Venezuela and the Latin American region present high unemployment figures which make the search for a job a complex task. In this context, technological advances and the impact of Internet are becoming an excellent means to aid job seekers. On the other hand, in order to reduce recruiting costs, companies are using it as a talent-searching tool, since it is a practical and economic mechanism to access a dynamic, ever-changing labor market. This has brought about a bevy of portals which have become strategic allies for human resources departments. In the past five years, this area has grown more than 50 percent. In Venezuela, it is estimated that 80 percent of companies use the Internet for recruiting purposes. The largest employers use it as an institutional employment channel for direct access to their web pages, targeting the 20-to-45-year-old population.

These sites have varied functions: as employment agencies, for the evaluation of market trends; offering legal support; providing job-seeking consultancy, aiding in the preparation of CVs or resumes, preparing job interviews and for work performance enhancement. These services are rendered free of charge to all types of workers from professionals to qualified manual laborers, although some sites require a subscription. Some of the more popular and successful sites are:

Local and Regional Firms

www.perfilnet.com
Founded in 1999, it is one of the most successful cases in the search for talent online. Capable of processing information on more than 300,000 candidates, it is used as an institutional search portal by nine of Venezuela’s 10 major companies.

www.cvfuturo.com
The country’s most popular employment-searching site, it maintains strategic alliances with the country’s main higher education institutes.

www.bumeran.com
A site with a determined presence and leadership in five Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela. It offers technological human resources solutions and has a database of 3.5 million candidates.

www.empleate.com
Created in 1999, with presence in Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela, and a database of 500,000 candidates, it is one of the 10 most-visited internet sites in Venezuela.

www.contratame.com
This site not only attends to job-seeking pursuits in Venezuela but also manages information from the entire region. It also includes a section on university talent.

www.trabajofreelance.com
A mediation site for professional freelance services and organizations or persons with a strong presence in Latin America and Spain.

Transnationals

Transnationals operating in Venezuela qualify as headhunters and specialize in the search for top-level executive talent. They also offer consultancy services and up-to-date labor market information. The best-known sites are:

www.kornferry.com
www.boyden.com
www.heidrick.com
www.transearch.com

Temporary Work Firms

These firms have had a rapid growth in the past five years. In hiring third parties, Venezuelan companies have found the solution to decrease labor costs and attain greater flexibility and agility in an increasingly more threatening work environment from the labor legislation point of view. Another of the reasons is the three-month employment test period in Venezuela. Companies allege that this is not sufficient time to get to know the employee well. As a result, an employee has to wait for up to a year to be formally included in the payroll. On the other hand, although people prefer a steady job, labor mobility is changing this mindset.

Some of the most important sites are:

www.addeco.com
www.asap.com.ve
www.manpower-venezuela.com
www.workforce.com.ve

Reinsertion into the Workforce

In several countries in Latin America, training via the internet is enabling the reinsertion of many workers who have been left out of the labor market, including the unqualified, the impaired and the elderly. Some sites are including this component which contributes to training the users, apart from disseminating content referring to courses, events and market trends. Online training, used by corporations via the internet, is at an incipient stage in the region; however it is contributing to training a labor force that will be better qualified to face the challenges of the new work environment.

About Author