Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

Onrec Online Recruitment Conference & Exhibition

Sadly I can no longer make it along to the Onrec conference on 3rd June. However, Emma from Sky (who regularly contributes here) will be going along as my "roving reporter".  If you've not registered yet there is still time.  Here's a bit of information:

"Calling all recruiters, HR and those working within the UK Online Recruitment Industry. At the Onrec.com Conference (Westminster, London), delegates will hear presentations on the following topics: developing your recruitment site in order to increase recruitment traffic and build your own talent pool, how to effectively use social networking sites as a recruitment tool, how to minimise your organisation's recruiting costs and get maximum return from your staffing budgets, screening candidates effectively and efficiently, how to utilise new Virtual World sites (such as Second Life) as part of your recruitment strategy and how to engage the best candidates so they choose your organisation over your competitors.  Tickets are £395 and include access to the full conference programme, opportunities to network with the Speakers, plus exhibitors and other  delegates. Ticket also includes refreshments, hot sit down lunch and networking drinks reception after the event. This is the only UK event to offer you the opportunity to learn how you could be saving money and recruiting more efficiently by using the latest online recruitment technologies. Delegates also get a free copy of the Online Recruitment Yearbook 2008 (worth £30).  To book call Wendy Finch and quote ref AOB40 on 0870 766 8530 or email Wendy@onrec.com."

If you make it along keep an eye out for Emma and say Hi!

Interview with me

Last week I did an interview for the CareerinRecruitment blog (other recruitment to recruitment job boards are available!). If you want to know all about me (and wonder with amazement at the amount of links I got back to the UK Recruiter site) you can read it here.

Re-working your Careers Site

When I spoke with Emma at Sky this week she mentioned they are updating their careers website.  They started off with some benchmarking of their site against “competitor” sites and the key feedback was that they need to create a simple site, with straightforward navigation and no one more than two clicks to apply for a job (if you know in advance which job you want to apply for).  The other feedback they had is that people complain they can’t find it from the main corporate homepage (a common complaint for careers sites).

They are approaching the redesign in two phases.  The first is updating everything and ensuring all the basic information is there.  The second phase is looking at interactive element; these might be case studies, day in your life stories, employee profiles, employee videos, etc.  They need to allow the themes from any new campaigns to be brought through to the career site.  As Sky are carbon neutral they also want to link in the corporate social responsibility element. 

Finally they are going to ensure it’s properly search engine optimised as they want to rank highly on the organic search results where possible.  They’ll also be looking at paid for advertising (Google Adwords) for graduate or specific large campaigns.

I know that Peter Gold at HireStrategies has given Emma some input and that he is working on a report for corporates on building career sites.  He’s recently given McDonalds a free website review on his blog.  Peter also pointed me to a good blog post about search engine optimisation which might be useful for anyone in the same position as Sky.

Helping Employers understand about recruiting staff

There is a superb "10 things Employers HAVE to understand about recruiting staff" blog post by Andrew at the Sirona Consulting blog.

I think point 7 is especially important "No selling, no new staff. Interviews are as much of a promotion as they are Q&A session. Don't assume that candidates want to work for you, they will need selling to convince them."

Not enough line manages have been taught this by HR and/or their recruitment agency.

Recruitment Advertising and Google Adwords

Peter Gold at Hirestrategies has put together a 5 day programme (sent by e-mail) that will allow you to understand how to start using Google Adwords from scratch.  It covers the techniques you can use to create a successful campaign on Adwords to reduce your dependence on job boards and get highly relevant applicants.

If you are considering how you might make use of Adwords as part of your recruitment advertising programme it's well worth popping along to his site and registering.  It's all free of charge - all you need do is enter your name and email address here.

A Candidates View of the World of Recruitment

We ran a two part article series in the newsletter which finished this week about recruitment consultancies from a candidate perspective.  I've had some great feedback including this comment:

"Just a quick email to say I read and really enjoyed your article which was Part II of 'A Candidates View Of The World Of Recruitment'. In fact I have sent it round the team to read as a reminder of how valuable a candidate is and that a live vacancy to fill isn't always the ultimate priority." 

I've also had an email from Mike (who works for an Executive Search firm in Berkshire) who has actually met with the candidate in question and here is what he said...

That makes very interesting reading and hits a number of sore points which our industry always suffers from. It’s important to re-establish this industry in a better light with senior candidates.

The main issue with recruitment businesses in my opinion, and a point you make, is how short term and narrow minded they can be. Personally I try to work for Consultancies that have a strong strategy and business plan in place. I didn’t in the earlier days; I tended to go after big corporates and was completely money orientated. Unfortunately there are many nowadays that are purely focused around short term gains and put consultants under extreme pressure to hit targets, which fundamentally causes the sort of problems you have experienced.

I think it’s important to be honest from the outset with the candidate. At this level if you don’t realize that this person is going to be in a decision-making capacity then you belong in a different job. I try to meet and work with people that I think I can help. Those I can’t help, I will always try to point them in the direction of someone who might. Being rude, not replying and generally being unhelpful are inexcusable. This is undeniably a people business. It is however impossible to talk to all candidates who make contact, but again you’re absolutely right they all deserve the respect of being contacted in an appropriate manner. A well organized support team is worth its weight in gold and in terms of assisting these candidates. Regardless of what type of recruitment business you are in, this should be the absolute minimum requirement.

