<article>After scoring a series of new partnerships, Philippine- based online start-up iTrabaho.com is looking to expand to Southeast Asia.</article>

After scoring a series of new partnerships, Philippine- based online start-up iTrabaho.com is looking to expand to Southeast Asia.
In an interview with Dealstreetasia, iTrabaho managing director and founder John Kim said the company was eyeing neighboring countries in the region for expansion. &#8220;Our goal is to become inter-ASEAN. So we want Indonesia, Thailand and all the others to connect to our platform,&#8221; Kim said, noting that iTrabaho is the first and probably the only job portal that allows people to search and apply for jobs via SMS or text messaging.
&#8220;This is what what&#8217;s unique with iTrabaho. And all mobile phones, be it feature phones or smartphones support our SMS protocol,&#8221; Kim said.
The SMS-based job site forged partnership with the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP) at the third day of the second BIMP-EAGA (Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines – East ASEAN Growth Area) and IMT-GT (the Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand – Growth Triangle) trade fair and business leaders’ conference 2014, in Davao City.
Prior to the Friday&#8217;s tie up with the NICP, iTrabaho partnered with the Philippines&#8217; Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) last September to empower the latter&#8217;s automated job and applicant matching system called PHIL-JobNet, helping it to integrate SMS and Facebook features.
Kim said iTrabaho&#8217;s partnership with NICP will help bridge the gap between the talent pool and the available opportunities; as the job site connects with multiple local universities, students and graduates.
NICP serves as the unified voice for the Philippine Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Industry, promoting collaboration and development of member organizations through the sharing of best practices.
A Korean-American capitalist from Silicon Valley, Kim founded iTrabaho in the Philippines in 2011 after working with multi-national companies for 17 years. He has invested P3 million ($66,000) to market the company.  &#8220;I wanted my work to be more meaningful. When I came to the Philippines, I realized that this is the place where I can make an impact,&#8221; Kim said, adding that &#8220;there are a lot of gaps and problems like human capitalism and high unemployment rates which can be solved quickly with technology. So I started with a mission to build this iTrabaho job site platform.&#8221;
Kim added iTrabaho, which reportedly gets about 100,000 views per day, is also working on its new inter-agency strategy.
&#8220;If you have some certification, our system will automatically recognize it and give you’re a profile badge that shows that you have that certificate. It will also provide validity to your certificate by linking it technically,&#8221; Kim said, adding that it will remove the layers of delay that are caused by the verifying process.
(Editing by Yamini Dhall)
<pre><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/jobs-map-displays-worldwide-or-internet-career-search-photo-p263769">Image:Freedigitalphotos.net</a></pre>
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Job portal iTrabaho taps new partners, eyes SE Asia

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Job portal iTrabaho taps new partners, eyes SE Asia

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