Rozee.pk, founded by Monis Rahman, took off several years ago, receiving an estimated 500,000 unique visitors per month. This was back in 2011. Today, Rozee is considered Pakistan’s number one portal for jobseekers, and boasts that over one million job matches have been made through the site thus far.
We decided to do a little investigating to find out just how user-friendly Rozee’s site was, and whether both jobseekers and employers could rely on it to find what they need.
Jobseekers first answer a series of questions and select whether they are students, fresh graduates, or professionals. Upon uploading your cover letter and answering several in-depth questions about your job experience, education, and industry, you’ll be granted access to the site. (These answers are required and cannot be skipped.)
Upon signing up, you’ll receive an activation code via email and be granted access to the site. You’ll be invited to update your profile, search for jobs, create job alerts, or connect your Facebook and Linkedin accounts to Rozee. A built-in mailbox (for employees and employers) allows you to send and receive messages. For beginners, Rozee has a cover letter builder, which offers a few basic templates like modern, contemporary, and corporate.
For Jobseekers
The search function is simple to use. Simply type the name of your desired position and your location. You’ll see sponsored results first, followed by all other opportunities. Jobseekers can search by industry or location, and international jobs are often posted as well. Applying for a position is much simpler than the original sign-up process, and requires your cover letter, salary requirements, and CNIC.
Some listings are more detailed than others, and some applications will transfer you to the employer’s website, complicating the application process by requiring repeat information.
One peculiar, and likely limiting aspect of the site is that employers have the option to exclude applicants by gender and age. While employers have the option to select “doesn’t matter” for gender, and a fairly wide range (e.g. 18-40) for age, a few questions remain unanswered: Does setting the website up in this way exclude many qualified applicants? Does it encourage bias that helps neither employers nor jobseekers? While the site shows a few testimonials of young/middle-aged males and females who found jobs, it’s unclear whether certain individuals luck out more than others due to hiring bias.
While you might not expect the site to be useful for freelancers seeking short-term projects, these positions are listed fairly regularly by Pakistani companies.
The downside, which goes for many popular job boards, is the sheer number of applicants. Rozee’s site outright states that ” an average 400 people apply for each position at ROZEE.PK and employers rarely view more than 100 CVs?.” While this might make jobseekers hesitant to bother with the site, Rozee cleverly offers a solution called Priority Applicant. By paying for this service, you’re automatically listed at the top of the applicants, and you’re given email/SMS alerts when your cover letter is viewed. For 50 USD, jobseekers can get this priority for 6 months.
For Employers
Employers can add their company by filling out a quick form. You also have the option to pinpoint your location on a map and display it on your profile page. Rozee offers a few other interesting features for employers, including a referral tracker, interview evaluation form, and test builder for weeding out the best applicants.
Rozee offers employers many additional features for a fee. One of the top offers is their “Premium Select” feature, which allows companies to be listed prominently on the homepage of the site. According to the Premium Select description, “Rozee.pk’s team of specialists shortlist the best candidates for your position from the applicant’s pool and conduct preliminary phone screening to establish up-to-date credentials as well as interest for your particular job opportunity.”
Employers can purchase a number of other recruitment tools for credits. One credit translates to 150 USD. They offer Career Portals, which are essentially built-in, customized webpages to help employers recruit candidates. You can also purchase ads on the site that link back to your career portal.
Oddly, prices aren’t listed for each of these employer features. For example, Rozee’s feature for embedding job openings on Facebook has two packages: basic and premium. Employers then follow a link to submit their information to the sales department, which suggests that prices vary.
Is It Worth Your Money?
While the site offers a variety of enticing features for employers, it’s difficult to gauge the value in either purchasing them as an employer, or relying on them as a jobseeker. This is because a company’s visibility on the front page is solely dependent on how much money they were willing to throw at Rozee. This goes both ways – employers are presented with priority cover letters from applicants who simply had the money to spare. This sets a precedent for those with the most money getting the most attention, regardless of experience, education, or cultural fit. Of course, keep in mind that you don’t have to spend any money to use to site’s basic features.
All in all, Rozee appears to be a legitimate and reliable job board for both jobseekers and employers. However, as with most job boards, an applicant’s success will rely primarily on two things: how fast they apply (within a few hours, hundreds may have already applied), and how perfectly they fit the position (due to the large selection, companies have the luxury of discarding applicants whose experiences don’t match up perfectly).
