JobSeek

Job hunt guides

Updated 24 October 2026

Register on ESSA yourself

ESSA is the Employment Services of South Africa system, run by the Department of Employment and Labour. It is separate from JobSeek. You register there yourself if you want to. We never ask for your ESSA username, password, or identity number.

Checked on 24 October 2026 against the live ESSA site and the Department's own how-to notes. The screens can change. Follow the words on the page in front of you if they differ from this guide.

Open the official site

On the ESSA home page, individuals who are looking for work are told to register. Organisations are a different path. Use the individual path.

What ESSA asks for, on ESSA

The registration instructions on ESSA say they need your surname, your 13-digit identity number, and an email address, so they can verify the profile. They say the username and password are emailed to you. Department notes say the login name is the identity number, and that you should paste the password exactly as it arrives.

That exchange happens on the Department's website. Do not type your ESSA password into JobSeek. Do not type your identity number into JobSeek. There is nowhere in this app to put either of them.

If you have no identity number, or registration fails, the ESSA instructions say you need to visit the Department of Home Affairs to apply for or verify an identity number. That is their instruction, not a JobSeek form.

Steps

  1. Go to ESSA.
  2. Choose the individual option and the register link (the page calls it register individual).
  3. Read the disclaimer. ESSA asks you to accept it before you continue.
  4. Enter the details ESSA asks for on that screen, including the security text if there is one. Use an email address you can open. ESSA sends the password there.
  5. Open the email from ESSA. Sign in with the username and password they sent. Copy the password rather than retyping it if it is a long mix of characters.
  6. After you are in, ESSA asks you to capture personal details, contact details, education, and employment history. That is their CV, on their system. JobSeek cannot see it.
  7. Search for opportunities. The Department's how-to says to use advanced search, open the opportunity, check that you meet what it asks, and only then apply.
  8. If you forget the password, use the forgot-password link on ESSA. The Department's notes say you enter the names and the login, and a new password is emailed. Do that on their site.

After you have a JobSeek CV

You can read your JobSeek CV while you type into ESSA, so the dates and job titles match. You still type or upload on ESSA yourself. We do not have a button that sends your CV to ESSA.

If the site is down

Try again later. Labour centres can help people who cannot use the website. The Department points people to labour.gov.za for centre information. JobSeek does not book those visits and does not log in for you.