FAQ for babajob.com and babalife.com

Babajob and Babalife Help

Frequently asked questions by prospective employers

1. What's the difference between your plans?

	Create an online job post FREE	Phone Number Access Rs 599 + tax	Assisted Search Rs 1999 + tax
Create an online job post viewable by job seekers	X	X	X
Preview babajob job seeker profiles (including job history, references, ratings and scanned documents)	X	X	X
Personalized job seeker suggestions based on your post's salary, location and other requirements sent via email/SMS	X	X	X

Broadcast your post to your friends on orkut and facebook	X	X	X
Compare, read other employer ratings and see phone numbers of local employment agencies	X	X	X
Broadcast your post to employment agencies so they call you	X	X	X

See job seeker phone numbers so you can directly call any you like		X	X
SMS broadcast of your post to suitable job seekers		coming soon	coming soon

Assisted search by a babajob employee to find you a great candidate (subject to minimum salary requirement)			X
Guaranteed 2 interviewers with suitable candidates			X

You can search our database at no cost to identify those job seekers best suited for your job. If your find a job seeker you would like to interview, you pay a 599 rupee search fee and we will let you request the contact information for any job seekers in that one category (eg, cook, maid, or driver). Although we provide you with contact information for many job seekers, your search fee only allows you to hire one job seeker. Your search fee gives you twenty one day's access to our database, or if you choose to post your job opening, that posting would remain visible for twenty one days.

2. Why don't you just provide me with contact information on all the job seekers in your database?

Our business model is based on our sharing the search fee with those individuals, charities and NGO's who have made our hiring process possible. We share a portion of the search fee with the people who have invested the time and effort to find job seekers, collect their personal and employment information, and create the job seeker's computer record. If we allowed everyone to have unlimited contact information then some employers (such as labour contractors) could hire many job seekers for one search fee, and our partners would not be compensated for their efforts.

3. Who has registered the job seekers in your database?

We designed our sites to help employers hire someone through their friends and relatives, and many job seekers will be registered by their past employers, or their friends who have access to a computer. Until we get thousands of social network users who have registered all the job seekers they are aware of, the majority of our job seekers will be registered by local NGO’s, charities and computer literate individuals who come in regular contact with informal sector workers. Our employees have also registered job seekers in local neighborhoods through the city. We call people who register others, and assist them to find jobs, “mentors.” We provide financial incentives for mentors to register hardworking job seekers in our on-line database. Job seekers with some computer skills can also register themselves. These mentors earn 200 rupees if you hire someone they registered, and that new employee works for you for at least 30 days.

4. How are interviews arranged?

You will need to contact the job seeker to schedule an interview. In the case of a job seeker who doesn’t have his or her own mobile phone number, you would telephone the mobile phone number given in the record, which could belong to a friend or relative.

5. How do I know a job seeker’s information page is accurate?

We do not investigate the accuracy of the information posted by job seekers on our database. Once you have found someone you would like interview, you contact the job seeker, and negotiate the terms of employment directly with the job seeker. Babajob.com is not involved in the hiring process beyond putting the employer and the job seeker in contact with each other. We provide the same service as a newspaper which publishes a “help wanted ad.” There is no way of knowing for sure how accurate the information is, so we encourage you to contact the job seeker’s former employers to find out more about your particular job seeker. Many of our employers also go to their local police station to confirm that the job seeker does not have a criminal record.

6. What happens if I hire an employee, and he leaves, or is fired within 30 days of the date of his hire?

We will give you another twenty one days of database access to find a replacement employee.

7. What happens if I hire an employee, and he leaves or is fired after 30 days of the date of his hire?

Babajob.com doesn’t guarantee that every employee will be a good match for your family, or that the employment relationship will be successful. You will have to pay another Rs 599 search fee to access our database and find another employee.

8. What happens if I can’t find an employee during the twenty one days?

You will have to pay another Rs 599 search fee. We let you see all the possible candidates for a given position before you have to pay any money to get the job seekers' contact information.

