Part time and voluntary jobs in Bangladesh: Can bdjobs.com help?

Why doesn't bdjobs.com have a special section only for part time jobs in Bangladesh? Or for voluntary jobs? Its obvious that bdjobs.com focuses mostly on the full time job market openings as that is from where they make their revenue from, from the employers that is but I am sure a huge number of people, mostly students are eagerly looking for part time jobs around Bangladesh.

When you read the experience and skills requirements for job openings in Bangladeshi companies, you sometimes wonder if even Superman or Spiderman would have dared to drop their CVs through bdjobs.com. It would have been better if those job adverts would have also included the minimum bidding (or the bribing) amount for buying that post, if knowing a high-rank insider would have helped or not and facts like that. If job seekers, students don't even get easy information and access to part time jobs first, if they don't get part time exposure to management and business establishments, then how on earth would they even come close to the fancy wishlist employers fabricate and advertise through bdjobs.com? Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a lucky 'boro bhai' in a telecom or a bank to bag eventually an internship or some sort of a part time work, with the hope of turning it to a full time bread-earning source eventually. Still a large number of students and first time entrants to the already saturated Bangladeshi job market rely on neutral platforms of available information, of which bdjobs.com is the pioneer. This unpriveleged segment also includes those who live outside urban cities and hope to get concrete, reliable employment information either in their district towns or in Dhaka city. But how many of them actually end up getting any part time job, let alone a full time one?

In a country where you have Abdul to do your grocery shopping, Quddus Mia to drive your car, Morjina Bua to do your cooking and Soniar Maa to do your landury, its very unlikely that you will need someone else to do part time jobs for you. I am sure Fahim Bhai would argue that in a country where even full time jobs are saturated, how can you seek a market for part time jobs? This is what bdjobs.com also replied to a query related to part time jobs. However entrepreneurs seek and find opportunities during crisis. bdjobs.com was never a game changing player in the job search market in Bangladesh, as they were the first mover in this case and they still hold the market leading position and they established the rules of the game. Those who followed suit in the forms of jobsA1.com, jobsbd.com etc. are mere look-alikes and don't offer any true value in comparison to bdjobs.com. If bdjobs.com does not think seriously about how to promote and publicise part time jobs more, then it will be just a matter of time that someone with the brand say partimebdjobs.com or voluntarybdjobs.com could catch them napping in their complacency. The pretext that 'the concept of part time jobs is not popular in Bangladesh' is not convincing enough any more and we want bdjobs.com to change the rules of the game now.

Four things to consider particularly.

1. Can bdjobs.com redesign their website to have special sections on part time jobs only? Interestingly they have an article on this topic but that is pretty much about it.

2. Can bdjobs.com come to any agreements with its clients (employers) that they would publish adverts for part time jobs with special discounts to encourage employers to think seriously about publicising part time jobs beyond company notice boards, emails/memos and word of mouth?

3. Can bdjobs.com focus on voluntary jobs in Bangladesh? As we are a land of NGOs, I am sure many students, job seekers with a stronger social sense would love to be part of any social development company, for experience's sake. Voluntary jobs hold great value when mentioned in CV, as experience counts, not the fact that one worked for free. Many non-resident Bangladeshis also are interested to work in a voluntary role when they spend their vacations, term-breaks in Bangladesh. They mostly rely on information from friends, family. bdjobs.com can play a good role here by being the reliable provider of information even before those Bangladeshis head back home to seek the voluntary role.

4. bdjobs.com needs to look beyond Bangladesh too. Can it play any role in the job hunting of non-resident Bangladeshis? Certainly ethnic origins play little role in the global platform while getting a job, but there is no harm in making sure that I, as a Bangladeshi living abroad, get and give information to fellow Bangladeshis around me first and foremost...about job openings around me which might fit their profile. Community building is essential for Bangladeshis living abroad and this needs to be beyond political and religious affinities. The new bond should be based on economic terms, on jobs and opportunities.

It is agreed that creating more part time jobs is something that bdjobs.com does not control as it depends solely on the employers and unless they have enough reasons, incentives to create part time jobs, bdjobs.com can hardly do anything. Its just that they are in an influencing position as they interact with nearly all leading employers in Bangladesh. So they have enough ground under their feet to make a case for the part time and voluntary job seekers of Bangladesh. Hope they will do it before someone else does.

Would David Rowe get a job in Bangladesh?

Some claimed that economic recession was the best time for innovation, to have a fresh look at things, new ways of doing old stuff. Now that included the way you used to hunt for jobs too. With so many people losing jobs everyday across the western world, many still thought to be innovative in the way they go about looking for a suitable career in these times of uncertainty. David Rowe, a graduate of University of Kent, pulled out a publicity stunt for himself by posing as a mobile billboard seeking a job in the busy streets of London. He was even offering would be employers free employment for the first month so that they could ‘try’ him before paying or firing him. Times are hard and so are getting jobs.

