Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

Is LinkedIn playing hard to get?

I've just had a conversation with a recruiter who has noticed a strange thing happening with LinkedIn.  I'll explain the situation and see what you think (I've changed a few of the details just in case!).

She posted a job on the site for a Director of Mobile Strategy.  She duly went through the response but when LinkedIn offered her the option of paying extra to "unlock matching profiles" she declined.   A few days later she did a search on LinkedIn to back up the ad response... and lo and behold she could not find ANYONE in a strategy role within a mobile organisation.  She is confident that she got better results when searching before she posted the advert.

Is it possible that LinkedIn are excluding those "matching profiles" from her searches?

Has anyone else noticed anything like this?  Is she being paranoid or is a known issue with LinkedIn?

Feedback greatly appreciated!

All work and no play

Not a massive surprise sadly; 30% of executives check emails once a day whilst on holiday.  Less than a quarter never check emails whilst away.

Experteer have recently conducted a survey into the holiday behaviour of “executive professionals”

Perhaps worth a quick peek to either make yourself feel better about having to take calls from your boss on the beach or to show your spouse so he/she doesn’t divorce you before the plane has even taken off!

The 2011 UK Recruiter Newsletter subscribers’ survey

Recently we felt it was time to run another survey to produce some up to date demographics of our readership.

Questions covered readership patterns, business focus, preferences and status to visits and use of the main UK recruiter site.

As a summary, there is an over whelming majority of you that come from an agency recruitment background (82%) with a position within your business at manager level or above (77%). We can see a significant increase in subscribers working as consultant and in a direct hire or in an RPO environment.   The majority (41%) work as employees but there is an increase from previous years of owner managers/sole traders (18%); perhaps reflective of the industry as a whole.

Delving into the type of recruitment solutions you offer, there is high percentage of permanent recruitment being undertaken (41% of readers focus primarily on permanent recruitment) and with 47% focussing on a combination of temporary, contract and permanent we are seeing nearly 90% of our readership having some involvement with permanent solutions. 

In terms of readership style we see a lot of you browse the newsletter on a weekly basis and focus on the areas that are more interesting to you personally (70%).  Whilst the majority of you are still based in the UK, there is a significant increase on our overseas subscribers this year.

We also asked some questions around the other services that UK Recruiter offers.  The good news is that most readers are aware of what we do such as the Recruiters Network events (91%), UK Recruiter Plus (62%) and the various pages on the main site that are available but some of you don't use them as much as perhaps you could, should or would!

Taking a lead from this, we’ll be ensuring we keep the content on the site up to date and probably doing a little more PR in the newsletter around the benefits of the other services on offer. The events are becoming very popular and we intend to increase their regularity, vary their theme and will be strongly encouraging you to come along and try for yourselves. Don't forget as a member of UK Recruiter Plus you can come free!  (see, got some PR in already!!).

Thank you to all of you who responded; we value your input and suggestions all of the time and hope you continue to utilise all of what UK Recruiter offers.

A mini Cloud Computing Debate

One of our sponsors for our upcoming Recruitment Software Event, Cirrus Nova, has sent me a link to an article on cloud computing and her response to the issues raised in it. 

I thought it made interesting reading for anyone concerned with the security around cloud computing in the recruitment space.  You should read the full article but here are the main issues:

There are 4 things that most of cloud storage provider will never elaborate because they will contradict with their basic business mission:

1. No such thing as 100% safety – It is humanly impossible to declare that any of these cloud computing providers offer 100% safety, there is always the possibility that your data is accessed by hackers or other intruders. Dropbox.com recently faced a security issue case where someone managed to access 100 different accounts using a single password, therefore nothing is impossible.

2. System down time – Most of the providers do claim at least 99.9% system uptime, but this means that there is still a small chance that you may not be able to access the service when you need it. Amazon WS, the biggest cloud service provider, had recently a 2 day system downtime, creating chaos for many thousand clients.

3. Have a second manual backup plan – Although this is very oxymoron, unfortunately, you are obligated to have your own manual backup plan in case something goes wrong with any of these providers. How primitive, you may say, but you cannot jeopardize any valuable data. I suggest you get few flash drives and once a month backup all your data.

4. Knowing what to store on the cloud – Although all providers are telling us to store all our data on the cloud, we need to use our brain and decide which data is way too sensitive and simply cannot be stored anywhere but a flash drive. Personal data such as passport copies, bank account login credentials, health records may need to be saved separately.

Does this mean that cloud computing is not reliable? I do not mean that, I personally use it and I do trust it, however, before moving any content online, you ought to be aware of these drawbacks.

