Global job site Indeed has announced that users of its crowdsourcing app, Job Spotter, have uploaded 50,000 Help Wanted ads since its launch in 2016, making offline jobs available to Australian job hunters online.
The Job Spotter app takes submitted images of physical “help wanted” job signs — traditionally found in business storefronts — and creates free online listings to help connect people with jobs they otherwise wouldn’t find. To date, over 2.7 million Australian jobseekers have clicked on a job listing created by the app.
Indeed created Job Spotter after identifying a big disconnect between how employers advertised jobs, and how job hunters searched for them. Research from Indeed found that 37 of small businesses in Australia use online job sites*, despite the fact that over half (54 per cent) of Australian job hunters search for jobs online**. The most recent research also showed that only one in 10 (12 per cent) Australian job hunters felt they were across all available job opportunities in the market.
“At Indeed we’re dedicated to giving job hunters and business owners the best chance at finding their perfect match, and Job Spotter is just one of the ways we’re doing this,” said Paul D’Arcy, SVP at Indeed. “By bringing offline job opportunities online, we’re making it easier for Australians to find the roles they wouldn’t have found elsewhere.
“Businesses that aren’t using online job sites are at a big disadvantage. Over half (64 per cent) of Australian job hunters prefer to search for jobs online, with only five per cent of people finding employment through an ad in a window. However, as it can be expensive to post jobs online with many of Australia’s job sites, many jobs remain offline. This can be frustrating for job hunters. Job Spotter bridges this gap by getting more jobs online at no cost to small businesses and making sure that job hunters are aware of all the opportunities available to them,” D’Arcy said.
Job Spotter takes the time out of uploading job postings for SMEs, while rewarding its users for uploading the ‘help wanted’ signs that they come across in their daily lives. Its launch has also changed the way Australians look for jobs — “Help Wanted” is now a common search term on Indeed.
Since its launch, Job Spotter has paid out more than $2.8 million (AUD) in total to its 18 million users globally. Job Spotter is available in Australia, the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, and can be downloaded for free in the App Store and on Google Play.
