier this year, Paul John decided to establish a job website aimed at bringing employers and prospective employees together and while he concedes that the response has been slower than he had hoped originally, he is, nonetheless, confident that patronage will grow.
Jobs.gy facilitates persons both at home and abroad seeking or offering jobs in Guyana. Employers post their vacancies on line and people who are seeking jobs can apply directly on line for any position that suits their qualifications. The service is free for job seekers and employers are required to pay what Paul says is “a minimal fee” of $12,000 to post a vacancy for sixty days. “What this means, in effect, is that the employer’s vacancy is available on-line twenty four hours a day for two months and at the same time Jobs.gy offers advertisers a home page on which to display their company logo, service description and contact information.
Jobs.gy has been “up and running” since mid-March and Paul says that the site is already in use by ten local companies. He concedes, however, that Guyana is still to fully embrace the “IT age” and that despite evidence of the application of information technology in both the public and private sectors the traditional way of advertising and applying for jobs still holds fast.
Easy and reliable access to the traditional print media still makes the “old fashioned” way of advertising and applying for jobs the preferred approach and Paul accepts that this will remain the case in the future. While he says he does not envisage the traditional approach to advertising and applying for jobs being replaced by job sites, he believes that the convenience of information technology provides particular advantages in some circumstances.
He points out, for example, that both employers and job seekers outside Guyana may find it easier to use job sites since they provide the distinct advantage of ready access. Additionally, Paul points out that users of sites can make quick and easy adjustments to information already posted on sites. “At best, job sites are a convenient complement to the traditional medium through which vacancies are advertised and applied for,” Paul says.
Having worked in both the public and private sectors in Guyana Paul says that the level of computer literacy among the Guyanese work force is still lower than what it ought to be. “We need to pursue computer literacy as part of the schools curriculum more aggressively so that we can arrive at a position where most young people are computer literate long before they actually enter the world of work,” Paul says.
And the former Guyana Revenue Authority employee says that he has a particular interest in supporting the process of expanding computer literacy in Guyana. “I have found that there are many people who visit the site and leave evidence that they are not familiar with web site use. They want to search out jobs on the web but they do not know how to do it. Part of my objective is to try to change that.”
Paul says that Jobs.gy offers job seekers much more than access to vacancies. “When you apply for a job there are certain specific approaches that you should use in preparing and presenting CV’s and approaching interviews. Part of what we do is to provide information and guidance that support a more professional approach to applying for jobs,” Paul says.
Paul has targeted the University of Guyana where he says the level of interest among students has been heartening. He concedes, however, that there is still “a great deal more to be done” in both the public and private sectors to popularize a service which he says will grow steadily with the continued growth of the IT industry in Guyana.
