Let’s be real for a minute here, searching for a job is a headache, both for the job seeker and recruiter. When looking for a job, you send your CV to literally hundreds of places, even those you are not too proud to admit to, just because you are desperate, and after all that, you get little to no replies and annoyingly, no job. Sure, many platforms have been developed to make it easier for you to see opportunities available and how you can apply for them but guess what? So has everybody else. You will probably still end up frustrated. On the other hand, once a recruiter posts a job opening, they are instantly flooded with thousands of applicants, all vying for that one position. How do you expertly filter through all those applications to narrow them down? How much can you really know about a person and how well they can fit into your organization from the CV alone? Again, very frustrating and tedious.
This is what led to the establishment of Fuzu, a job portal. “I remember a time when we were looking for a driver here in Nairobi and we posted the job opening. We received 1500 applications and I wondered how we could possibly filter through all these applications and find the right person, it was overwhelming. There did not exist any technology to help us do this. This got me thinking that there were many recruiters suffering the same fate. Additionally, once we hired the driver, we couldn’t really send feedback to the other 1499 applicants on why they did not get the job,” remarks Jussi Hinkkanen, the CEO of Fuzu Limited.
One-stop Career Development Service
Not only is Fuzu a job portal, it is more importantly a one-stop career development service for job seekers. It allows job seekers to, firstly, dream. The platform gives you the option of setting a career goal and displays the skills you need to develop to get there and from this, you plan, which is the second thing Fuzu allows job seekers to do. With the goal in sight, you can now plan on the steps you need to take to get to your career goal. Thirdly, Fuzu also offers job seekers a learning platform where they can take FREE courses to develop desired skills. Fuzu has partnered with Accenture which will provide more than 50 high quality courses to learners who want to develop their skills and competencies. Lastly, Fuzu helps them get jobs. With a list of possible job options displayed for the user to apply for, Fuzu promises to let the job find you! You will be notified on relevant job opportunities for you to apply for. Therefore you can take time to develop your skills instead of breaking your back printing and delivering CVs or writing a string of endless emails that seem to be swallowed in a black hole.
For the recruiter, Fuzu is here to most importantly allow you to attract talented people to your company. Your job openings will be seen by those people who match certain criteria you specify. Fuzu also promises to simplify the recruitment process by either allowing you to start a campaign about an available job position or do a head hunt for a specific talent, thereby cutting off most of the uncertainty and risk in employing the wrong person. One very cool feature for the job recruiter is that out of the list of possible candidates available for the position, Fuzu goes ahead and calculates a percentage of how fit they are for the position. The platform integrates online psychometric testing and talent profiling of candidates to the application process, thus making it easy to find candidates that best match the requirements.
Additionally, there are premium features for both job seekers and recruiters. For example as a job seeker, using booster which is priced from Kshs 299, you can view the gap in skills between you and other people searching for the same job. This should tell you exactly what you need to have to edge out your competition. For the job recruiter, one premium feature called Candidate Analyzer gives you a proper comparison and analysis from the results of various tests. This will cost Kshs 14,999 for a whole batch of applications, compared to the standard Kshs 16,000 charged for every applicant’s test, proving to be very cost effective.
Virtual Mentorship
Fuzu spokesperson Ken Oyolla, who is a mentor and entrepreneur with a burning desire of creating opportunities sees Fuzu as a way to offer mentorship on a much larger scale. “I mentor a few people on finding jobs and getting prepared for interviews, but my reach is small. Replicating such mentorship to more people might be hard, hence why Fuzu is here. Fuzu should not only revolutionize how people look for employment but also how they can grow and attain their career goals.” he says.
Fuzu has received support from The Rockefeller Foundation’s Digital Jobs Africa initiative, which basically aims to connect talented yet disadvantaged youth to job opportunities. “An example of how The Rockefeller Foundation supports innovation is by supporting Fuzu. This is a way for reaching out to young aspiring job seekers, who may not otherwise have easy access to job opportunities”, said Wairimu Kagondu, Senior Program Associate at the Rockefeller Foundation. Robert Kimani, former CEO at Brighter Monday, now President of Business Development, East Africa at Fuzu Limited, reiterated the overall concept of Fuzu,that it is to be the leading Pan-African career platform. He sees this as the first step of many as Fuzu goes on to be the go-to platform for professionals, irrespective of their level of seniority or educational background.
Many companies such as Equity Bank, TechnoBrain, Chase Bank, M- Kopa among others, have already jumped on board and are using Fuzu to find talent. M-Kopa’s head of recruitment, Nyokabi Warobi really values the solution that Fuzu has provided for their company, “We are a growing company therefore finding the right people to work with us can be hard. We do not just look for grades, personal qualities such as a positive attitude and personality are important. When Jussi (CEO, Fuzu Limited) came to us with this, he described it as Linkedin on steroids, I told him that to me, this is a sneakier Linkedin!”
The features and opportunities provided by Fuzu are very innovative. They offer a whole new perspective in career development and growth for individuals and ensures that recruiters can get the best possible talents on their teams. Setting up an account is quite simple. It is currently exclusive to Kenya and available on the web. They have worked tirelessly in making it mobile friendly, therefore it is light and fast, surely it will save you precious money spent on bundles before you get an actual salary to spend. Go ahead and set up your profile and avoid the hustle and frustration of finding a job, let it find you!
