Bob Shape sent me a message through Facebook a few weeks back and showed me a YouTube Video: Adventures in Employment (in the Philippines).
“Hi John
Your podcast reminded me of this.
It is unbelievable what a person has to go through just to get a job in the Philippines. No wonder people are looking for work on onlinejobs.ph!
This videos shows the process. I thought you might be interested.
I was amazed at all the red tape I saw in the Philippines any time you had to do anything with the government, except for renewing a visa.
Thanks for your great service!”
The video is around 20 minutes long. If you don’t have the time to watch the whole thing, it shows all the red tape Filipinos have to go through to get a job in the Philippines.
I asked my OFS, Julia if she encountered this when she worked for a Philippine company years ago.
“Yes, I did go through the same process back when I was looking for work after college. It was just as infuriating back then. I think harder now because of the (COVID) restrictions.
They don’t tell us about this in school. When we start applying for jobs, we learn about these requirements. As you can see, it can take somewhere from 2 days to a week to get all these documents. That’s what makes the process is so frustrating. ”
I mentioned in a previous email that the Philippines doesn’t have a system to do background checks. I think this is how Philippine companies compensate for that.
Most employers at Onlinejobs.ph don’t require these documents. So finding an online job is still easier than finding regular work in the Philippines.
But in the past few years, we have required job seekers to get a valid, government-issued ID verified on the site. The job seeker would have to get the same paperwork shown in the video to get a government-issued ID.
Why did we do this? Shouldn’t it be easier to get an online job? Why did we make the process harder?
We did it for the following reasons:
- As a security measure to make sure that the people creating an Onlinejobs.ph jobseeker account are real people.
- To encourage job seekers to take online work seriously. The requirements tell them that they need to show online work the same level of dedication they would show to a “regular” job.
- Payment platforms also require these documents and government-issued IDs for verification. Having these documents ready would make it easier for jobseekers to get paid once they’re hired.
Should you ask your jobseekers to get the same requirements? No, you don’t need to. The verification process at Onlinejobs.ph deals with most of that.
The more important question is what you should do in your recruitment process to ensure that you’re hiring a talented and trustworthy OFS. That’s the question I answer at OneVAAway.com.
John
PS. I skied in an unusual place the other day with my daughter (no connection to the rest of this email). We started in a neighborhood in the valley and climbed from 5500ft up to 8800ft. It was spectacular.