There is, as you know, a difference between contingent and search companies. Some of the bigger and more branded companies have become arrogant, lazy and complacent in their approach. They have an awful reputation in some cases but clients still use them because of the established brand and perhaps previous successes. They could be seen as secure. We can’t complain about that but perhaps encourage clients to look a little deeper such as you have done. This sort of feedback will eventually return the industry to a respectful status. Some rarely listen to feedback but they can’t ignore it when it is publicly announced.

Over the last 10 years there has been a huge development of all types of recruitment businesses. It is now only what can be described as a “volume market” with the client having lots of choice in addition to the big brands. It’s not a rocket science/academic orientated industry and fairly easy to make good money. Therefore it has opened its doors to many different types of characters. The more hungry service orientated companies, particularly some of the boutiques, in my experience can offer the complete package to both clients and candidates. They do need to be well organized and structured for that to happen. We all make mistakes and it is naïve to suggest that we will deliver to everyone but it’s also about how you deal with that problem when it happens.

Although it’s a temptation to work for big brands if I stay in recruitment for the next 10 years, it will be with a business that is focused around building long term relationships rather than solely profit focused. I would get sacked for this comment in some of the companies I’ve worked for but….. It’s not all about money with me any more (of course I’d be lying if it wasn’t partly). The company I work for doesn't try to be something they are not but what we do in my opinion we try to do extremely well and the companies we do business with initially, tend to last for many years afterwards.

Recruitment 2.0 for the sake of it?

I see a new service has been launched by PreferredSupplierList.com (PSL) to "help organisations to register interest from prospective recruitment agencies via the internet. Rather than fielding dozens of phone calls a day, staff will be able to ask Recruitment suppliers to register online rather than ‘cold call’ hiring managers."

Basically a corporate firm uses PreferredSupplierList.com to add a customised PSL registration form to their website (or they can have the form site on the PSL website).  The corporate chooses from one of four service levels to manage the process of registering new agencies.

The idea is to help corporates reduce the number of cold calls they receive and to help them "Source the high quality agencies and ensure they meet your key criteria, before you start investing your time in engaging them".  I get the first bit - ensuring reception informs every recruiter they need to register on the website will reduce the number of calls you get.  However, I think the idea is bad because:

a) you can't chose a recruitment supplier from a form
b) sometimes recruiters have real value to share in a "sales pitch" (eg, industry/competitor information)
c) sometimes they do actually have a candidate you may want to meet (ok, 90% of the time they don't but you have to take the calls to find out)
d) unless you have a policy of never using recruitment agencies it's part of your job to form relationships with them. 
e) higher calibre recruitment businesses may refrain from engaging in a faceless PSL online registration process. The potential lack of interaction and understanding of the client’s culture would prove impossible to sell to any potentially interested candidates. This sort of process seriously restricts access to future top talent and seriously undermines the credibility and external reputation of the company. In a tight market the candidates’ first impressions of a company are critical and many will judge these businesses on their recruitment processes.   

What did make me smile about this is that it's a service set up by a recruitment agency - Verticality (an IT, sales and marketing Recruitment Consultancy servicing a European client base).  Presumably they'll be getting all future business by completing forms on the websites of potential clients.

Recruitment Expert Audio Interview Series

Mike Taylor at Web Based Recruitment has launched his "Expert Audio Interview Series" and kicks off with an interview with Dan McGuire (of Broadbean Technology).

The series will feature interviews with leading figures in online recruitment.  When I saw him at the networking last week he mentioned the new series and (possibly in order to ensure PR) asked if he can interview me at some point.  In all the excitement of him clearly describing me as a "leading figure" I forgot to ask who else he will be interviewing.  However, I will keep you updated here.

If you like podcasts you should also check out Born ("The UK's only weekly podcast dedicated to online recruitment news") and XtremeRecruiting.tv ("Video interviews about the collision of recruitment and technology").

Recruiters Networking - 15th May

The photos have just gone up from last week's recruitment networking event.  We had a great turnout with over 150 recruitment professionals joining us (that's me and Dan from Broadbean in the photo) at a (rather dark and loud) bar in central London.  As usual it was great to see so many regulars as well as to meet new people.

I had a great time.  Cut short only by the need to stop drinking vodka and eat something sensible.  Next time I will be standing by my normal rule of sticking to the soda water!

Thanks to our media sponsors; CV-Library, Innovantage and JobsToday and our drinks sponsor for the evening - The Recruitment Finance Division of Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance.

Our next event is in Leeds on 29th May (you can register here) and we have a London event planned for September. 

15-minute guide to online recruiting

Susanna Cesar Morton of Advorto sent me a note last week about their "15-minute guide to online recruiting".  It's targetted at corporate recruiters but should also provide useful information to agency/consultancy recruiters.  The subjects covered include your career site, job boards, your intranet, candidate e-newsletters, online referral systems, social networks, blogs and SEO.

It's nicely put together and really only does take 15 minutes to read.

You can download a copy from their website