It seems that most South Africans are familiar with Puff and Pass. However, is it true that it is one of the leading job portals in South Africa? Also, what kinds of jobs are advertised there and how do they work? You may find answers to your questions in our Puff and Pass review below.
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First of all, let’s get to know Puff and Pass briefly. That said, the term “Puff and Pass” was the idea of the duo who created the website. As quoted from its ‘About Us’ page, it is stated that the two people “used to forward emails to each other about the latest bursaries, jobs, and other things. The idea was to “take” what is applicable to you and “share” afterwards. So, this site was started with that tradition and spirit at heart. Hence, if there is something you can “take” from the site then good for you, but try to “share” with others as well. ”
Then, this became the forerunner of the Puff and Pass career portal which officially launched on April 1st, 2011. But at ten, how has Puff and Pass helped South Africa’s brightest job seekers and students so far? Which jobs are in demand in South Africa at the moment given the trend of posting on the website?
Today, let’s take a closer look and review the Puff Pass in detail.
Types of Job Openings
As one of the oldest career portals in South Africa, Puff and Pass aims primarily to inform its users about job vacancies. However, here you can also get the latest information about the opening of several valuable programmes in addition to recruitment and employment. For example, they are openings of:
- Apprenticeships
- Bursaires
- In-Service Training
- Internships
- Learnerships
- Trainee Programmes
Upon clicking on your desirable category, you will get the information about your selection. Fortunately, Puff and Pass always uploads the latest and most relevant information about the vacancies it has. When you click on the title of an opportunity, you can read further descriptions of that position. Generally, it covers:
- Name of the programme
- Closing date
- Location
- Stipend/salary
- Requirements
- Application procedure
- Contact detail
Through this in-depth explanation, Puff and Pass tries to give each user an overview of what the opportunity is like. Also, thanks to it, the candidates can understand exactly what they have to do to raise their odds of winning the position.
Categories of Jobs
Per our Puff and Pass review today, actually, there are enormous fields of job that Puff and Pass advertises every month. Hence, the list below will surprise you with how comprehensive the range of work Puff and Pass can cover.
- Accounting
- Artisan
- Banking
- Chemistry
- Commerce
- Communications
- Economics
- Education
- Engineering
- Fashion Design
- Finance
- Government
- Healthcare
- Human Resources
- Information Technology
- Insurance
- Journalism
- Law
- Marketing
- Pharmacy
- Physics
- Psychology
- Public Relations
- Social Sciences
- Statistics
- Teaching
And, of the jobs, below is a list of the top fields that many employers offer all the time.
- Accounting
- Finance
- Information Technology
- Computer Science
- Financial Management
- Electrical Engineering
- Human Resources Management
- Information Systems
- Mechanical Engineering
- Marketing
Coverage of Locations
When we talk about satisfactory service, one of the factors we have to consider from a provider is the scope of its location. Ideally, we want a service that is able to reach all parts of the country even to the outermost areas. However, what about the performance of this career portal based on our Puff and Pass review? In particular, does it also proportionately inform about job vacancies from many regions across the country?
To find out, let’s examine the recorded data. Throughout the website’s decade-long journey, here are the locations where employers most frequently advertise their vacancies via Puff and Pass.
- KwaZulu-Natal
- North West
- Northern Cape
- Eastern Cape
- Western Cape
- Free State
- Limpopo
- Mpumalanga
- Gauteng
At first glance, it looks as if Puff and Pass has never missed listing advertisements from companies in all provinces in South Africa. Unfortunately, statistically, not many ads are recorded under these categories. However, this is understandable given the many possibilities that play a role.
First, Puff and Pass rarely receives requests from companies in certain areas. Or, the administrator of the job portal has accidentally forgotten to sort the job listings based on their location. In fact, this should not be a huge discomfort considering Puff and Pass always includes the location of the institution/organisation in each announcement title. However, for some people, this will be a problem in itself especially if they want to filter the announcements by location.
Frequency of Updates
As a matter of fact, Puff and Pass posts information about fresh job vacancies every day. Furthermore, the updates are grouped on a monthly basis. In our Puff and Pass review, during its busiest months, Puff and Pass can post up to 150+ job vacancies. However, there are also times when it hit rock bottom with just one or two posts per month.
Yet, you don’t have to worry whether you would miss valuable updates about your desirable job vacancies. For that purpose, you can sign up for the Puff and Pass newsletter. In fact, it’s very simple; you only need to register your email into the system. Then, you will receive notifications regarding new content that Puff and Pass publishes regularly. Of course, this is a feature that makes it easy for you to always stay on top of your job-seeking game.
Contact Information
One of the components that determine the level of credibility of a website is the ‘Contact Us’ page. In fact, Puff and Pass also published the page even though it was under a slightly different naming (‘Send Feedback’, in this case). However, considering that Puff and Pass is just an ordinary career portal, Puff and Pass refuses to answer enquiries related to the job openings it uploaded.
Therefore, you can only submit your complaints regarding technical problems that you encounter when accessing the website via this page. Obviously, this won’t guarantee the validity of the information they post on their website. However, you can directly contact the person responsible for each job via the contact information listed in the job description.
Miscellaneous Stuff
Apart from posting vacancies, Puff and Pass also provides valuable information that job seekers might like. Yes, Puff and Pass dedicates several special webpages where you can find tips and tricks regarding all things about applying for jobs. For starters, it ranges from how to put together a good CV to how to present yourself well during an interview.
Also, you can download important files that you may need to apply for certain jobs. For example, on its ‘Templates’ page, Puff and Pass kindly shares CV templates which you can download for free. Of course, this will be of great help to cut down your preparation time. That being said, it will only work if you know how to make great use of these resources.
Puff and Pass Review: Conclusion
Overall, Puff and Pass is a legit job portal that you should visit often to get the latest information about available vacancies around you. Although the appearance of the website is fairly simple, it will make it easier, especially for beginners who know a little about the Internet, to navigate each page of Puff and Pass.
Also, speaking of coverage, Puff and Pass advertises a range of jobs from a wide variety of different fields. That being said, you will almost certainly be able to find every career of your dreams here. In short, the website is no less wonderful than foreign career portals like Indeed or Gumtree.
So, what do you think about this job portal after reading our Puff and Pass review? Is it, indeed, the best job portal in South Africa?