Want job? Refer it.

Move over traditional job portals. It’s the time of job referrals. Wondering what this new ‘animal’ is? Make a short trip to NDTVJobs.

Through its tie-up with Bangkok-based Yellojobs.com, NDTVJobs is perhaps the first online job referral network in India. All you have to do is to refer a friend through the portal for a job you think you friend perfectly fits in, and if your friend does get the job you stand to earn fabulous award money.

As of this writing the total reward money on offer is a staggering Rs.11.25 crore. Sounds astounding? It is.

The minimum award money is Rs.5000 that scales up depending on the post you’re referring your friend to. NDTVJobs’ featured employers’ list is a roll call of who’s who, including such worthies like Convergys, Nestle, Britannia, and of course NDTV itself.

While NDTVJobs doesn’t presumably require you as a referring person to be seeking jobs, the Michigan, US based WhoToTalkTo does. Brian McCullough, the erstwhile CEO of ResumeWriters.com, is the founder and the brain behind WhoToTalkTo (let me term it W3T). How does it work?

Well, here you’ve to be a jobseeker and must be able to contribute at least one job referral to gain entry. You gather points as you refer more. In return you get to search the job referrals the site has in store. Signing up is free.

But before you sign up with W3T remember the jobs are mostly based in US as I could follow. The plus point however is that the jobs look really real.

Coming back to India, how hot the job referral market is can be gauged by the entry of Naukri in the field. It’s the Brijj.com. Okay, Naukri doesn’t say it is a job referral site. The official objective of the site is: Professional Networking Site To Build Trusted Relationship Network.

From the feel of it Brijj does come across as a destination not only for jobseekers but for business seekers as well. Of course if you choose to ‘Brijj’ you may just remain ‘friends’ – a la MySpace or Facebook.

The job referral space is gradually warming up. There’s no reason why more innovations cannot come in not-so-distant future. But if you as a jobseeker still swear by the traditional job portals like Monster and Naukri, hear out what W3T’s Brian has to say:

The online job recruitment is very mechanized and impersonal. They don’t do anything to help people network! And they account for only 7% of all hires.

Now if someone would refer me as one seeking Internet research cum SEO cum website planning cum blogging cum content writing job…!