However, his stunt seemed to have paid off finally as he has recently been landed a job at JCDecaux, one of the largest outdoor ad companies of the world, after the Managing Director of the company spotted him in the street ‘self-advertising’ for a job. The angelic MD thought that the way David had promoted and branded himself against all odds, taking advantage of the right context and right times (recession) was unique and innovative. He believes that David could be a good asset for his company as he has innovative advertising skills. So far so good for David.

Remember warning signs in some stunt related TV serials which says ‘Don’t try this at home!!’? I wonder if any desperate souls ever try this at Mohakhali flyover or in the busy streets of Motijheel, what the reaction would be? We are a curious nation by birth…we gather around any gathering even if all might be gazing at vaccum, or a Sony TV showroom or anything unusual in the streets of Dhaka. So if someone ever attempts similar stunts in the quest to look for a job, rest assured there would be a good number of curious onlookers, passersby, sympathisers around him (or her?). Who knows such an act might incite the likes of Munni Saha and gang to show up for a spot interview or some media frenzy. So if a suit wearing job hunter ever does this in Dhaka, what are the chances that he actually might end up getting a dream job (forget about dreams, any job would do under those circumstances)? I don’t know really, it can go either way, given the Hujug Nation as we are, he might become the next best thing in Bangladeshi media for a while. However, for a female jobhunter, I don’t think this stunt might be useful in the context of Bangladesh. Since we are also a nation of Google Memory when it comes to tracing back the ins and outs of every women in limelight, such a stunt by a jobhuntress would have detrimental effects for her in society (for future marriage proposals etc.). Pun intended.

In the end of the day, I hope we don’t even have to think about going to such extremes. So much of time, money from parents have been dedicated to get ourselves education, all for the sake of earning a decent bread and butter and for living with dignity. However, the take away from David Rowe’s stunt remains…that even during crisis, don’t let go your sense of creativity, innovation, uniqueness, determination and self-branding. Good luck always with your job hunts. Hope we don't have to do a David Rowe in the streets of Dhaka.

Lets change roles for a day or two

On the founding day of the school each year something interesting used to happen. Senior bhaiyas and apus used to volunteer to take up roles of various regular teachers in our classes and attempted to teach us regular subjects such as maths, Bengali, science etc. They wore white aprons, as usually worn by teachers and put their name badges as well, to make it look like more professional and real. We used to thoroughly enjoy this welcome change and we knew that the 'one day teachers' also loved this change of role atleast for a day. They realised how tough it was to manage a class of some odd 40 restless, shouting, screaming pupils and at the same time educate them on basic principles of numbers, nature and life around us. They must have also realised how rewarding the feeling might be to in the teacher's shoes for a day and to gain that authority and respect from a full packed class of juniors. Time passed by, but the principles remain same I guess. And that made me ask today if any Bangladeshi company has this culture of role changing from time to time for atleast a day sometime in the year?

Does it ever happen that you walk into the Grameen Phone Customer Service Center say in Gulshan-2 or in Bashundhara City and see Oddvar Bhai (GP CEO) at the counter serving day to day customers? How about coming across Mamun Rashid uncle at the Citibank reception for a day? I guess Rubaba apa could pretty well try being a call center agent for a day and figure out herself how challenging or rewarding being a female call center agent might be, especially if she greets the caller by saying 'Grameenphoney apnake shagotom, ami Rubaba bolchi, bolun apnake kibhabe sheba ditey pari?'. Similarly I guess it must be a good feeling when Akku Choudhury approaches your table at Pizza Hut and asks you how the pizza was or attempts to take your order himself. How about Doma mama (Banglalink CEO) being one of the tea boys for a day in Banglalink and running around kitchens and floors of Banglalink to serve foot-formayesh from other sirs, madams, bhaiyas and afas.

I guess many of our corporate high-ups become too firewalled by their knowledge, busy schedules and ornamental designations that they fall prey to being isolated from lower or mid ranked employees. If the so called intellectual untouchables sometimes perform these corporate stunts once in a while, it does create an impact atleast to new employees to some extent. In the end of the day, all should realise that the person is never greater than the work itself. So there is no harm in finding out how it feels in each other's shoes. And for us simple consumers, its a delight for a day to know that these think-tanks of companies are, far and foremost, meant to serve us only, they have a primary role to serve and interact directly with ordinary consumers from time to time, along with their usual routines of closed door high profile meetings and hotel parties and foreign trips and giving lectures on business management around universities.

