"Job Portal" from Bangladesh "Kormo" Presents in Indonesia, Expands Job Opportunities in the Informal Sector

The informal sector is the main contributor to employment in Indonesia. According to BPS, as of August 2018, the number of informal sector workers reached 70,5 million or absorbed 58% of the workforce, higher than the previous year. However, the challenge here is the lack of information and job providers. This is what Kormo has to offer.

Kormo is job portal informal marketplace who was present at Google Area 120, Google workshops for experimental projects. Kormo was developed specifically to connect job applicants with informal sector job providers. After two years of development, Kormo was inaugurated in Bangladesh six months ago.

"In developing countries there are many issues, one of which is the difficulty of young people in finding work. On the other hand, it is difficult for job providers to find candidates who match what they want. We are trying to solve this problem with Kormo," said General Manager of Kormo Bickey Russell, Wednesday (13/3).

He continued this application using machine learning from Google to recommend job vacancies tailored to user profiles and user activity in the application. Kormo provides digital CV creation based on the data entered by the user in the profile menu. Also can be linked with Google account.

What distinguishes Kormo from other players is that it provides facilities for job applicants to develop their skills and knowledge through learning features. Kormo provides learning modules in the form of videos and articles. They will get a badge every time they finish studying a module.

Employers can view the badge and get a deeper picture of the applicant's skills or knowledge. In addition, this application offers transparency for both parties in the form of notifications.

Applicants will be notified when their application has been read, when called for an interview until the final announcement. Employers will be notified when the job application they upload to Kormo has been read and responded to by the applicant.

"Kormo provides job recommendations to applicants based on their interests, preferences, abilities, and direct requests from employers. Companies will find candidates faster and process them quickly."

Plans in Indonesia

Russell ensures that his company has not implemented business monetization, so both applicants and job providers can enjoy all of its services for free. Kormo's initial focus at this time is to develop services so that they are more widely known and used by various parties.

"We don't have any plans for business monetization yet, the focus now is to provide more value for companies and job seekers. They can sign up for free."

The company wants to increase partnerships with various kinds of businesses ranging from large, small, to medium-sized companies so that more job vacancies can be sought by applicants.

Unfortunately, Russell is reluctant to mention how many company partners and applicants have joined in Indonesia. According to him, most of the companies that joined came from Jakarta, because their presence in Indonesia was only a few weeks.

He also emphasized his focus on developing the Indonesian market first before expanding to the next developing countries.

"We want to make sure Kormo grows slowly, from Jakarta first and then continues to grow throughout Indonesia. When that happens, then we think about expansion."

Kormo Group Product Manager Rishi Dean added that his team will continue to add various additional features and new technologies, considering that Kormo is currently still in the early development stage. According to him, the more complete the features, the higher the positive impact on the informal labor sector.

Currently, there is no local team dedicated to handling Kormo's business in Indonesia. Kormo is still being helped by the team Digitaraya and Google Indonesia.

Kormo's presence in Bangladesh is claimed to have helped more than 250 applicants find jobs. More than 400 companies have joined and posted jobs with a retention rate of 80%.

New Kormo is here for Android version and has been downloaded more than 100K times. The Kormo application is designed to be smartphone-friendly, only 5,7 MB and has a UI/UX interface that is claimed to be easy for anyone to use.