Lithuania becoming online recruitment paradise

VILNIUS - Here's a start-up company that's banking on the fact that
the brain drain hasn't yet hit the country too hard.

BrainPower, located in a remodeled warehouse near Vilnius
International Airport, is starting a Web recruitment site
specializing in linking employers with middle and upper-level
managers and vice versa. The site (www.brainpower.com) was launched
on June 19.

Employers can post jobs on the site and job seekers can post their
resumes as well. Employers pay a fee, job seekers don't. Also a bonus
for job seekers is that their CVs can be read by employers anywhere
in the world.

"You don't need an engineering degree to put your CV on our site,"
said Gabriella Ohnemus, a shareholder in the corporation.

We have a very detailed CV entering feature with 10 categories. This
idea of focusing on 10 categories has come to us because we think
employers need a more focused search engine."

Each listed job is described using several parameters such as job
description, education requirements, vehicular requirements, etc.

This, says Rolandas Markevicius, BrainPower's director, will help
employers not to get flooded with inquiries from droves of IT-savvy
job seekers.

"The more parameters for a particular job, the fewer candidates will
seek that job," Markevicius said.

The firm has its work cut out for it, as Lithuania is still in a
recession, with relatively high unemployment.

Not a problem, say Markevicius and Ohnemus, who claim that
BrainPower already has 100 jobs posted on their system.

"I think that the [economic] situation is slowly and nicely improving
in Lithuania. We think it's a good time to enter the market," said
Ohnemus.

Markevicius reports that despite the recession itself effects a lot
of movement on the job market here, as companies are restructuring to
save money. Plus, he adds, the job market for middle and top-level
management is healthier than it is for other kinds of labor.

Whether Lithuanians are ready to look for jobs on the Internet is
another story.

Classified ads are still far and away the most popular mode of job
seeking, and the number of Lithuanians with Internet connectivity is
still relatively low.

"True," said Ohnemus. "We are not in the United States nor are we in
Europe where everyone has a PC connection. On the other hand, the
professionals we are talking to already have access."

Markevicius adds that the jobs they offer require computer skills.
Another big plus for this site is that there are separate databases
in English and Lithuanian. Again, most of the jobs offered at
BrainPower require knowledge of English.

The major roadblock, they report, is not computer illiteracy in
Lithuania, but the expense of connecting to the Internet.

One competitor, Penki Kontinentai's Job Forum (www.5ci.lt), agrees
that the time has come indeed for online recruitment services. This
service, the first recruitment site in Lithuania, has existed since
1996, and is a simpler system. Employers and candidates alike can
check out CVs and job openings for free. This site claims an average
of 5,000 new applications per month.

Most of the site's users, reports Vadim Likhtinshain, 5CI's marketing
director, are young, computer-savvy job seekers.

"For them it's a good idea - most of them are connected," he said.

Likhtinshain won't venture a guess at how effective the service is in
terms of job offers. This system is based on direct contact between
the job seeker and the employer.

"I know that we use it for our own recruitment, so it's really
efficient for me as a recruiter, for freelancers and programmers," he
said.

The site is a value-added for Penki Kontinentai's other services, so
it doesn't generate any direct revenue, "but traffic is really quite
good," Likhtinshain added.

Compared to the other two Baltic states, the online recruitment
industry seems strongest in Lithuania.

One recent entrant into the Lithuanian market is CV Online, a
three-year-old Estonian service that has expanded to Lithuania,
Latvia, Finland, Russia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. It has plans
to expand to Bulgaria and the Ukraine as well.

This service (www.cvonline.lt) uses a slightly different business
model than the other two. Employers and job seekers pay no fees, but
employers prefer to use the system to look for employees. Vytautas
Kleiza, the site's sales manager, says it currently has 1,000 resumes
and 20 job openings posted.

"Most of our clients do not post vacant positions but just search the
database," Kleiza said.

The firm has no real income yet (save copious investment), but plans
to sell its database of employees commercially when it reaches the
desired size.

In Estonia, Kleiza reports, CV Online has no real competitors. In
Lithuania it's a different story.

"There is strong competition in fact. If we get more competitors it
will be more interesting. It's better actually for the consumer
market," he said.

It will also help if the brain drain hasn't hurt the candidate pool
either. BrainPower's Ohnemus doesn't think it has.

"The brains are here," she said.