Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

Directors Only Networking Event

 

I've just realised we have just 2 weeks until our next Directors Networking event and I've not yet blogged about it.....

Our  inaugural Directors networking session in association with HB RIDA took place in June. It featured a range of speakers including "dragon" James Caan and judging by the feedback, was a resounding success.  So I thought I'd share my findings:

When asked whether they enjoyed the event we scored a perfect 10 with 100% of respondents replying in the affirmative. “James Caan was so down to earth, good facts and figures and strategically very strong,” said one respondent while another commented: “the presentations were excellent.” 

What’s probably of more interest to you busy people is that 85% of respondents felt that they got real business benefit from the event. One of those was Mark Flawn from technical recruiter F10 who said: “The afternoon’s event highlighted a few interesting items from which I believe my own business will benefit.”

And last – but certainly not least – 80% of attendees said that they would come to another event.  We also had some interesting suggestions  for future sessions such as a speed networking session as an ice breaker and more of an opportunity to ask questions at the presentations.

So... never let it be said that we don’t listen to feedback.  If you enjoyed the last one – or if you missed it  - then we have another event scheduled for 13th October which will feature, by popular request, more networking time and a Q&A session with industry guru and dragon James Caan.  There will also be a legal and financial update from recruitment industry specialists.

Email me if you'd like more informationon how to come along (louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk) - we’d hate you to miss out! 

Taking a look at JobMate

JobMate ran an advert in our monthly emailshot last week.  As I've known Richard from JobMate for years (he also runs the Red Advertising network) I was interested in what's different about jobMate (the multiple job board posting market has quite a few competitors!).

I'm sure most recruiters get the point of using a product like this - basically it means you can post to numerous job boards at the same time.  Not like in the "old days" when you had to log onto each job board, fill in different data for each site and then copy and paste your main body text.

The way JobMate works (which is similar to most of the other products) is that you upload your job the once and then tick the job boards where you want the job published. This can include posting your job advert to:
- Any UK Job Board you have an account with (JobMate have over 750 fully integrated)
- Your own website (even if you don’t currently publish your own live jobs)
- Various free to post Job boards (over 70 available)
- Twitter (they can set this up for you for Free)
- A mobile phone Application (again, included free)

The system includes all the back end stuff you should need too (applicant tracking, job posting http://www.jobmate.co.uk/free-trial/quota management, auto email responses etc).

Now, some of these types of product can be very expensive but I understand that as JobMate are based in Staffordshire rather than the City they don’t have some of the high overheads for offices and staffing that some of their competitors have. They have been established over 8 years now and their development costs have all been paid off. This coupled with the fact that they have a regular renewable client base, means that they can keep costs down and offer their product at a very low price point.

Whilst I wouldn't suggest anyone buy purely on the basis of price - JobMate's model is very simple: £365 + vat for the year, per agency.  In fact it's so simple that they've won an award for their pricing model!

In the past I think that multi posting software that was in some cases seen as cost prohibitive.  However, at £1 a day surely it’s now financially viable for all recruiters. Think about it - even if you are just posting to two job boards you will more than half your job posting time.
If you want to give them a go they are currently offering a free trial.  Also, for a limited period JobMate are offering UK Recruiter readers 15 months for the price of 12 (email or call them to find out more about this).

Networking - round up and looking forward

We held one of our regular Recruiter Networking events on Wednesday at The Square Pig in Holborn.  This is a venue that very comfortably holds 60 people.  However, we managed to squeeze 87 recruitment industry professionals into the room!

We followed basically the same format as for all our recruiter networking events of free drink on arrival (thanks Jobshop HQ, Allthetopbananas and JobSiteAdvisor), networking time, presentation and speed networking.  The differences were that this time the mic wasn't working and I had to do the speed networking myself!  I apologise if it didn't have the same sophisticated and professional edge that Oli Barret normally brings to the occasion.

Lee McQueen (winner of The Apprentice in 2008) was our guest speaker (kindly brought along by Fiona Lander).  He was a very genuine chap (I wanted to write "geezer" but wasn't sure if that passed for a compliment or insult!).  He talked about how he got onto The Apprentice (the lies on his CV!) and how he won (quite simply by trying very hard not to be fired!). 

