Three students had time on their hands in the
summer of 2009 when their university lecturers in
Nigeria went on strike.
Instead of slacking off, Ayodeji Adewunmi,
Olalekan Olude and Opeyemi Awoyemi started an
online job search company.
Five years later their start-up, Jobberman, has got
a multi-million dollar valuation, employs 125
people, and is still growing.
While Nigeria is Africa's largest economy it still
has massive unemployment problems, in
particular among young people who are also
more likely to be connected to the internet.
Jobberman has become the single largest job
placement website in sub-Saharan Africa, helping
over 35,000 people find jobs within the last two
years.
The number of companies using the site to find
employees has grown from about 40 in 2009 to
some 35,000 today. The company employs 125 people in Nigeria
and beyond
Carrying between 500 and 1,000 jobs on the site
every day, the founders estimate that there are
about 1,000 active users searching for a job at
any given time.
"The growth has been tremendous, it's at rocket
speed. One of the biggest challenges has been to
keep up with the volume of work," says Olalekan.
Overcoming fraud fears
However, there have been other challenges along
the way.
"In the beginning a lot of people did not trust an
internet-based business because at that time a
lot of people were using the internet to
perpetuate fraud here in Nigeria," he says.
But as other online businesses thrived and
became trusted, so Jobberman thrived.
Companies would dip their toe in the water with
one or two postings and then when they trusted
the site they would come back.
Olalekan Olude says he is proud because each
job someone finds on his site helps support a
household
In 2012 some of Jobberman's clients wanted to
use the site to find workers in Ghana and so the
company took its first work outside Nigeria.
Two years later it says it is now the biggest
online job site in Ghana as well as Nigeria.
The company is now expanding its reach to
Kenya with a partner called Brighter Monday. The
partnership also gives it a footprint in Uganda
and Tanzania.
'They found me'. Some people find a job through the site without
actually applying for one.
Amarachi Apakama uploaded her details and was
approached by a company to take the position of
executive assistant at a mobile phone content
company.
"That really changed my life," she says. "It was a
morale booster. It helped my confidence - the fact
that my interests and my experience put together
such a good fit that I didn't have to apply for the
job."
Multiplier effect
"It is incredibly fulfilling helping people to become
economically empowered by getting job
placements via Jobberman," founder Ayodeji
Adewunmi says.
"One company recruited more than 80% of their
employees through the site. Another time, a
director was able to hire a former colleague in the
United States to come and work for his company
here in Lagos. All amazing stories."
Olalekan Olude adds: "If you put food on the table
by virtue of getting a job for someone, that
person also fends for a mother, or a brother and
you create a multiplier effect within that
household.
"And anytime we get to hear of such stories, we
are very, very happy. It motivates us, it makes us
look forward into the future and try and get more
people to get more jobs."
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