What a delight it was for me to stumble across JobLife. It most surely be the site that has established itself in the South African job market as not only a one-stop-shop for jobseekers, but generally as a great website for those merely interested in what is happening in the job market, or other forms of tips and advice.
But before we get too excited about the add-ons on this site, let have a look at the brilliant functionality of the job search functions. Job search functionality is, after all, what this site is ultimately about.
The main search functionality is activated through two search tabs on JobLife: ‘job title, keywords or company’, which is the ‘what’ tab; and ‘city, province or postal code’, which is the ‘where’ tab. And it works. A search for a job as rare as “copy writer” in “Cape Town” yielded more than three web pages of options, but also a separate widget offering five related job searches. This is handy when your own search terminology might be slightly off target (don’t we like it when a websites thinks on our behalf?).
Obviously a search like “accountant” with “Gauteng” yielded much more pages with literally hundreds of search results and could keep you browsing for hours, but the ‘related search’ widget will narrow it down while a second widget will show you other popular areas where similar jobs are being offered. This can be handy if you are not too set on a specific part of southern Africa (it’s important to mention that JobLife has listings as far afield as Zambia and even beyond).
Once you have performed a search, a widget appears with the option to opt into receiving free email alerts for this specific job search. This simply means that you will not be spammed by numerous irrelevant emails, but will receive mails specific to your specified interest. The more searches you perform for various job titles and in various regions will obviously increase your opt-in options to receive even more email alerts about jobs you would be interested in.
Once you are interested in a specific job it would be advisable to register. On my dummy run it took me only a seamless minute which saw me ready to log on and submit my resume/CV. Similarly employers also needs to register to be able to post job vacancies.
Registered job seeker can also submit a detailed profile that can be found by potential employers. Registered employers can submit, relist, view and remove job listings. The functionality for both is easy, super-fast and, are we allowed to say it? rather idiot proof…
One point of criticism, though, is that the brilliant landing page for the JobLife blog section is not easy to spot. Any site that offers excellent blogs about tips for online cyber safety, rules for dealing with recruiters and guidelines for writing a kick-ass CV should never rely on browsers to spot the teeny word “blog” somewhere hidden in the top left hand corner of the site. Once you have found it though, the reading is worth your while. In fact, when last did you see a blog about how to make New Year’s work resolutions stick?
JobLife is now firmly listed in my ‘bookmarks’ and there is no reason why we should not all be Tweeting like BirdLife Africa about it.
