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JobsA1.com is one of the leading job portals in Bangladesh. It is one of the top browsed websites in Bangladesh according to Alexa ranking. JobsA1.com is just 2 years old and it has witnessed a huge growth in terms of job seekers. It has now over 160,000+ resumes of Bangladeshi job seekers. What is so special with this job portal is that it was the first website in Bangladesh that started with huge promotional activities in the television. JobsA1.com entered into a partnership with Channel i, one of the leading cable TV channels in Bangladesh. This partnership could allow JobsA1.com to broadcast its promotional advertisement round the clock in the TV channel and its advertisement has been aired in Channel i for more than 8,000 times last year - something which a remarkable achievement for any website in Bangladesh. You can watch the Ad by clicking the link : Watch AD

I browsed JobsA1.com and the thing I liked most was that the portal has versatile search facilities for the users. Just go and browse the site for 10 minutes and you will understand what I meant. On the other hand, I was also happy with another feature of the homepage of JobsA1.com- it has no advertisement of any company. Instead, it contains some useful links of some websites related to Bangladesh.

Behind the success of JobsA1.com, its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Faisal Ahmed has played the most crucial role. He also tried for promoting the portal in the country. Thus, Faisal Ahmed literally built the job portal from scratch and turned it into one of the leading job portals in Bangladesh within just 2 years. Still, in his 20s, Faisal Ahmed is one of the successful young entrepreneurs in the country.

Recently, I talked to Faisal Ahmed about JobsA1.com. Here is an excerpt of the interview:

SouthAsiaBiz: First of all, tell a bit about JobsA1.com for our readers. Why did you come up with the idea of building a job portal in the first place?

Faisal Ahmed: Well, to be honest with you, I was always interested to do something in Internet. Since you are an IT journalist you self, you know that in Bangladesh, we do not have that many websites. So, I always dreamt of building a popular website in Bangladesh. I studied computer science and I used to spend more time on programming and coding than my grades. So, I built JobsA1.com from scratch. I give all my hours every day for this portal and I feel satisfied with the way things have gone in the last 2 years.

At first, I had no intention to open a job portal. Then, I thought that this is something that our students need as unemployment is a huge problem in my country. So, I thought that if I started a job portal then it would be a viable venture as it would help many job seekers in the country.

SouthAsiaBiz: There are many portals in Bangladesh. Why should a job seeker should come to your portal? Or in other words, what is the special features of JobsA1.com that would make it stand out from other web portal in the country?

Faisal Ahmed: Thanks for your excellent question. As we ensured good promotion of JobsA1.com, getting visitors was not a big problem for us at first. However, making the visitors coming back again and again was entirely a different ball game. I have tried my best to make sure that the users get the maximum facility from JobsA1.com. Then, you know that in Bangladesh, many female job seekers are sensitive about giving away their contact information like telephone numbers in Internet. We have tried our best to address this issue. I think that our constant quest for improvement has made us stood out in Internet.

SouthAsiaBiz: How many Employers you have and how many CVs?

Faisal Ahmed: Currently, more than 220 employers (Organizations) use our portal. For every employer, we provide some special features. They can have a webpage inside JobsA1.com. On the other hand, there are over 160,000+ valid CVs of job seekers. In 2006, we posted information of over 22,000 jobs.

SouthAsiaBiz: What are the popular jobs that users search for?

Faisal Ahmed: Many users search for telecommunication jobs. A lot of users also search for computer and IT jobs. I have noticed that a huge number of users browse for showbiz jobs. In JobsA1.com, with every job description, you can find out how many times the job has been viewed by the users.

SouthAsiaBiz: In Bangladesh, we do not see too many websites becoming successful. What do you think is the main problem?

Faisal Ahmed: Well, I feel that many people do not try to understand the matter that becoming successful in Internet takes time and patience. You cannot expect that your site will get thousands of visitors overnight. It took 2 years for us to reach to the level of success that we have today. Of course, the scope of earning money through websites is very limited in Bangladesh as we do not have online transactions yet.

SouthAsiaBiz: What is your future plan?

Faisal Ahmed: I want to take JobsA1.com in all parts of the country. I am trying to open some information centers in remote parts of Bangladesh so that educated people of remote places in the country can search jobs and apply online. This is my top priority at this moment. On the other hand, we are trying to expand our business. For example, we have already opened a second office in Dhaka and we are also opening another office in Chittagong.