And here is Laura’s response addressing the points individually…

1 – No such thing as 100% safety -  Locally held data cannot claim to be 100% safe. Excluding data that is deleted, hacked or damaged on laptops or mobiles let us also remember that approximately 34,000 laptops are stolen each year and another 60,000 mobiles and laptops left in taxis, that data certainly isn’t safe (Source: UK Police Report/Recruitment Consultant July 2011).  Connections to the Prism system are secured with up to 256 Bit SSL encryption, Backups are stored at 2 secure sites and servers are kept up to date with the latest service packs and security updates.

2 – System down time – A cloud infrastructure typically offers levels of performance, uptime redundancy and scalability which is impossible to match with in-house IT solutions. Our secure data centre offers world class availability. Multiple connections to the UK Internet backbone paired with a fully redundant UPS system backed up by diesel generators to ensure that uptime is never a problem.

3 – Have a second manual backup plan – a ridiculous comment in modern times. All data held on servers with credible cloud-based providers is always secure, is backed up hourly and can be restored to any point in time (down to the second)

4 – Knowing what to store on the cloud – again this is complete nonsense. You would no less store something in the cloud than you would on your own PC or phone. If anything, cloud-based data is safer as already highlighted.

The writer finishes his article with the quote “Does this mean that cloud computing is not reliable? I do not mean that, I personally use it and I do trust it”….Is he just therefore trying to harm the industry and slow progress down? One has to ask what his motives are for this article?

If you want to know more about Cirrus Nova, or wish to chat with Laura directly why not come along to our Recruitment Software Networking event on the 22nd September!

All about ATS/CRM systems (and our networking event)

We’ve got a brand new event coming up in September and I thought in the run up to it I’d pull together some information on subject.  Not that I seriously think anyone will confuse Applicant Tracking Systems with ASBO tracking systems or the like (I just quite liked the photo!).

However, let’s start at the beginning with an explanation of what ATS are from Wikipedia.

More to follow including content from our presenters (Jeff Brooks and Lisa Jones) and our sponsors. 

Totaljobs Infographic

I’ve just come across an interesting infographic containing data from the Q2 2011 Totaljobs Barometer (I think I mentioned the Barometer before; it provides comparable data of “supply and demand” in the the UK job market). 
 
The first graph is the “Tracker” and shows the number of applications per month from April 2010 to June 2011.  In the Q2 data you see a dip in April due to the bank holidays but that figures are rising again in May and June (above figures for the whole of 2010).
 
The next chart looks at jobs “By Region; Scotland suffered the most of all regions, however, Northern Ireland, the North West and West Midlands all showed double digit increases in jobs posted.  This is reflected by other information I’ve had from TotalJobs showing that they are now focussing on some of the more southern areas to increase traffic, with particular focus on Jobs in Bristol and Jobs in Kent.
 
The final chart is “By Sector” (and is by far the prettiest if that’s in any way relevant!).  This shows the amount of jobs advertised by sector.  Sales Jobs are the highest with Engineering Jobs a close second.  This type of chart can give you really good data to go to a client with.  For example being able to state that according to the barometer construction, aerospace, engineering and electronics sectors all grow (in number of jobs advertised/applications) by more than 20% year on year – is pretty useful stuff for a client. 
 
It’s also useful data when deciding if Totaljobs is the right advertising platform for you...!
 
 

Summary of July's Recruitment Directors Event

Mid July saw our most recent Recruitment Directors Only Event.  The theme was expansion and we were hosted at the lovely RBS offices.  I’ve got a little summary from Heather Travis who is a regular at our events, plus a press release that BlueSky PR wrote after the event.

 

This is what Heather thought:

 

 

The event focussed on “Exploring Expansion”

 

There were three excellent speakers:

 - Graeme Read – Director of Antal International
-  Tristan Ramus – Director of Hamilton Bradshaw
-  Greg Savage – Founder & CEO of Firebrand Talent Search

 

All of the speakers gave a very interesting, surprisingly honest and at times humorous insight into how they have expanded their businesses both in the UK and internationally.  They touched on issues surrounding different cultures, languages, strategies & key appointments; sharing the upsides and downsides and lessons learned along the way.

 

Natwest also spoke about some current recruitment issues, and how to prepare for expansion within your recruitment business.

 

There was plenty of time for networking where the buzz of conversation was at times deafening; always a good sign at any event!  In case some people were not as comfortable at networking there was a 10 minute speed networking slot – so nobody had any excuses!

 

After the event there was further networking in the form of a quiz – hosted at a nearby drinking establishment.

 

I always attend these events, as always this was well organised, well attended, excellent value and a great venue.   I am looking forward to the next event; to meet new faces and to catch up with the people I now have regular contact with.

