Firms can now make beautiful recruitment pages on Job Forward, which just raised six-figures

Singapore-based social recruitment website Job Forward – whose CEO Yoshiaki Ieda claims is the first one on the island-state – today announced the raising of a six-figure seed investment from COENT Venture Partners. It also unveiled a new service called Startup Essence that allows companies to create well-designed recruitment pages to attract and engage talent, describing it as “a new channel for startups and SMEs to reach out to the perfect fit for their company culture” in an official statement.

The funding will be used for product and business development, as well as also to test its product in “multiple ASEAN countries.” Ieda declined to comment on the performance of the recruitment platform in Singapore so far, stating that his team is “currently focusing on the product core value creation.”

Startup Essence will be a crucial part of Job Forward’s recruitment process moving forward because of its focus on company culture, which Ieda believes is “one of the key factors that attracts talent to a company.” He explains:

Typically, startups and SMEs – who are our main customers – face issues creating talent pools because of their lack of a corporate branding compared to more established companies. An outlet like Job Forward can help showcase a company’s unique and vibrant culture to better convey to job seekers their story, and to determine if they might be a good fit. Furthermore, employees who are a right fit and know what they jumping into tend to be more loyal and work longer in the firm.

Being able to distribute job opportunities via social media is what sets Job Forward apart from other job listing websites. “Typically only active job seekers will leverage traditional job listing sites,” he says. “Through distribution via social media outlets, Job Forward is able to reach out to passive job seekers as well, who might not know of better opportunities because they are not actively looking, but would be interested once they saw a better position available.” It attempts to solve a problem many startups face: the inability to cast a wide net when hiring.

While Job Forward might not have any local competitors, it does have a Malaysian cousin in the form of Tribehired. However, from a cursory glance of its website, it seems that the latter has pivoted from its original model.

Currently, employers can create job postings and a Startup Essence website for free. In the near future, Ieda plans to charge employers and recruitment firms, though he is unsure exactly how. Some options he has in mind include “pay-per-post, subscriptions, or pay-per-hiring.”

See: From zero to hire in 10 days, here’s how this startup is radically improving recruitment