It would be nice to know examples of this happening already in Bangladeshi companies. If it does happen in where you work, share it with us here. There might be examples there for others to follow. Lets wear the teacher's apron for a day, lets get to know how a big company is run with apparently small but important roles played by staff who you don't meet perhaps in years. Lets do the job wearing their hat for a day or two.

Recession: blessing in disguise for some employers

Not a new post about 'recession'. You must have known quite a lot already what this is, how this is effecting the businesses worldwide and how even the Bangladeshi economy might get (or already is) hit by this global financial meltdown. While the gurus keep crunching theories of finance and attempt post-mortem of the disaster and formulate revival strategies, some employers are surely making the most out of this opportunity in the guise of 'recession'.

It is argued that thanks to internet and the speed of news transfer, recession has hit our minds faster than it has hit the economy. What else can you think of when the first thing you see in the morning newspaper is big headings of how many thousand employees are laid off almost every other day in big companies around the world, how big high street shops are right-sizing their employee base to tackle the crisis etc. Its everywhere, in the internet, print media, electronic media, everyone is talking about it and it has become like an epidemic from which the world economy seems to be suffering from.

Employers are not sitting idle to make merry in this 'recession', they say 'recession' is the best time to do something innovative and turn the business around. So what are they doing? What is their knee-jerk reaction to the financial tsunami? Simple and the easy way...fire people. Now the natural excuse is out there. You don't have to cook up any office story, any project failure, behavioral problem, whatever...just say 'due to global financial crisis, we are trying to remain competitive in the market', so the following phrases have become so popular among employers now.

--do double or triple of your job responsibilities

--don't expect any salary raise in foreseeable future, as the 'whole world' is in recession, we are no exception

--don't bother to have complains about management, we are trying our best, if you don't like the job, leave it...people are losing jobs like falling leaves from trees in winter...and thousands are up and ready for your post...so you know what you would do best.

--forget about bonuses, paid holidays, overtimes etc. we cannot afford to spend in useless sectors anymore

The bottomline is that there are many companies still out there who are not affected by the recession disease. Nevertheless, they are pretending that they do have caught the disease or might catch it in near future, so under this pretext they are cutting cost by all means. Just imagine what a great opportunity has arisen for these companies to boost profit figures thanks to reduced salary figures but getting nearly same or more work outputs with fewer employees.

I wonder in a saturated job market like Bangladesh, where getting a job is extremely difficult, how it would be to lose a job under the pretext of 'global recession'. We are quick dancers to the hujoog tunes (downloadable from iTunes?!), so who knows how many bosses of Bangladeshi companies are plotting this evil plan to get rid of some unwanted souls around.

Lost jobs, lost in words, lost in pain

In a country like ours where (1) getting a job is like getting the moon, (2) getting a good job is like getting the sun, the moon and (3) getting a well paid good job is like getting the universe in hand....the topic of losing a job, or being fired can be the least welcome, unwanted and untimely. Nevertheless, the global financial crisis have already started appearing as a Tsunami and lashing at people's livelihoods in the west, hundreds and thousands are being shown the exit with a pink slip in hand under the banner of very interesting terms and jargons used by their ex-employers. 'Streamlining', 'right-sizing', 'special force philosophy', 'business re-engineering', 'cost improvement plans' etc. are only to name a few terms used to disguise the unpleasant act of job termination.

I am not sure how the trend is out here, has there been any social research on this area of Bangladesh? Perhaps its too early, as usually since jobs are scarce here, we don't usually switch jobs as they are found after much struggle...so we prefer to become 'joke' employees, this 'joke' is not that 'joke', this is the Bangla 'joke', once glued, always glued. Also, those who are fortunate enough to be able to dictate terms with employers and do job-hopping from one company to another don't have to bother about the pangs and pains of being fired, of hearing the L-word (layoff) from the devil boss. Baki thaklo those unfortunate ones who are put under the axe wrapped around nice shiny jargons to spell sweet to the ears of the media. How does it happen? in Bangla...how do you say that you are being fired? apnake agun deya holo? apnake jaliya deya holo? What about 'right-sizing'? apnake shothik bhabe size kora holo? I wonder. Or may be all these are done in writing in English, sometimes English has an interesting quality to express harsh terms very vaguely.

Whatever the terms are, I hope we don't fall on the receiving end, God help us prosper fast so that we sit on the other side of the table and start hiring and firing 'others' at our and ofcourse Your will, under the umbrella of interesting and creative Bangla, English, Banglish words. apnake rasta dekhano holo, apnake dourer upor rakha holo, apnake baate falano holo. apnake dhora khawano holo etc.

Image courtesy:

http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/original/layoffs.jpg

http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0206/features/images/feature_consult1.jpg