9. Do you guarantee that I'll be able to hire someone from your database?

We do not guarantee that you will find an employee perfectly suited to your needs. We let you see the information on many job seekers because some job seekers may have found jobs and not told us, or a particular job seeker might not be willing to work for you because the commute is too long, or because you aren't paying what the job seeker wants to earn. Babajob.com is a unique experiment to give you access to many job seekers willing to work in your neighborhood. We charge much less than a "regular" employment service because mentors have registered informal sector workers for us, and because employers do their own searching and interviewing. If you want a guarantee please contact one of the many excellent employment services in Bangalore. While they will charge you from 3500-5000 rupees for an employee, they may guarantee that you can hire someone.

10. Why should I invite my friends and relatives to join your web site?

Once we have many of your friends and relatives registered in our network, it will be easy for you to find a household helper who is also known to one of your friends or relatives, or one of their friends. Babajob.com not only lets you see who is willing to work in your neighborhood, it can also let you know if that job seeker is known to someone in your social network. Therefore, the more people you invite to our sites, the better the sites will help you hire through your friends and neighbors.

11. Why are there two web sites-what’s the difference between babalife.com and babajob.com?

We have created one online community, with two different, but related, functions. One function is a social network, and the other is an employment service. Babalife.com is the name of the site which deals with our online community and its interactions. Since helping people find jobs through the people they know is what distinguishes us from other social networks, we decided to give the employment function of Babajob Services a separate name, babajob.com. By having a separate name for our employment service we can better promote it to individuals who just want to find an employee. Although we encourage these employers to take advantage of our social network (and invite their friends and relatives to join for all the reasons above), if an employer just wanted to take advantage of our employment function, they could easily do that through the babajob.com website.

12. Why (and how) do my friends who participate in the babajob/babalife web sites get compensated when I hire someone they may know?

In order to grow our web sites we’re willing to share a portion of the employer search fees we collect with the babajob.com participants who help our sites succeed. If any of your friends (or friends of friends) know the job seeker, then you will feel more comfortable hiring the job seeker. Your friends will be compensated for “vouching” for someone you end up hiring. They will be paid 30 days after you hire someone in whose referral chain they are members. This diagram shows who gets compensated when your friends end up knowing the person you hire.

13. If I invite my friends and relatives to join your web site will they get spam and junk mail?

We have a very strict privacy policy which you can view by clicking on “Privacy Statement” at the bottom of our home page. We will not share your identity or your personal information with others, nor will we rent or sell our email list.

14. Can I find more than one job seeker for my search fee?

Yes you could do this, but our Terms of Use provide that in exchange for your search fee you only get to find and hire one employee. You can’t hire more than one worker per search because we share a portion of your search fee with other users who have registered the job seeker (mentor) and with users who are in the reference chain. Since we have only received one search fee, we can’t pay for two mentors and two sets of referral fees.

Frequently Asked Questions By babajob.com Mentors

1. What is a mentor?

A mentor is someone who registers a job seeker into our on-line database, and helps that job seeker get hired. If the job seeker has a mobile phone number, a prospective employer will contact the job seeker directly. If the job seeker doesn’t have a mobile phone number, then the mentor’s phone number will appear in the job seeker’s information page (the job seeker’s home page) and the employer would contact the mentor to find out more about a given job seeker or to arrange an interview with the job seeker.

2. How will I be paid for registering job seekers?

Once we know that the person you have registered has been hired and the person who has been hired remains employed for 30 days, we will pay you 200 rupees, which we call a “mentor fee.” If you earn less than 300 rupees in one month we will recharge your mobile phone for the amount of rupees you have earned. If you earn more than 300 rupees in a month we will send you a check (issued by the State of Bank of India) to the address you gave us when you registered. We will pay these mentor fees once a month.

3. Am I responsible for knowing a job seeker’s employment history?

A mentor is not responsible for investigating a job seeker’s employment history. If you can find out the name and phone number of any past employers and enter than information into the database, then you will make it easier for any prospective employer to contact the job seeker’s references. An employer is more likely to contact, and later hire, a job seeker whose database record contains helpful information.