Once numbers died down a little we also had a debate on Recruitment - Agency vs Inhouse.  Stephen O'Donnell kindly chaired this as my voice was by now in poor shape and our debators were Mervyn Dinen and Gareth Jones vs Gary Franklin and TheHRD (all the links there are to their Twitter profiles as that's where you'll get the best sense of who they are - if you don't know them in real life).  TheHRD has written a follow up blog post, which has some interesting comments, on the debate.

Feedback on the night, and since, has been very positive.  So, we'll be doing it all again in late January or early February.  However, this time I think we'll try for slightly less people in the room!

If you can't wait until them we have two other events this year:

The first is our Recruitment Directors event on Wednesday 13th October.  You can find out more here: http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/networking/13oct.htm
The other is the annual National Online Recruitment Awards event (which we run in conjunction with 1job), taking place on the 4th November.  You can register for this event now at: http://www.eventelephant.com/recnet4nov

If you can't make these we should be back, as I say, in January or February with our next set of recruitment networking events.

Ageism - it is illegal don't you know!

I have a friend (she is a recruiter as it happens) who went for an interview recently.  She was meeting with an agency recruiter who had an inhouse role for her. 

During the interview he said to her "so, how old are you..... 45.. 46?"

Now, if I'm honest I'm not in the least bit surprised that recruiters still care about age.  It doesn't surprise me that client's instruct the recruiter as to what age candidate they will/won't consider. 

However, it does make me very cross when a recruitment consultant does something so dumb as to explicitly ask the question of someone they are interviewing.

What do you think?

The Big Biller Summit

The Big Biller Summit is a collection of tele-seminars which have been organised by Mark Whitby. It's like a recruiting conference, in that he has got 20 industry experts sharing their knowledge and experience, which you attend from your desk.

Like a normal seminar the sessions are scheduled to take place at specific times (over the next week) and like a normal seminar you need to sign up to "attend". However, you participate by listening to the sessions via the phone or the webcast (I'd recommend you use headphones if you are going for this option in an open plan office!).

Speakers include some well known names from the UK, USA and Australia. Some of the UK speakers include Ann Swain, Romney Rawes, Bill Boorman, Mike Walmsley and Roy Ripper. Nearly all 20 of the speakers are people who I've come across at some point over the past 10 years and all speakers I'd be interested in learning from.

The key to this is that to hear what they say you need to sign up in advance and take part in the calls.  They are scheduled for the US (as over 50% of the audience comes from the states) but all take place at a fairly reasonable time for UK recruiters (ie, before bedtime!).

If you miss a session they are recorded... but you will need to upgrade to a VIP ticket (which costs $197). For this you get the MP3 recordings and complete written transcripts for every training session. This actually sounds like very good value if I'm honest.

If you have any available time next week - and want to improve your recruitment skills I'd suggest you sign up (it is free!).

Pick of the Blogs - My Hell is Other People

This week's Pick of The Blogs is My Hell is Other People from The HRD.  The HRD is an anonomous blogger (and Twitter user).  However, I know he is a "real person" as I've met him in real life!  This is his biog.

TheHRDwrites about all sorts of things recruitment and HR related - and with a superb sense of (very dark) humour.  Some of my favourites posts are

- 5 ways to wind me up  
- Break your silence if you would, before the sun goes down for good 
- Linked in, zoned out
- Ohhhh……the iPhones connected to the WIFI…. (this one mentions me so perhaps that's why I like it!)

My advice - read his blog!

I'll be picking another superb blog next week. 

22nd September Recruiters Network Event

Only a week to go until our final Recruiters Network event of 2010 (although we do have a Recruitment Directors event and our annual NORAs event).

Next Wednesday's event takes place in Central London and kicks off at 6pm.  Our sponsors are AllTheTopBananas.com, JobSiteAdvisor and JobShopHQ.

Thanks to our lovely sponsors we will be giving everyone a free drink on arrival and tickets are only £5 for recruiters to attend.

Our speaker is Lee McQueen who was the 2008 Apprentice winner.  Lee has just set up his own recruitment business and will no doubt be talking about his experiences of the show, working with Alan Sugar and now his new venture. 

