Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

Advertiser Profile: 2LS

You may have spotted this new feature on my blog; where I shamelessly promote some companies that advertise with us in the weekly newsletter. However, it's also an opportunity for you to learn more about some of the suppliers that could be assisting your recruitment business.

Company: 2LS Limited
Product: GRIP
Description: If you’re looking for a recruitment software system that is flexible and easy to use, then GRIP is for you. Its simple design makes it possible to have multiple windows open and switching between them very quick and easy.
To an efficient recruitment consultancy, time is all important. GRIP features; such as dragging and dropping single or multiple records between windows and hot links between clients, candidates and vacancies, will improve your consultant’s efficiency.
3 USPs:
1. Fast & easy to use
2. Connected and extendible
3. Available anywhere
Contact: Neil Thompson, 0845 685 2230, neil.thompson@2ls.com
Other links: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn

 

End of Year Recruitment Conference, 2nd Nov in London

I’ve been involved in helping with the judging for the National Online Recruitment Awards for many years now and for the past few years helped organise the awards ceremony. This year we are going to be running an conference during the day of the words. Seeing as we’ll be in November and the countdown to Christmas I’ve called it The End of Year Recruitment Conference (I bet I call it something more sensible next year!).

The idea of the event is to bring together all the other recruitment event organisers, who are massive experts in their fields, to put on a really good conference. The event will expand your knowledge, offer tremendous networking opportunities, benefit your business and/or personal development, and represents a fantastic opportunity to meet with the best minds in our industry today.

We have a fabulous line up of speakers including:

    Steve Huxham of The Recruitment Society
    Ann Swain of APSCo, Matt Dawson of the REC
    Alan Whitford of RCEURO
    Mike Taylor of Web Based Recruitment
    Bill Boorman, organiser of the #tru events
    Gareth Jones of ConnectingHR
    Gary Franklin and Emma Mirrington of the Forum of Inhouse Recruitment Managers
    Simon Stephenson and Heather Travis of the Executive Research Association
    Matt Dawson & Gillian Econopouly of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals
    Industry experts Matt Alder of Metashift and Andy Headworth of Sirona Consulting

The conference runs from 10.30am to 6pm and you can choose which presentations you attend on the day. Subjects include topics such as how agencies can find new revenue streams, candidate attraction and employment branding, capitalising on current trends, mobile recruitment, agencies & inhouse working together, executive research, job boards, and government and industry lobbying. We’ll also have some small group sessions running throughout the day on AWR and social media tools and techniques. More information about the speakers and subjects is at www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/networking/2nov.htm

The event is run by us in conjunction with CV-Library and sponsors idibu, epc, Changeboard and Hireserve.  With additional help from BlueSkyPR.

The combination of such great speakers and topics, and a ticket price of £40 means this is an event you can’t possibly miss! Scheduled to complement the National Online Recruitment Awards (taking place, within walking distance, during the evening), it really will be a day to remember (Book your tickets, only £20, for the NORAs here)

Numbers are restricted, so book your tickets for the End of Year Conference now!

Graduate Recruitment Fair – 7th - 10th November

This year’s GradU8 event is just around the corner; running from the 7th to the 10th November.

GradU8 (brought to you by totaljobs.com’s GRADUATE ZONE – part of totaljobs group) is a free online careers fair giving graduates the chance to chat directly to employers, ask their questions about graduate schemes and work out which companies offer the career path that best suits them.

It is essentially an online ‘virtual’ meeting place where recruiters (exhibitors) showcase their "corporate credentials" and graduate recruitment opportunities.

As well as possible employment the graduate jobseekers can benefit from plenty of career advice.

I know this has been a hugely successful event in previous years and well worth checking out.

The FIRM's Online Recruitment Survey

The FIRM have conducted their first member survey and I've been looking at the results. In May and June they invited members to take part in the research and got responses from a healthy 386 individuals.

I've pulled out a few interesting bits of data:

• The top 3 priorities for recruiters this year are sourcing great talent(91%), cost reduction (59%) and talent pooling (53%).
• 54% expect their level of recruitment to increase compared to last year.
• 50% have an average time to hire of 4–8 weeks, 32% take 8-12 weeks and only 9% under 4 weeks.
• 27% have an average cost per hire (attraction and selection costs only) of under £1,000*
• 39% of the FIRM members have 10 or more members of staff working within their recruitment team
• 78% do not currently use Pay Per Click advertising as part of their recruitment campaign with 25% never intending to use it.
• 42% say that they use Search Engine Optimisation as part of their recruitment campaign with only 11% saying they do not intend to use it.
• 73% use Social Media as part of their recruitment campaign with 24% intending to use it.
• 33% of respondents filled less than 10% of their vancaices using agencies in the past 12 months.  31% filled 11%-25% of vacancies using agencies.