4. What’s the difference between babajob.com and a “regular” employment service?

There are many excellent employment agencies which have a list of job seekers. An employer pays these agencies from 2500-4000 rupees to find a job seeker, whom they interview. Many of these employment agencies do not check the references of the job seekers they place in employers’ homes. Also, the employment agency may collect two weeks’ wages from the job seeker in addition to the 2500-4000 rupee registration fee. Babajob.com only collects 599 rupees from the employer. If babajob.com, or the mentor, had to check the job history of every job seeker who is registered into our on-line database we would have to charge several thousand rupees for our service.

5. If someone I register steals from their employer am I liable?

No, you are not liable. As a mentor you are registering a job seeker into a database where an employer can find them. It is up to the employer to determine that the job seeker they hire is truthful and honest. We advise all employers who are concerned about honesty to request a police check for anyone they hire to work in their home. Though you are not legally liable, the quality of the people you register today can impact how much money you earn from mentor fees in the future. Within a few months we plan on giving each mentor a comparative rating based on the performance of the job seekers they have registered. Therefore mentors need to be careful about registering people who may be dishonest or lazy.

6. What happens if someone I register gets a job, but is fired, or quits.

You will be paid if the person you register works for an employer for at least 30 days. If the job seeker quits, or is fired after 30 days, the employer will have to pay for another job search. Babajob.com doesn’t guarantee that every employee will be a good match for a given family, or that every employment relationship will be successful. If the job seeker is hired, and quits before working 30 days, we will give the employer another search at no additional cost, but you will not earn the 200 rupee mentor fee.

7. How can I earn additional money with babajob.com?

We also pay a referral fee to people who “connect” the employer and the job seeker. If you register your friends and relatives in our sites, and those individuals are hired by employers you know, then you will earn an additional 100 rupees, which we call a “referral fee.”

8. I already own and operate a job placement service. Can I charge an employer more money to contact an employee?

If you are a part of an employment service or NGO and wish to charge employers more than our published search fee, you can do so, but you must state your additional fee clearly in the record of employee, so that employers know about the charges they will have to pay before they go to the trouble of contacting you.

9. Will I get paid every time a person I have registered gets another job?

If the job seeker never takes over responsibility for maintaining his own information, and you arrange a second job for the job seeker, then you will receive another mentor fee. However, if the job seeker manages his own subsequent hiring then you will not receive any mentor fee.

10. Why didn’t I get paid a mentor fee when someone I registered got a job?

It is possible that a job seeker could be registered into our database several times, which would create several records for this person. If an employer hires a job seeker based the record created by one mentor, then that one mentor will get the mentor fee, and the other mentor (whose record was not viewed or relied upon by the employer) will not get a mentor fee.

11. I knew both the employer and the job seeker he hired. Why didn’t I get a referral fee?

Sometimes there may be several referral paths from an employer to a job seeker, as shown below. The employer can choose which referral path members will receive the referral fee. We only collected enough money from the employer to pay a referral fee to the members of one referral path.

12. Why are there two web sites-what’s the difference between babalife.com and babajob.com?

We have created one online community, with two different, but related, functions. One function is a social network, and the other is an employment service. Babalife.com is the name of the site which deals with our online community and its interactions. Since helping people find jobs through the people they know is what distinguishes us from other social networks, we decided to give the employment function of Babajob Services a separate name, babajob.com. By having a separate name for our employment service we can better promote it to individuals who just want to find an employee. Although we encourage these employers to take advantage of our social network, if an employer just wanted to take advantage of our employment function, they could easily do that through the babajob.com website.

13. Where can I find all the babajob.com rules?

Please read our Terms of Use. You can read them by “clicking on” Terms of Use at the bottom of our home page. When anyone uses our web site they agreed to accept our rules. The basic rule is that every user has to be truthful, and can’t use the web site to hurt, or take advantage of other users. When you register as a mentor you will be asked if you accept these Terms of Use before you can use our web site.