We will also have a debate on "recruitment - agency vs inhouse".  Our debaters are Gary Franklin (of The Forum of Inhouse Recruitment Managers), TheHRD (HRD & anonymous blogger), Mervyn Dinnen (of Courtney HR) and Gareth Jones (of The StopGap Group).  All of these guys have strong opinions so I'm very much looking forward to the fight - sorry debate!

If you'd like to come along you can register now.  Tickets purchased on the night are £10 (however we won't be able to guarantee availability).

Hope to see you there!

 

Thoughts on some stats from TotalJobs

TotalJobs.com have recently been kind enough to send me some exclusive information from their ‘Total Jobs Annual User Survey’ and there were some interesting facts to take from this in relation to jobseekers perceptions and expectations within the UK jobs market.   Here are a few of the stats:

* While searching for a job, 47.36% have applied for 11 or more jobs. Of all the applicants, 36.44% have had zero interviews following their applications.  I know a common complaint from recruiters is candidate who apply to EVERY single job out there and don't tailor their cover letter.  I'm guessing these stats might back that up.  Over a third of applications to get no interviews is pretty shocking though and could suggest more time should be spent researching and tailoring job application forms, CV’s and cover letters.  There are loads of sites out there which can help candidates with this.  In fact there is loads of "career advice on the Totaljobs website at http://www.totaljobs.com/careers-advice.  In the spirit of fairness I should also point out some other sites which have good career advice - including the government website.

* 22.95% are willing to compromise on pay but only 18.95% are willing to compromise on title.  I found this one interesting; perception (your job title) over reality (how little you actually earn)!  So the message to recruiters is big up the job title if the pay isn't up to market rates. Also, 25% of jobseekers would compromise on location or even pay, but only 3.9% would compromise on their pension. Don't get me wrong I know  pensions are important - but the survey suggests 96% of people would turn down a job if the pension wasn't right. It suggests they value the long term pension more than job title, location and getting a job that pays good money right now.

* Over half of jobseekers (54.95%) don’t feel like they were given enough support when looking for a job. I wanted to comment on this but wonder who these jobseekers were expecting support from.  An employer who has made them redundant, government, education establishment?  Total jobs have been working hard to collect more data on this matter which I am hoping to share with you in the coming months.
 
This data is from an internal survey that they don’t share with the public but for further information you can contact Caterina Masso (Marketing Manager), on email caterina.masso@totaljobs.com.  Total Jobs do however run a series of other surveys throughout the year which are made available to the public and can be found on http://recruiter.totaljobs.com/barometer/home  - where users can sign up to receive various stats and survey results.

Recruiter Clinic - Alastair Cartwright

This is part of our "Recruiter Clinic" mini series where I ask various people "What is the question you are asked the most often?  What is the answer you give?"
This is the response from Alastair Cartwirght: 

Question: What are the main benefits of developing a Google PPC campaign?

 Answer:

•  Phrases sponsored can be as broad or targeted as you choose – for example, sponsoring the term ‘jobs’ might drive lots of traffic to your site, but it might not all be relevant. However sponsoring the terms ‘construction jobs in Glasgow’ will drive less traffic, but the visitors to your site will be relevant to your opportunities in Glasgow.

 •  The activity can be controlled in real time. New phases can be added instantly and other phrases deleted or paused. This means it’s possible to react very quickly to your recruitment needs.

•  Copy can be edited, tested and successful copy identified. Over time it’s possible to improve the number of click thrus by testing different versions of similar copy to establish which is more successful.

• Budgets can be easily controlled. By setting a daily spend limit (say £50) you can limit the monthly spend through each search engine broker – in this example spending £50 each day in a 31 day month gives an overall spend of £1,550. On average you can expect to drive 750 candidates back to your site on this budget.

•  Budgets can be easily distributed. In the example above you could divide your budget in the following way – construction jobs in the south east £25 per day, construction jobs in scotland £25 per day. The level of detail is totally up to the advertiser and can be edited in real time – giving you the ability to change the emphasis between regions across the month.

