20 years of online happiness
Infojobs is soon turning 20. Maturing in a Spain reeling from the financial crisis, the company morphed into something more than just digital job hunting.
1,205,731 – that was the number of job contracts signed using the Infojobs platform in Spain in 2016. We call this “alegrias” or “happy moments”, because we know that finding a job is much more than signing a contract. It’s a key moment in our lives, as it helps us care for our families, realize our dreams, grow as humans and feel that we are a part of society. Finding a job is also the excitement of preparing for an interview, the joy of getting a call that says you’ve been chosen and the pride when you have succeeded. It’s the peace of mind when knowing that when the moment comes, you’ll be able to take on a new professional challenge.
"We help society and it makes us proud"
This is what we’ve been doing at Infojobs for the last 20 years: helping people find a new professional challenge and experience these feelings. At Infojobs, we are here to help people to find the best jobs and help companies find the best talents. We help society and it makes us proud.
Our journey began in 1998, when Infojobs recognized the need for “dotcom” companies to find professionals within technology. This was anothera era, when the Internet was an unknown world for many people and job ads were published in printed papers. Infojobs brought the ads online and the success was immediate. Soon enough companies in other sectors and professionals saw the efficiency and followed. At this point, like most things online, the ads were free, in an area where companies were used to paying. It sometimes caused a bit of confusion, when costumers were wondering why they didn’t have to pay. For Infojobs it was also an era with some challenges, being at the forefront as a digital service, at a time when the number of homes and companies with internet was still very limited.
Happiness requires finances
But in the end Infojobs made the transition for job ads from paper to digital possible. In those early years we even worked with huge companies who came to Spain with multi-million euro budgets. We became leaders and had won the loyalty of our customers. These solid foundations made it possible for us to start charging for ads in 2000, putting a price on the value that we were adding to the market, as both we and the market were growing. And that’s crucial. To bring happiness, in the form of connecting people with jobs, requires solid financial health and one of the most exciting things was that customers who had been with us from the beginning joined us on this journey.
In 2009 the financial crisis hit Europe and Spain with devastating strength. At its worst more than 25 percent of the Spanish were unemployed, and a lot of people were having a difficult time as they couldn’t pay for their homes and bills or support their families. These were hard times for all of Spain. For Infojobs its very core idea was affected, as the number of job vacancies dropped sharply. But it also led to a deeper social engagement.
We started to ask ourselves how we could support some of all the people without a job even more. Since then we have kept supporting job seekers in different ways. Infojobs supports and participates in face-to-face events, offering free CV-workshops, interview coaching, tips on how to use the job platforms properly in order to find a job or how to take advantage of personal branding and social media when looking for a job. All of this is also available on our blog, Orientación Laboral, and we offer free online webinars. Infojobs is not only a place where you can find a job, it’s also a partner that gives you advice and information to improve your professional career.
Infojobs was born in the early web era and has now become a multi-channel platform. In November 2016, we reached the milestone of becoming Spain’s first employment app to have 1 million individual active users in a single month. This number is four times higher than any other employment services in the Spanish market, making us the leaders in the pocket-size world. But we haven’t stopped yet. With new players offering new services Infojobs has to constantly evolve to stay relevant. There is still opportunities for growth in the market, as more than 100,000 companies and over two million job-seekers are still not using Infojobs.
It’s AI or DIE
There’s also room for improvement. We can get even stronger by expanding our position along the recruiting chain, going down towards the transaction and not only limit ourselves to search and audience. And we will always keep listening to the companies that trust us and to the professionals who use us, locating their needs and trying new features and services. We also recognize the importance of tech and artificial intelligence in this – it’s AI or die.
This is where we are heading as Infojobs is getting closer to its 20th anniversary. Today seven out of ten online job opportunities can be found on Infojobs, 70,000 companies in Spain trust Infojobs every year to find talented employees. 60 percent of people looking for work online do so using Infojobs. And, what’s more, Infojobs works: one out of three people who apply find a new job. Beyond the numbers, the best and most satisfying proof of our success are the messages that we recieve from people who have found a new job and a new start in life. Or from the companies that have found the talents they need. These “alegrias” are the reason why we want to keep evolving.