The John Clements Job Store: Getting Busier by the Day
By Paul Catiang

Within a month of its much-awaited opening, the John Clements Job Store in the Festival Mall in Filinvest Corporate City, Alabang is beginning to realize some of its potential. Today, any given visitor can bear witness to the one-day recruitment process, which in some cases ends with a client interview and even with a job offer. This is one of the fastest and most accurate recruitment processing systems in Philippine human resources, and is poised to deliver qualified candidates to bridge the human resources gap in the BPO industry.

The Job Store also concerns itself with the qualifications of the candidates it processes, and English training is also conducted on-site for call center near-hires to further polish their English communication skills before they are endorsed to clients. Candidates are trained using Small-group Communication Methodology for the English classroom, a training program developed and refined over the years at John Clements. These training programs are conducted twice a month at the Job Store on weekends. Thus far, three batches of trainees have already been trained.

Thus far, the clients being serviced are the large call centers who have operations nearby, in Alabang. John Clements’s Professional Staffers division handles most of the recruitment through the Job Store, but it also serves as a venue for recruiting for other BPOs, including the company’s own outsourcing operations with its division, Staffbuilders Asia. Outsourcing isn’t the only industry the Job Store services, however; applicants interested in other positions offered through John Clements are equally entertained and processed there, and are referred to the Makati Head Office for further processing and interviews.

An increase in the number of candidates processed has been observed, owing to the accessibility of the Job Store. “We used to have no-shows from candidates who live in the south,” remarked a John Clements Senior Recruiter. “I think it’s more convenient for them to go to the Job Store for their interviews. For them, it’s probably just like going to the mall: convenient, comfortable and not so stressful.”

Candidates are always asked what prompted them to visit the Job Store, and the second-highest reason is, of note, word of mouth. Most walk-ins cite that their friends had mentioned the Job Store to them and their curiosity was piqued. So far, the beginnings of viral marketing seem to work. On the average, the John Clements Job Store processes around 30 candidates per day, and in the past month, has successfully placed around 50 candidates among its three major clients.

After showing this much promise within its first month, the John Clements Job Store is ready to fulfill its potential as a readily accessible employment portal in the heart of the mall.

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Interested parties may email noralyn.casas@johnclements.com or call 809-2721 for inquiries into the John Clements Job Store located at the Level 3, Wellness Lane, Festival Mall, Alabang