•  Return on investment can be easily established through reporting. Google’s reporting tool shows the budget spent per month, the amount of click thrus achieved per keyword and number of conversions / applications generated.. This means it’s very easy to establish which keywords are performing well and to formulate a strategy to improve those that are not performing so well.

Alastair has a background in working with large employers such as PwC, T-Mobile, Dell, AXA Sunlife and others, helping them develop very effective online recruitment strategies. The goal has always been to help them save money (on recruitment agencies’ fees) and time (by improving their recruitment processes). Granger Reis Online Consultancy Division (GR Online) provides an online recruitment service to key clients which allows them the ability to source and recruit candidates from junior to middle management role for vastly reduced rates.  You can follow him on Twitter at @alcartwright

Pick of the Blogs - The Recruitment Magpie

This week's Pick of The Blogs is from Emma Mirrington.  Emma used to contribute to this blog until she went off and had a baby and then started her own blog.  All very annoying!!  The upside is that you can read her thoughts on her own site: The Recruitment Magpie.

Emma works in recruitment HR at BSkyB and co-manages The FIRM (Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers) with Gary Franklin.  Some of her recent posts include:

- Making the move from Agency recruiter to In-house recruiter (well worth a read!)
- Employee Referral Schemes
- Social Media in Recruitment – joining the conversation

I like Emma and I like her blog .  I only wish she'd write a bit more often! 

I'll be picking someone else's superb blog next week.  Don't be offended if I've not looked at yours yet - there are so many great UK bloggers out there!

How and why coaching works

This article is written by someone who has done some advertising with us - and I know it's obvious where he is going with the article.  But I really like it as an example of why and how having a business coach works.  Maybe if you aren't ready for formal coaching you could try and build an informal mentoring relationship with someone.
 
I got to thinking the other day, after completing my daily 5 mile run, how much my running had improved since working with a triathlon coach.  You see before I took up working with Alan, my triathlon coach, I would simply go through the motions of what competing in the triathlon was i.e. I would go swimming,  running and cycling, not always in that order.

But what was occurring was every time I was competing in an event the timings were there or there about the same. 

As a recruitment business owner does that seem like your business, that you are there or there about the same month in year after year? 

So I decided I would contact a triathlon coach.  He established with me what my goal was for the triathlon event and then he suggested what I needed to do to reduce my time and improve my performance by 20%. He told me that he was going to share with me what successful Triathlon competitors do, and if I did the same I would get similar results.

So one of the things he suggested I should do was look at the different areas of the event and improving my performance by approximately 7% in each area.  In fact he even suggested that he could improve my performance by 15% in the running event alone.

My first action step was to improve my performance when running up hills, so he got me to find a hill and run up the hill until I was absolutely shattered and I felt I could do no more.  And the first time ran up the hill and my heart was pounding, his voice went through my head and I heard him say “run on your toes and pump your arms”.  And I also was aware of the negative conversation I was having internally, i.e. “this is hard work” and “I am dying”.  Alan had pointed out that having a negative conversation served no benefit to me it was more important to have an empowering and more positive conversation, such as “the pain that I am feeling now is weakness leaving my body”, “this pain is just for a minute of my life”. 

What I find interesting about this whole experience of working with a coach is that when I did the hill work on my own I would do 5 hill runs and then run home.  However, when I worked with my coach and he was behind me shouting encouragement (at least that is what he called it) I could do 9 hill runs.  Did my heart bound? Did my lungs feel as though they were about to burst? Was I drenched in sweat? Yes I was.  But the point is with the coach at my side shouting encouragement and helping me focus on my desired outcome, my performance improved by nearly 100%. 

So let me ask you a question as owners of recruitment businesses. How much do you think your business would improve if you had a coach standing at your side shouting encouragement and sharing with you what successful recruitment business owners do?

National Online Recruitment Awards

This is the 10th year that the National Online Recruitment Awards (NORAs) have been running and the 9th that I've been a judge (Stephen let me off one year when I was pregnant!).  They are hosted by AlljobsUK.com and 1Job.co.uk. 