 

This is the summary from BlueSky

 

Recruiters wanting to expand their business heard from three experts at a recent Director’s Networking event hosted  by  UK Recruiter and HB RIDA, the private equity vehicle that supports growing recruitment businesses.

 

Graeme Read, Managing Director of Antal International addressed the issue of expanding overseas and advised recruiters to follow their clients.  “It’s no good trying to trailblaze in a completely new and unknown market,” he said. “Look at where your clients are going and follow them.  Additionally, make sure you have a robust model and process – whatever country you are going into people will always try and tell you that recruitment is different over here – it won’t be.” Read also advised recruiters to have a subs bench of talent so that you don’t have to rely on strangers opening up in new markets.

 

Tristan Ramus from Hamilton Bradshaw agreed that a robust process was vital.  “When you are expanding a team, it’s really important to get those people into a process.  If your hiring relies purely on commission and bonus then they will always be able to better that package elsewhere.” He also emphasised the importance of communicating the vision of the company to staff. “If you think you have communicated regularly then think again – when was the last you really addressed the whole of the business – and how many people have joined since then?”

 

“Expanding your recruitment business is a bit like teenage sex – everyone wants to do it, but hardly anyone has any idea of how to go about it.” These were the opening words of Greg savage, CEO of Firebrand Talent Search who advised recruiters to think carefully about geographical diversification. “It can distract you from the main game and suck up money. But if you are going to  do it then make sure you go on at least ten client visits first and find out what they want – and run an ad for recruiters – what better way to find out about the local market?”

 

Commenting on the presentations, Helen Reynolds, Managing Director  of HB RIDA said: “The feedback from Directors was very positive. Growth is at the top of the agenda for many owner managers – as is creating value.  And while many recruitment firms would like to offer the carrot of equity in order to attract and retain good staff, people will only get excited about that if the equity has some value.  These networking events give an ideal opportunity for recruiters to hear from people who have been there, done it and got the t-shirt.”

 

  

We also got some great feedback from attendees with 100% saying they enjoyed the event!  If you want to see what you missed there are some great photos taken by Zak Reynolds.

 

Our next Directors Only event is on the 20th October (email me if you want more information in advance of us opening bookings).  We also have a speed-pitching technology event on the 22nd September that you can check out.

 

 

 

 

Why dont companies advertise their jobs directly?

I get all sorts of questions by phone and email.  Many are interesting, relevant and ones which I'm happy to help with. 

Some are ridiculous ("I want to set up a horse breading centre in Minehead; can you help?").  Others have me scratching my head as to where to start.  

How on earth do I respond to this email which has just come in....

Hi Louise,

I was just wondering why all the jobs on sites like Reed, Monster, CV-Library, are all posted by recruitment agencies? 

The job seeker doesn't get to see the company they are applying for in most cases. And it makes the application process much more difficult for job seekers when they have to go through a middle man (recruiter), as your application often disappears into thin air, and you hear nothing.

Why dont companies advertise their jobs directly?

Thanks for the insight!
Mike

Recruitment Software Comparisons

I had an email from a chap called Kyle Lagunas recently asking if I wanted to mention the blog post he'd written about Web-Based Applicant Tracking Systems: A Comparison In Functionality.  It's a mini review of four applicant tracking software products.  It's a nice idea but one which, when you look at his comparison tables, will show you how similar on paper these providers look.

 

If you want to see a comparison of a LOT of UK providers then take a look at the software comparison tables on our site.

 

However, I think the problem is still that it's very difficult to tell a lot on paper. Which is why if you are looking at recruitment software you HAVE to attend our upcoming Recruitment software event!  When you attend you can attend between six and eight mini presentations from UK ATS/CRM providers.  I'll blog a bit more about it later this week but you can check out the website in the meantime: http://recnet22sept.eventbrite.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Salary Survey Apps

Fancy feeling a little bit crap about yourself as you watch TV, sit on the train, eat your lunch (or whatever you are doing whilst you mess about with your iphone)?  Well, now you can thanks to the Salary Survey App from Robert Walters....

Obviously only joking; although knowing you could earn another £40,000 if you'd actually spent any time studying at Uni and had moved to American when you had the chance might put you off your egg sarnie.

Taking data from their superb annual salary survey the app allows you to "determine your market worth".  It provides pay rate information for all professionals, including secretary, qualified accountant and marketing manager.  You can also compare your pay globally.

Also useful for recruiters preparing for a pitch for a new assignment.

PS, whilst I'm on the subject of salary surveys - check out the Salary Benchmarker from CareerStructure.com.  They've surveyed 5,723 industry professionals within the construction industry and created a funky little tool on their site.  You select the job title, region, sector and experience level and it churns out the average salary, benefits and "desired benefits".