There is an awful lot more inforamtion in the report about use of social media platforms and size and structure of resourcing departments.

If you want to know more or get a copy you should contact Emma Mirrington at the FIRM.

Why Senior Execs Fail in Interview; arrogance

InterExec have done an interesting survey into the area's where senior executives are most likely to fall down in interview.

The leading trait to lead to failure is arrogance and over-confidence, followed closely by poor communication skills (or the inability to listen) with inadequate prepation in third place.  Other factors included a failure to demonstrate sector knowledge, demanding too high a salary package, being too controlling, not being focussed enough, poor personal presentation, getting caught lying (with 5% of the votes!) and being too laid back.

Whilst interview prepaartion ought to be given to every candidate it's not always easy as a recruiter to give feedback to a senior candidate that they come across as arrogant.  However, with over 20% of candidates, in this survey, having this as their major failing perhaps it's a message some of us need to learn to give.

I'm no expert but why not try something like "you're really confident and know your own opinion, which is something that I admire about you.  But I think you might overdo it sometimes and come across as a little arrogant, and it's something I know interviewers just don't like"

If you've got a better suggestion on how to give this type of feedback or just prepare a candidate better for interview please share it!

Social Media Event (not ours!)

It might seem a bit strange actively promoting someone else's event.  However, I've always got on well with Recruitment International (and our social media event is fully booked now!).

So if you concerned that you aren't getting the most out of recruiting through social media then check out the event Recruitment International have running on 25th October.  It's a full day event and "will give you an opportunity to hear from and get first hand advice from recognised social media experts."

By the way, our next event is the End of Year Recruitment Conference on 2nd November.  If you want to come please book up early or you may miss out.  We were fully booked for our social media conference a week ago!

 

 

 

Hidden Cost of Running An Office Infographic

This is a cheerful little infographic from Towergate Insurance's blog.

They've researched the facts on the "hidden costs of tea and smoking breaks, sick days and falsely claimed expenses, among many others".   Did you know your average employee will cost you £16.98 in toilet roll a year and fiddle £462 on expenses?

Huge variations in graduate salaries by degree

Just seen a bit of interesting research by the team at new UK job search engine Adzuna.co.uk.  This research, based on their database of 1 million job ads from over 100 job boards, has found that graduates earning a First or 2:1 degree may earn up to 30% more over their careers than their peers with 2:2s or 3rds.    Now, whilst you might expect some uplift in salary for the brighter sparks I think that's quite a difference.

They also found that Law, Economics and Civil Engineering were the best paying degree subjects to study, earning double what Tourism, Art & Design and Anthropology graduates can achieve.   The study also lists Offshore Oil Platform workers as the best paid profession that doesn't require a university degree at all.

You can see the full findings on the Adzuna jobs blog.  Whilst it's a bit late for us to take heed of the advice you'll now know in which direction to (gently) push your children!!

Join UK Recruiter Plus and get 50% off the End Of Year Conference

Have you come across our UK Recruiter Plus service before?  It’s a web based knowledge portal designed to assist and offer guidance to all individuals involved in a recruitment environment. It offers a range of guides to recruiters at all levels. So whether you are a trainee consultant learning your trade and keen to know how to start a successful recruitment desk or an experienced manager working on increasing motivation and profitability within your team, UK Recruiter Plus provides the information and guidance you need.
 
At only £40 + VAT per year it’s really good value anyway.  However, did you know that by joining up you can get discounted admission to some of the UK Recruiter networking events?  On the 2nd November we are hosting the End of Year Recruitment Conference with some pretty amazing presenters.  Tickets are £40 each.  However, UK Recruiter Plus subscribers get in for half price. 
 
There you go – one extra reason to sign up today!

Burning Questions session at End of Year Conference

At our conference on 2nd November we will have Gary Franklin and Emma Mirrington of the Forum of Inhouse Recruitment Managers (the FIRM) answering your "burning questions".

Have you ever wanted to ask those pointed questions to a client but not had the opportunity to do so, or didn’t want to risk a relationship.  Well now you have your chance.  Gary Franklin (previously Head of Resourcing, Europe at Aviva) and Emma Mirrington (Head of Talent at Mars) who run The Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers invite you to do just that by completing this little questionnaire 

 
It won’t take very long at all to complete the three questions.  Emma and Gary will use the results to provide you with some answers in a presentation on 2nd November that may go a long way to helping you win new business or get greater results from existing relationships.


