Entrepreneur launches website for job seekers

A Durbanville entrepreneur has launched a website where job seekers can submit video CVs instead of writing ones.

Dr Daniel Reitman, a civil engineer and owner of a boutique hotel in Durbanville, believes paper CVs sell people short.

His website, CUCV, lets employers register jobs that are advertised on CUCV’s Facebook page for applicants to see.

Once contact is made, the applicant is encouraged to send both video and paper CVs to CUCV which screens them and then sends a list of potential candidates along with their video to the employer.

“When you send a CV to an employer, they cannot see your true spark or your personality. So often it is the people who have stacked CVs who get the job, but meanwhile, they do not have the personality, and that can cause both the employer and employee to be unhappy with the decision to hire them,” Dr Reitman said.

“With a video, the employer can see the applicant’s personality, and they will also have a face in mind when they do eventually read their CVs to check their credentials.”

A video CV also lets applicants express their creativity and they were likely to be more confident than in a formal interview setting, he said.

Dr Reitman said he had been working on the idea for five years.

“I decided that now was the time to launch the site, because more people have access to the internet than before. All the applicant needs to do is go onto our Facebook page  to apply for the job they want and then they have to send us a quick video, which can be done over Whatsapp.
We launched the site in March and I can proudly say that we have successfully placed just over 20 people since then while our membership has grown to just over 300 members.”

One of the success stories of CUCV is Cathrin Malan, 24, who started work as a receptionist at a Brackenfell printing firm three months ago.

Before that, she said, she had battled to find a job because of her incomplete studies.

“Fortunately I came across the CUCV Facebook page, and after I applied for the job, they contacted me and told me t send a video of myself.”

She said she had been “a bit skeptical” at first but then the owner of the printing company had contacted her.

Ms Malan has since moved to Kraaifontein with her fiance and she has a new colleague from the CUCV website after her boss used the service again to hire a graphic designer.

“A lot of the jobs we assist with are ones where personality is key, such as receptionist, waiter and chefs,” Dr Reitman said.

“However, as we have grown, we have ventured out into other industries such as retail, and hopefully, we can continue to grow and help find more people find employment.”