Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

Job Profiling

Over the years I've used quite a lot of psychometric products.  I offer psychometric assessment to recruiters for selection purposes and we even have a partnership with someone who offers a product to assess recruitment consultants.

The other day I was given a free report to try out from Myprofile.  They are based in Australia but are looking to service the UK market with their Jobprofile product.  One advantage of this for recruiters is that no accreditation or special software is required - they are all done online.

When I completed the questionnaire it only took me about 12 minutes (mind you I have done a fair few of these over the years!).  The results are sent as a PDF. Mine was eight pages long.  The product uses style identifiers (driver, promoter, supporter and analyser).  With each person normally being a combination of two styles (if you are interested I'm a Promoter Driver). Once the report has identified your style it talks about the job strengths for each style, lists career options (mine included many roles I would consider myself suited to), things that you value and things that annoy you, interview tips and suggestions on ways to "adapt" (ie, what to do about your weaknesses).
 
I thought the report could be especially suitable for personal or career development and I've already recommended it to someone who was looking to make decisions about a career change.
 
They are currently offering a free trial so that you and a colleague can assess the product for yourselves: http://www.myprofile.com.au/jobprofile/trial_request.htm

Best UK Recruitment Blog of 2009

This is our third year of running the "Best UK Recruitment Blog" awards.

We have 32 sites who fulfil the shortlist criteria*.  If we have missed someone there is  a "free text" box where you can enter their details.  For obvious reasons I've had to exclude our own blog!

So, if you want to select your favourite recruitment focussed blog in the UK please click here.  Voting closes 6pm 14th December 2009.
 
We will announce the winner in the last newsletter of 2009.  They will receive a lovely box of wine from our sponsors: Harbour ATS.

*Shortlist criteria:
a) Recruitment focussed
b) Established for at least six months
c) Having posted at least once a month in the last six months
d) Having posted since the start of October

About our sponsor: HARBOUR® ATS is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) built for today's business needs and considering today's Internet - for both candidates and employers. Flexible, quick to deploy and with high integrity ROI reporting, this is Applicant Tracking as it should be. www.harbour-ats.com

Hitwise Social Networking Update

I know this isn't recruitment specific but I still thought it might be of interst.  I got some stats through from Hitwise the other day about the top 10 websites in the UK ranked by market share of page views in September 2009.

They are

Facebook 14.5%
Google UK 5.8%
eBay UK 5.5%
YouTube 2.5%
Windows Live Mail 1.9%
Gmail 1.7%
Bebo 1.5%
Yahoo! UK & Ireland Mail 1.1%
Google 0.9%
Google UK Image Search 0.9%

In September Facebook was actually the second most visited website in the UK after Google UK (www.google.co.uk), but because users view a much larger number of pages per visit, Facebook was the clear leader in terms of page views. UK Internet visits to Facebook increased by 86.1% between September 2008 and September 2009, and have more than doubled over the last 14 months. During September, Facebook accounted for almost half (49.2%) of all UK internet visits to a social networking website.

Networking and National Online Recruitment Awards

Last Thursday we ran a recruiters networking event which also hosted the annual National Online Recruitment Awards (NORAs).

There was a superb turnout on the night with nearly 250 recruitment industry professionals in attendance.

Our sponsors were TheLadders and Astoria Rec2Rec - joined by a great line-up of awards sponsors from 1job.

After a spot of general networking and drinking activity (with the sponsors enjoying the VIP room with the "interesting" smoked salmon served in hot dog rolls!) we had a few sessions of speed networking organised by Natalie Campbell.  Then it was onto the awards. 

Stephen O'Donnell was the compere for the night and he entered the stage to the theme from Kill Bill (it was fairly dramatic and all that was required was a bit of dry ice to finish the scene perfectly). Each award was presented by the relevant category sponsor and the winners were:

BEST GENERALIST JOB BOARD: http://www.jobsite.co.uk
BEST SPECIALIST (NICHE) JOB BOARD: http://www.retailchoice.com
BEST REGIONAL JOB BOARD: http://www.key103jobs.co.uk/
BEST NATIONAL RECRUITMENT AGENCY WEBSITE: http://www.rhr.co.uk
BEST SMALL RECRUITMENT AGENCY WEBSITE: http://www.mccarthyrecruitment.com/
BEST NATIONAL EMPLOYER’S WEBSITE: http://www.armyjobs.mod.uk
BEST SMALL EMPLOYER’S WEBSITE: http://join.gcsltd.com
BEST ONLINE RECRUITMENT BY A CONSUMER PUBLICATION: http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/
BEST ONLINE RECRUITMENT BY A TRADE PUBLICATION: http://www.drapersjobs.com/
BEST EMPLOYMENT ADVICE WEBSITE: http://www.careerplayer.com
BEST NEWCOMER IN ONLINE RECRUITMENT: http://www.careerplayer.com
BEST INNOVATION IN ONLINE RECRUITMENT: http://www.twitterjobsearch.com
 
Representatives of all the winners (expect one which I won't mention as I understand he was meant to be there!) were there to collect their awards.  There was some disappointment that the chap from The Army wasn't in uniform - but you can't have everything.  We'll have photos of all the winners receiving their awards available in the next day or so.  I managed to get myself up on stage by pulling the business card for the bottle of champagne given away by Perms Connect.
 
After the awards it was back to the networking with the winners receiving congratulations and buying celebrationary rounds of drinks. 
 
It was a great night and as usual a pleasure to work with Stephen and his team from 1job.  If you want to follow Twitter chatter about the event you should use the hashtag #NORAs and you can follow http://twitter.com/TheNORAs
 
Details of 2010's events will be coming soon!

APSCo Charity Ball

If you like a good party and the opportunity to do your bit for charity you should be attending the APSCo Venetian Masquerade Charity Ball on Friday 27th November.  The ball is in aid of Childline and in previous years they have raised a very significant amount of money for the charity.

Last year's event had a "lost in space" theme and raised over £70,000.

It's a very popular event and one which is a testament to our indsutry.  If you want more inforamtion (and to see phtoso from last year's event) visit the APSCo website.