You can find out more about the event at http://recnet2nov.eventbrite.com/

Advertiser Profile: Voyager Software

This is a new feature on my blog. As I mentioned last week whilst it's shameless promotion for some companies that advertise with us in the weekly newsletter, it's also an opportunity for you to learn more about some of the suppliers that could be assisting your recruitment business.

Company: Voyager Software Ltd

Product: Voyager Professional, Commercial, VDQ! and Mid-Office

Description: Voyager is a leading provider of innovative recruitment software and we represent one of the largest suppliers of Recruitment technology in the world.  With a focus on service and delivering tangible benefits, our recruitment solutions offer rapid deployment and return on investment.  Our products span the entire recruitment landscape from the front office to the back office and Online and by combining our recruitment software products, which are all fully integrated, we have a strong track record of delivering solutions painlessly to Recruiters individually or globally. 
Voyager is one of the UK's longest standing and most experienced recruitment software providers; this is not only evident in our products, but also our customer care.  We offer an 0800 Support line, Free upgrades and Free Online Training Clinics.

3 USPs:

* Ease-of-use
* Easily adopted
* Fully integrated

Contact: email sales@voyage.co.uk or call 0800 008 6262

Decline in Number of Science & Technology Graduates is Bad News for the Media Industry

Jamie Gavin, MD Of  inPress Online has produced this guest article for the blog:

There is an interesting skills gap developing in the UK jobs market right now. We are hearing a lot about a lack of competent science and technology graduates and as a recent study by Zurich has highlighted, many tech SMEs are concerned about a lack of IT and tech skills in the current marketplace.

In the media sector however we seem to be faced with an altogether different set of problems: Primarily the decline of traditional media outlets and a lack of jobs for both media graduates and experienced media professionals alike.

A quick look at the data publically available on the totaljobs.com website provides some quantitative evidence of this trend. Of the 140,000 jobs listed on the TotalJobs home page (some of which are listed in multiple categories and by multiple agencies) IT and Internet roles accounted for almost 12,000 of the total number of jobs listed, which is a significant 8.5 per cent.

This category ranked third overall out of the 32 jobs sectors listed on the site, behind only sales (12.2 per cent) and another technology-driven category, ‘Engineering, Manufacturing, & Utilities’ with 10.9 per cent of totaljobs. The category also derived 25.8 per cent of all positions from the £50,000+ per annum salary bracket, placing more than one quarter of total available jobs in the sector in the higher earners category.

The media sector however tells a very different story, with ‘Marketing, Advertising and PR’ jobs accounting for just 4 per cent of the total listed and ‘Media, New Media, and Creative’ jobs accounting for a significantly lower 2.1 per cent. Between them therefore these two arts-degree based categories add up to only 6.1 per cent of total jobs, or a total of 8,538.

In many ways this discrepancy is unsurprising. Media and to a lesser extent PR and marketing roles have traditionally been thought of as more appealing than their more geeky, science and technology based relatives, and that trend would appear to be continuing today.

Where the problem lies however, is in the changing nature of the media and communications industries themselves.

As an online PR agency, inPress Online understands the need for PR and communications professional – as well as journalists themselves – to become more technologically minded. Now of course, there is a distinction to be made between having a working knowledge of social media and working as an ICT manager for a cloud computing company, but there is undoubtedly a wider shift going on within the media from art towards science.

Take for example the role of a journalist. In days gone by their role would have been solely to submit a written article on a relevant subject, from where it would be edited and submitted to the printers for inclusion in the finished publication. Now however, a journalists role has expanded to become extremely IT savvy, incorporating social media publications, SEO, link sharing, multimedia file gathering, etc. So as a general rule of thumb the creative industries themselves are becoming more technically demanding.

As these figures show, and as the current trends indicate, there is a significant lack of graduates and undergraduates who are interested in the more scientific and technology elements of today’s economy, and that could well produce a skills gap for the media and communications industries themselves going forward.

Some great Social Media Blog Posts

As you probably know we've got a Directors Only Networking Event on the 20th October focussing on social media.

Our speakers (Andy Headworth and Steve Evans) are both experts in the field of social media and will be giving a great double-act presentation on the 20th.

In the meantime you might like to check out some of their blog posts on the subject:

Which social recruiting bubble are you in?
New Facebook – What the F8?!. 
What is Google + and should you use it for recruiting?
"Facebook Will Destroy LinkedIn" Really? What utter rubbish!

If you want to know more from Andy (that's a picture of him by the way!) and Steve come along on the 20th October.

NORAs 2011 Finalists Announced

The finalists for the National Online Recruitment Awards have been announced.  There were 526 websites nominated and these have been whittled down to just 5-8 in each award category.   That gives me (and the other judges) 60 sites to look and report back on before the awards evening on the 2nd November.