Naukri.com is an Indian

employment website An employment website is a website that deals specifically with employment or careers. Many employment websites are designed to allow employers to post job requirements for a position to be filled and are commonly known as job boards. Other emp ...

operating in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

. It was founded in March 1997 by Indian businessman

Sanjeev Bikhchandani Sanjeev Bikhchandani is an Indian businessman, who is the founder and executive vice chairman of Info Edge which owns Naukri.com, a job portal, as well as the co-founder of Ashoka University. He was given the Padma Shri Award, the fourth High ...

. Naukri.com is the largest

in India.

History and milestones

Naukri.com was launched on 27 March 1997. The company was started as a floorless employment exchange. It was a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...

of resume, jobs, and recruitment consultants. Conceived as a platform of job seekers and hiring managers to meet, the services went commercial in October 1997. It all started when

quit his corporate job at Hindustan Milkfood Manufacturers (now Glaxo Smithkline) and founded two companies with his partner -

Info Edge Info Edge (India) Limited is an Indian pure play internet company, based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. It was founded by Sanjeev Bikhchandani in 1995. The company runs an online job portal Naukri.com, a matrimony website Jeevansathi.com, a real es ...

(for arranging database) and Indmark (pharmaceutical) . Info Edge offered salary reports to various categories of college graduates such as engineering and MBAs. Salary reports were sold to companies, somewhere between 5000 and 10,000 INR. Sanjeev and his business partner at Info Edge operated from servants’ quarter located in Sanjeev's home. In 1991, The Department of Telecom (DoT) advertised for videotex services. Info Edge submitted the business plan to DoT and it was shortlisted. Reasons undisclosed, the department canceled the pilot project. This was a setback and Sanjeev and his business partner parted ways. His partner took Indmark and he was left in charge of Info Edge. During a visit to an IT fair at Delhi's fairground (

Pragati Maidan Pragati Maidan is a venue for large exhibitions and conventions in the city of New Delhi, India. It has an area of nearly 150 acres (more than 625,000m2) of exhibition space, being among the biggest exhibition centers in India. It is owned, o ...

), he was drawn to a stall written

WWW The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

Curious, Sanjeev found more about how the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

worked. The Internet was new in India in the 90s. He took help from his brother Sushil who was residing in the US to hire a

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

. The server was hired at a monthly rent of $25. This is how Info Edge India, which was then a holding company of Naukri.com was started. On 1 May 1995, it became Info Edge (India) Private Limited. In 1996, the recession hit and the company suffered loss. It was then Sanjeev took help from his friend Anil Lall and shared the thought of creating the

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...

. Anil Lall was offered a 7 percent share in the company. Another friend, VN Saroja took care of the operations. She was made 9 percent shareholder in the company. Naukri.com was launched on 2 April 1997 and the first version of the website had 1000 jobs collected from 29 newspapers. Reviews of business magazines, newspapers and word-of-mouth followed. Jobseekers learned job search on Naukri was free, and soon more people started logging in.

Traffic Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffi ...

on Naukri.com slowly and steadily increased. In 2012, the company launched

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

s for

Blackberry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy ...

, Android and iPhone devices and reportedly received 23% of its traffic from mobile users in 2013.

Naming issues

The website has faced problems with competitors registering websites with names similar to naukri.com. The

World Intellectual Property Organization The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; french: link=no, Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishi ...

(WIPO) ordered Abs IT Solutions to transfer the domain naukarie.com to Info Edge India.

Business model

The website follows Business-to-Business and Business-to-consumer models.

Revenue sources

Subscription fees and

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

are two ways the website generates

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...

. 90 percent of the revenue earned is from the recruiters (B-2-B). 10 percent of the income sources are from jobseeker services.

Awards and recognition

* 2006 - Received the Consumer Connect 'Campaign of the Year' award for the Hari Sadu Commercial at the Advertising Club,

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. * 2007 - Won the ‘Best TVC India and South Asia’ at the CASBAA TV Advertising Awards 2007 for the Hari Sadu "Name Calling" commercial. * 2014 - Received the Best Website of the Year (WOTY) award in the career and education segment by Metrixlab. * 2018: Won Gold in 2018 Prime awards for the best consumer-centric campaign * 2020: Won ET Iconic Brands of India 2020 Award

References