Employers receive hundreds of applications in various formats and spend a lot of time and money manually scanning through them.
There are currently several good reasons why Africans should feel positive about their future career opportunities. Many African countries currently can generate steady economic growth and increase their competitiveness in the international markets. Growth is driven e.g. by the large number of young population in the workforce, increasing urbanization that drives consumption as well as innovations and technological development in various sectors. If political shocks, decrease in oil prices and hostilities between countries, religious or ethnic groups can be avoided, the economic outlook seems very positive in several African countries, leading to interesting career opportunities for many.
There is however, still quite some potential improvement in the hiring and training practices of African companies. For instance, many firms still receive hundreds or thousands of applications in various formats and spend a lot of time and money in manually scanning through them. Further, selection of the right candidates is still an issue: hiring managers have challenges in validating the fit and growth potential of the job seekers, leading to compromised decisions. Very often communication with the candidates is inadequate or lacking completely. Finally, African companies still lack tools and methods for the training of their workforce to meet the requirements of the future.
To summarize, if hiring and training isn’t well organized, many individuals, companies and countries might miss the new opportunities that are available. We need to avoid a situation where hiring and training practices become bottlenecks to growth. It is evident that the above-mentioned challenges will not go away without an involvement of a strong and competent player who understands the African circumstances and can bring in the needed expertise and tools.
Fuzu is on a mission to revolutionize recruitment and learning in Africa by applying modern and sophisticated digital tools and methods to them. In our view, there is plenty to do to help African individuals and companies prosper. What we want to provide to the recruitment and education space in Africa is:
1. New relationships between job seekers and hiring companies - We would like to make sure that African companies always have a rich pool of talent at their disposal on our platform. We wish to enable companies build communities around their brands, spark a dialogue with candidates and build long-term relations with their target audiences. On the other hand, we wish to provide candidates with new channels that they can use to reach hiring managers.
2. Inspiring, encouraging and fun experience – By using Fuzu, we wish to make sure that people are able to reach their full potential. The learning or job hunting journey should always be an enjoyable journey. Everyone should get feedback on their progress and performance. We aim to deliver clear career goal setting, push people to the right direction, give tangible advice along the journey, as well as encourage them to reach their set goals. The rest is up to an individual’s persistence and determination of the persons themselves.
3. Sophisticated, automated and powerful toolset - We wish to use analytics, algorithms and artificial intelligence in helping our users get what they want easily. Whether its finding candidates, jobs, courses or content, our engine should provide swift and relevant recommendations. We would like to build meritocratic thinking in the system: selection of people will be fair, objective and independent of the race, sex, age or ethnic origins of the person. Fuzu, as a recruitment tool will work to deliver what it promises in a fair manner.
4. Comprehensive and inclusive hiring and education service - All job seekers, learners and inspiration seekers should be able to find what they need when browsing through the Fuzu platform; no needs should be left unfulfilled. And vice versa: all companies should be able to find high quality candidates from the platform. We’d like to provide enough learning paths, content and tests so that companies can benefit from comprehensive talent management and training solutions – and individuals can learn all the new skills they need.
5. A social experience – By using Fuzu, we’d like to make sure that our users can learn with and from others. They can for instance discuss topical matters with others, share views and ideas, get recommended by others and get informed and entertained by the content on the Fuzu platform. We do our best to avoid any tone that is mechanical or cold, instead we allow warm human interactions that bring joy and valuable insight.
6. A service that is delightful to use - We wish to make sure that our user interface is simple and self-explanatory and that the guidelines are clear to everyone. Avoiding all technical hick-ups so as to ensure that everything works as it should and try as much as possible not to spam our dear users with irrelevant alerts but instead aim at delivering targeted, personalized and well-thought messaging that can truly help users know what to do next.
7. A service that can help anywhere and anytime - Whether you are at home, in a matatu, at the office or walking on the street, Fuzu is always at your disposal. We will make sure that our service delivers jobs, courses, inspirational content and candidates to all parts of Africa, around the clock. We’ll also make sure that it’s not a matter of money or connections to access Fuzu. Besides it works on all devices, including various mobile phones and networks.
In our vision, recruitment and learning will go hand in hand. We see maximum potential in Africans when they are encouraged and nurtured constantly. We hope to be able to provide lifelong learning and create comprehensive career paths for Africans so that they can be able to mix learning and working to achieve their goals. This should be the case whether these people are in steady permanent jobs in companies or in unstable or part-time assignments or completely unemployed.
The working life is constantly changing in Africa. Various new business opportunities emerge thanks to economic development, and simultaneously some old tasks and habits become obsolete too. Under these circumstances, the only way for the African workers and companies to prosper is to proactively prepare for the future and adapt their skills, mind-sets and attitudes to reflect the current state. We hope that the Fuzu platform can be a catalyst that sparks and accelerates strong economic and personal development in Africa.
Fuzu is a Finnish-Kenyan company that develops career guidance, online learning and recruitment services for the emerging markets. We help people to take the next step in life, get inspiration and unleash their hidden potential. Further, we help companies to attract, recruit and train their talent so that they can grow and develop their business further. Click here to see how your company could benefit from Fuzu recruitment and learning solutions!
