A special employment support program will be launched for SMEs and small towns

HeadHunter announced the launch of a program for small, medium and microbusiness (SMEs), aimed, among other things, at supporting employment in settlements with up to 50,000 people. The initiative will affect more than 25 million people of working age, which is about 33% of the total working-age population of Russia, the company stressed.

"Our program is aimed not only at supporting businesses, but also at solving a broader task — developing employment in small towns and increasing the availability of work at the place of residence," said Dmitry Sergienkov, CEO of HeadHunter.

As part of the program, HeadHunter will introduce two new products: special conditions for job placement in small towns and resume database access packages designed to meet the needs of SMEs. The first initiative is aimed at more than 550,000 SME companies in 150,000 localities. As a result, employers' costs for posting vacancies in small towns will more than double, the company said.

HeadHunter also announced the launch of special access packages to the resume database. The conditions are most consistent with real hiring scenarios in SMEs, where a manager or business owner can process a limited number of resumes and candidates per month, and hiring takes place on a point-by-point basis, rather than en masse, HeadHunter emphasized. As noted in the company, the proposed solution allows to significantly reduce the costs of the employer when hiring employees.

"We will continue to develop this program: the next step will be to develop the principles of job ranking and visibility in order to distribute job applicants' responses more evenly and increase the availability of candidates for small and medium—sized businesses," Sergienkov added.