The idea behind the awards is that they acknowledge and reward excellence in online recruitment practice. They are voted for and judged from a candidate perspective.  They cover a wide range of online players in the sector, including job boards, recruitment agencies, employers, career advice websites, trade and national publications. In addition there are awards for best newcomer and innovation.  This year there is also a "Recruitment Website of the Decade" award - shortlisted from all those who have been finalists and winners over the last 10 years

So, nominations are closing on Friday of this week (if you want to nominate yourself or someone else do it quick!). All nominated sites are put to the Shortlisting panel to decide the finalists for each category. These sites will then be put to the Judging panel (you can see who the judges are here).  We then have to "examine and determine which sites perform best".
 
And then there is the actual awards night.  For the 3rd year this is run in conjunction with our very popular Recruiters Network events.  The event is being held in central London and will consist of time to network, have a drink with the finalists and other guests and then the awards will be presented.  If you want to find out more about the event or register to attend you can visit the registration site.  

I will post more about the awards once nominations close and Stephen can reveal the finalists!

Recruiter Clinic - Callum Saunders

This is part of our "Recruiter Clinic" mini series where I ask various people "What is the question you are asked the most often?  What is the answer you give?"

This is the response from Callum Saunders

Question "Does my social media usage impact my future recruitment prospects?"

Answer: Yes, unfortunately it does. 

Many people still consider Social Media as a ‘new’ thing.  But in reality, a very large percentage of us are using sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube every single day.

Research shows that over 50% of employers look at a potential recruit’s Social Media presence during the hiring process.  Whilst this is a frowned-upon practice (and one that Germany has recently drafted law to try and combat), there are plenty of simple steps that you can take to protect yourself from those who continue to vet your application based on Social Media sites!

One of the most obvious, but overlooked pieces of advice, is quite simply, use some common sense!  If you are going for an interview with company X and don’t want company Y to know, don’t tweet about it or set it as your Facebook status!  Ask yourself whether you’d be happy for your boss – or a prospective employer – to see what you are saying.  If the answer’s no, then don’t write it!

Similarly, privacy settings are there to protect you – use them!  So many people leave their online profiles open to view, when a simply delve into settings will allow you to lock down your content and ensure your potential manager doesn’t see those pictures of you on last week’s messy stag do!

I have written a document detailing the various Social Media dos and don’ts for job seekers, which is available here: http://blog.stopgapgroup.co.uk/2010/08/top-tips-for-positive-social-media.html

Remember, Social Media is there to be enjoyed – just ensure that you employ some of the advice contained within this guide to ensure that the social footprint you leave is a positive one!

Callum Saunders is Digital Marketing Manager at The Stopgap Group.  You can follow him on Twitter and connect with him on http://www.linkedin.com/in/callumsaunders.

He’ll also be at our next networking event – so you can say hi there!

Research from the Internet Advertising Bureau

If you advertise online this is research that you ought to take a  look at.  I'm not just talking about web banner advertising but also if you advertise your jobs on your own site, on a job board, or anywhere else. 

The IAB’s recently put together a PowerPoint presentation entitled "Customer Conversion Journey Research" – the full version is only available to members but you can download the key findings here. 

The results show the relative effectiveness of different online activities including display advertising, sponsored search, affiliate marketing, natural search and email marketing.  The findings also highlight the average number of times users making purchases on these sites are exposed to each activity, which elements are most effective in converting visitors to customers and the optimum number of display exposures.

Yes, it's most relevant to travel companies (the sector in which the research was conducted) but the lessons can also be applied to recruitment advertising and job listings.  The idea being that people that apply for jobs online are exposed to lots of online marketing messages – emails, display ads, job listings, job aggregators, search results (both natural and paid for) that influence what they do at different stages of the process.

Also covered are issues around assessing display advertising and the need to move beyond the click thru metric to understand the true impact of online display activity.  So, just because your banner didn't get the 500 clicks per day you were hoping for - it doesn't mean that your message isn't being received loud and clear. 

In very simple terms it shows that online advertising can be compared to television or radio (or paper) advertising - where just because someone doesn't act immediately it doesn't mean that they your advertisement isn’t building an awareness (and opinion) of your brand - which is bound to affect them further down the line.

So, pop over to the site and download the PowerPoint!