Interview with a blogger - Keith Potts

Keith Potts is Managing Director of Jobsite UK, which he founded back in 1995. After graduating from Brighton Poly in 1987 with an Honours degree in Computer Science and Statistics he worked as a software engineer for a defence company followed by an appointment at Rediffusion two years later, where he was responsible for building the software for industrial full flight simulators for the likes of BA, Delta and UPS.  In Jan 2000 Keith sold a 49% stake in Jobsite to Manpower Inc and in 2004 he sold the remaining stock to Daily Mail & General Trust for £35 million.  His role as MD is to provide “vision and leadership and focuses on maintaining Jobsite’s success and driving forward new business”.  Keith’s blog talks about new developments at Jobsite, commentary recruitment industry news and some insights into what he’s currently working on.

How long have you been blogging?
My first Blog on Jobsite was posted on the 24th November 2006.

Why did you start?
A lot of people think of Jobsite as just a bunch of faceless servers number crunching away and churning out jobs. Well, the reality is that there are over 150 people who passionately work at Jobsite so we thought it would be a good idea to meet our audience through blogging. We have quite a few staff blogging on the site now and because of its success, we are starting to invite VIP guests to blog. Watch this space.

What do you do, work related, when you aren't blogging?
I spend a lot of my time overseeing the rapid growth of the company. We are building a network of online recruitment websites and we now operate around 50 separate sites which we have either organically grown or acquired. That all keeps me busy.

Do you think blogging has helped your business?
Yes, it's a fantastic way to share your views. We communicate in very many ways and blogging is very much part of this.

What do you feel is the biggest challenge about writing a blog?
Sadly it's finding the time to sit down and put pen to paper, as it were. I have endless things I want to write about and share but I always seem to be very busy.

What's another blog that you read and why do you recommend it?
I read loads of blogs. The digital recruiting one is fairly relevant to me.

What do you want your reader’s to know about you?
My blog focuses less on me and more on the company and industry. I hope my blog demonstrates how committed I am to Jobsite and recruitment though.

If you knew someone was thinking about starting a recruitment related blog, what advice would you want to give them?
Go for it. Don't be disheartened if you’re not swamped with lots of comments though as there tends to be more people simply reading blogs than participating. Also make sure you have the time as you need to post & respond to comments regularly to build up a relationship with people.

Is there a question you wished I asked you?
I think you've just about covered it there. Thanks.