Launch Of New Internet Services

MEDIA RELEASE

Minister for Employment Services

The Hon Tony Abbott MP

3 August 1999

Launch Of New Internet Services To Match People To Jobs

Tony Abbott, Minister for Employment Services today opened the fifth annual Australian Internet World conference. In his opening address Mr Abbott highlighted the major advances being made by the Government in the use of on-line services to support the operation of the labour market.

At the forefront is the Government's on-line employment services site, Australian Job Search (AJS) which was first released on 30 September 1996 on the Internet. It is a very popular site and is rated by the Top 100 site (which monitors Internet traffic) as the top employment site in Australia - with some 25 percent of all such traffic. AJS averages half a million 'hits' and 80,000 job searches each day.

AJS can be accessed on the Internet and on a vast network of over 2,000 touchscreens in 750 different locations all over Australia including Centrelink Customer Service Centres, Job Network Offices and a number of sites in the general community.

The services available through AJS have been enhanced recently by the introduction of lodge-a-Resume, Resume Search and Lodge-a-Job.

People looking for a job can use Lodge-a-Resume to advertise their resume directly on the Internet. Resumes are created on Lodge-a-Resume through a standard on-line registration form. Users are then given a personal identification number to gain access to the system to create or modify their resume. They can also print out a hardcopy of their resume to take to interviews.

Resumes advertised through Lodge-a-Resume are automatically matched against new jobs advertised on AJS and jobseekers are sent an email notifying them that they have been matched against a suitable job. The onus for the initial contact is placed on jobseekers who are given comprehensive contact information about employers, including their phone, fax, email and postal address. This approach preserves their personal privacy.

For employers, AJS has recently added its Lodge-a-Job and Resume Search services. Lodge-a-Job allows employers to enter their job vacancy details directly onto the AJS Internet site. Since March nearly 1,700 jobs have been lodged through Lodge-a-Job and 740 employers have used Lodge-a-Job to lodge their vacancies.

Employers can look for suitable employees on-line by using the Resume Search service to view resumes lodged through Lodge-a-Resume. Employers use Resume Search to match their job vacancies against suitable applicants by using a search criteria based upon defined geographical areas and occupational categories, and a key search across job name, skills, work experience, hours of work and educational qualifications. Employers are only given an identification number for the jobseeker. The jobseeker's identity remains unknown to the employers until the jobseeker contacts the employer.

The implementation of Lodge-a-Resume, Resume Search and Lodge-a-Job gives jobseekers a new medium to sell themselves to employers and enables employers to select staff 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They complement the services of the Job Network and the private sector in providing employers and jobseekers with even better chances of ensuring the right person for the right job.

Another important addition to AJS is the recent agreement reached with the Recruitment and Consulting Services Association (RCSA) - a non-profit association representing the recruitment industry throughout Australia and New Zealand. Its membership base comprises some 680 recruitment agencies and its members place some 12,000 job advertisements in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald each week. The partnership between AJS and the RCSA will increase the number and range of job vacancies on AJS and will provide a more efficient employment market for employers and the public.

"Australian Job Search will help to create a more efficient labour market for Australia by providing better and faster matching of people with jobs," Mr Abbott said. |

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