It was on 1 January 2023 when I sat down and thought about the social and economic challenges that I encountered in the year 2022. While some of my friends and colleagues had actually done well in the year in question, well, I, and many others too, didn’t achieve much, primarily because of the economic hardships that the nation is enduring.
While I comforted myself by telling my heart that there are hundreds of thousands of graduates across the country who are also struggling to make ends meet, however, it quickly rang in my mind that I have the capacity to help thousands of Zimbabweans who are looking for employment, whether they are well experienced, very educated, or they simply have the power and keen interest to do any job that presents itself to them, even if it requires a lot of manual energy.
On the next day, on 2 January 2023, I registered the domain www.workinzimbabwe.com and began working on this project that I believe has the capacity to achieve the following:
- Greatly reduce unemployment in Zimbabwe as employers from all walks of life as well as job seekers from all parts of the country now have a virtual job market where they easily advertise their vacancies or apply for jobs at no cost.
- Greatly reduce the increasing crime rate in Zimbabwe because unemployment is directly and indirectly related to a high crime rate. As there now has a platform that helps deserving yet less privileged youths from various parts of the country to apply for jobs and subsequently secure employment at no cost, I believe many parts of the country shall start witnessing a declining crime rate, especially among middle-aged citizens who are committing heinous crimes or youths who are engaging in drug abuse.
- Increase the national fiscus as these newly employed citizens are legally bound to pay tax which results in Zimra’s revenue collection improving.
- I believe this project has the capacity to increase the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). A higher employment rate is good for the economy’s GDP. When an individual is employed, they are paid by their employer. This results in them having more money to spend on food, clothing, entertainment, and on many other various goods and services. If this platform is to help, say 100,000 citizens get employed each year, this will certainly result in economic growth and even more employment creation.
- Over the years, traditionally, one had to buy a newspaper, search for employment opportunities then apply for jobs that match their qualifications and experience. The application process had to be done offline, so documents had to be photocopied and certified, and envelopes and stamps had to be bought. Application letters had to be typed and printed. All this was costly to the unemployed individual. When one is job-seeking, it is very common to be so broke that you even fail to raise money to buy a newspaper so as to look for employment. All that is now a thing of the past. Just get access to the internet, register on workinzimbabwe.com and you will be presented with hundreds of jobs every week that match your qualifications or experience. You can simply use your phone to take pictures of your original documents and upload them during the application process. In most cases, there is no more need to photocopy and certify any documents if you are going to apply for a job on workinzimbabwe.com.
- Some positions go for months without being filled, simply because companies and organisations are struggling to find the best candidate who has the necessary skills and qualifications to fill that position. As workinzimbabwe.com is a national project that can be accessed from any part of the nation where the internet is available, it is now much easier for employers to advertise their vacancies, and for free for that matter.
- Ask most university and college students who are about to complete their studies, and they will tell you how difficult it is to secure a place for industrial attachment. This is the same with those who have just graduated but still do not have the “2 to 3 years of work experience” that employers often demand when looking for individuals to recruit. On workinzimbabwe.com there is a whole category specially meant for Trainee Internships and Industrial Attachments where both students looking for attachment and graduates looking for trainee internships can apply for vacancies and start building their careers.
- While there are so many benefits that this platform has brought to the entire nation, I’ll have to cut the long story short and end with this last one. I have over 20 years of experience in web design. I have designed over 100 websites for various companies and organisations. To date, the most complex website that I have designed is workinzimbabwe.com. While I took just a week to complete the website, however, polishing it is an ongoing process and I can almost guarantee everyone that it’s going to be difficult to have another website that has the same or better features as the ones found on workinzimbabwe.com.- When a job seeker registers, they are asked to provide their full name, phone number, email address, date of birth, location (city or town), highest qualification, gender, current job title (if any), current salary (if any) and up to 3  areas of specialty (industry) that suit their qualifications. These details will be stored in a database so that whenever they want to apply for any job, the information is extracted from the database and populated onto the application form. This will greatly shorten the application process and they can apply for as many jobs as they want within a very short space of time. During the application process, candidates are given an opportunity to edit (or update) any details before submitting the application to the employer.- There comes a privacy policy aspect. Most people don’t want their personal information published in the public domain. Well, only your full name, profile photo, city or town, highest qualification, and areas of specialty are made public. The rest is kept secret and only submitted to the employer when you apply for a job. Again, even if you want your whole profile account to be private and hidden, you are still given that option when registering. The only disadvantage is that employers cannot find you and offer you employment unless you are the one who makes the initial step of applying for a job that they would have publicly advertised.
– Employers always want candidates to clearly state the position they are applying for. Unfortunately, most job seekers often forget to do that. Luckily, this website will always do that for them. An email that contains the job seeker’s details, CV, and other documents the job seeker could have uploaded such as Cover Letter and Academic Qualifications, will be automatically sent to the employer by the website to mark the end of the application process. Where an employer strictly requires certain types of documents to be uploaded as well, the website makes uploading those documents mandatory before one even begins the application process.
– If everything goes well, the website sends an email to the job seeker confirming that the application has been submitted successfully and this confirmation email contains some piece of advice that is given to the job seeker, so that my primary goal, which is to help the job seeker secure employment, can be achieved.
I could spend the whole day talking about this project. I believe you now have a better understanding of where workinzimbabwe.com is coming from and where it’s going. It’s now time to present my request for a big favour, my fellow countrymen.
Please support me in whatever way you can to make this project a success. I do not intend to charge job seekers to apply for vacancies, nor do I plan to charge employers to post vacancies on this website. I wish to sustain this project by selling advertising space to the corporate world and also through donations, both in cash and in kind. If you tell your friends and relatives about workinzimbabwe.com, you have supported me. If you post job opportunities with your company at workinzimbabwe.com, you have supported me. If you apply for a job on workinzimbabwe.com, you have supported me. If you share workinzimbabwe.com jobs on various social media platforms, again you have supported me.
If you have any form of help you believe will help me achieve my goal of making thousands of Zimbabweans secure employment through the workinzimbabwe.com website, please feel free to get in touch with me at jobs@workinzimbabwe.com and I will greatly appreciate your assistance.
Your Faithful Servant,
Work In Zimbabwe Founder.
