In order to promote innovative projects initiated by young Rwandans to provide appropriate and sustainable solutions to social and professional problems in Rwanda, IGIHE.com has focused on Job in Rwanda (JiR), an online platform to exchange information on employment opportunities in Rwanda between employers and job seekers.
In this context, IGIHE.com interviewed two members of Job in Rwanda namely Grace Nyinawumuntu, responsible of Public Relations and Jean Baptiste Niyonsenga incharge of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) within Job in Rwanda (JiR).
IGIHE.com: First, Tell us who you are?
JiR: My name is Grace Nyinawumuntu, 27 years old. I am single and I live in Belgium. I have a master’s degree in international relations and public administration. In Job in Rwanda, I am responsible for public relations.
My colleague; Jean Baptiste Niyonsenga, is responsible for the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) within Job in Rwanda.
He has a degree in Engineering Management from the University of Namur. Besides us, there are three other people with whom we work, namely:
Kavaruganda Julien, is the managing director of Job in Rwanda and who has a law degree from the University of Louvain (UCL) in Belgium,
Eric Manzi, chief financial officer with a master’s degree in management of small and medium enterprises also obtained at UCL in Belgium.
Finally, Jimmy Nsenga, project coordinator, who has a Master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Faculty of Mons in Belgium and a doctorate in “wireless communication” obtained at the Katholieke Universiteit van Leuven (KUL) also located in Belgium .
IGIHE.com: What is “Job in Rwanda” and how did you come up with the idea to create it?
JiR: Job in Rwanda is a online platform for exchanging information on employment opportunities in Rwanda between employers and job seekers.
We conceived the idea for setting up Job in Rwanda in July 2010. At that time, we surprisingly found in the press the results published by RDB saying that 11,000 jobs were created in 2009.
Immediately, we searched on internet to find out where these jobs are published. We realized that not only there were not many jobs on Rwanda and in addition the ones we found were scattered over various websites, making the job search very difficult.
We realized that most job advertisements are diffused using local newspapers, radio and most of them with the word of mouth.
Then we decided to set up Job in Rwanda with a primary mission to enable any job seeker, living in Rwanda or abroad, to be always aware of these different job opportunities.
This mission began with the launch of the online platform Job in Rwanda on February 1, 2011.
IGIHE.com: What have been your achievements after 6 months of operation?
JiR: Our achievements are really interesting and especially encouraging for the future. Since the launch of the platform:
About 450 jobs have been published on our website and 4200 applications were handled via our website.
We collected 1500 candidate profiles with outstanding skills in different professional fields.
Our site receives up to 1,500 visits per day and more than half a million hits per month.
In addition to the more technical results, note the many messages of thanks and encouragement that we receive every day, whether from employers for the visibility we bring to their jobs and candidates with respect to the information we provide to them.
IGIHE.com: What solutions do you offer to people that do not access Internet?
JiR: Indeed for the moment Job in Rwanda is mainly of interest to Internet users. This fits perfectly within the framework of the vision 2020 set by the Government to improve social conditions for all citizens through the use of new ICTs.
Of course, we are thinking about putting in place solutions to allow these people not yet active on the Internet to be informed about employment.
For instance; we are planning to set up local agencies across the country. However, this project requires resources and we are actually looking for donors interested in helping us to realize this project. However, we will always drive our business using Internet because it is a vital tool in every society today.
IGIHE.com: What exactly are the services you provide? How much do you charge for those services?
JiR: Our services fall into two categories. On the one hand, there are services dedicated to candidates and other ones that are specific to employers.
The main service for employers is to publish their vacancies on our site. This service is completely free. In addition, we make sure of the diffusion of these offers on our social networks Facebook and Twitter as well as on our professional network LinkedIn. We do this in order to make sure that as many as job candidates are informed.
In addition, we send a weekly newsletter containing recent jobs posted on our website. These candidates can then come to our website to view these jobs and eventually apply online.
These services are also free for candidates. But not everything is free here! To cover certain operating costs and also give us the opportunities for realizing future projects, we offer additional advanced services to employers which are charged.
For example, we name the search of profiles that meet a certain qualification, advertising on our site, higher visibility of their jobs (on the website, in the newsletter), etc.
IGIHE.com: How can we contact you?
JiR: By email at info@jobinrwanda.com or via our head office located in No. 1, Masaka (Kiyovu-Rugunga) PO Box 4062 Kigali Rwanda.
Note that Job in Rwanda has put in place social and professional networks whose addresses are:
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/company/job-in-rwanda
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Job-in-Rwanda/141982462532653
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ #! / Jobinrwanda
IGIHE.com: What message would you want to give to our readers?
JiR: Our main mission is to improve the flow of information between employers and job seekers in Rwanda. We have already built a good basis for our project, namely the online platform Job in Rwanda.
However, there is still a lot of challenges to solve in order to really improve the exchange of information between employers and candidates.
We are ready to make partnerships with other entities working in this direction so that together we improve our daily lives. We would also like to thank IGIHE.com who gave us the time to communicate our plans to our compatriots.
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