Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

Recruitment Webinars

Shane McCusker of Intelligence Software has re-started his series of fortnightly webinars on a wide range of recruitment subjects. Last year he ran about 20 webinars (most of which are available on his website).  For those events he generally had a live audience of up to a few hundred people and some of the recordings have had over 2000 views.

The webinars are completely free to take part in and are all about sharing information and best practice. In the last series he regularly invited other presenters to take part (including quite a lot of Bill Boorman expertise – well let’s be honest he has a lot to share!).

In this week’s 30 minute webinar Shane is going to be talking about finding candidates and vacancies on the internet; looking at some simple sourcing techniques and a few free tools to help. The idea is that recruiters take part in the webinar and are immediately able to make use of the ideas to make more placements. In the coming months he’ll be talking about other social channels, the future of the industry, clever technology and a getting more guest presenters to talk about their recruitment expertise.   The webinar runs twice so you can choose which time slot suits you best.  If you want to take part just register below:

• Thursday 2nd Feb at (9:00am GMT which is 11:00am CAT)
• Thursday 2nd Feb at (11:00am GMT which is 1:00pm CAT)

Don’t forget you can check out previous webinars on his site

The perfect time to review your website content

This is a Google Update update from Michelle Hill of Red Rocket Media.

Following the ‘Search, Plus Your World’ update that Google introduced a couple of weeks ago which prioritises content that has been shared within your online social-sphere in your search results, it has just announced another update to its algorithm (the way in which it returns search results). It will now be analysing the layout of a website and the amount of content that you see on the page.

When your clients and candidates land on your web pages, they want to find content that provides solutions to their problems straight away. They don’t want to have to scroll down past an excessive amount of adverts and ‘call to action’ buttons to find it, that’s not a very good user experience.  As such, web pages that don’t provide a positive user experience may not rank as highly going forward. 

This latest update, coupled with the previous ones which have thrown fresh, original, high quality and shareable content into the limelight (see article below) once again re-iterates the crucial role that your website content plays. 

Now is the perfect time for recruitment agencies to review their website content by carrying out a content audit. As you analyse each page, put yourself in the shoes of your clients and candidates and ask yourself:

•    Is there enough content?
•    Is it immediately visible?
•    Is the content fresh?
•    Is the content original?
•    Does the content add value to your clients and candidates?
•    Would your clients and candidates share it (particularly relevant to news and blogs)?

Google’s advice
This latest update is just one of over 500 improvements Google intends to roll-out this year so their advice, as usual, is just to focus on delivering the best possible experience for your website visitors ie. to provide a fresh supply of high quality, original content that your clients and candidates deem valuable enough to want to share.

 

 

 

 

Lazy Recruitment Job Advert Writing

I realise this is probably a pretty pointless rant but I actually couldn't believe this job "description" that I found earlier:

 

When your R2R can only write two sentences to describe your organisation, the role, the type of individual required.... well it wouldn't give me much hope for their ability to successfully place someone!

Jobsite's Quarterly Recruitment Review

I see that Jobsite have released their (independently conducted) Winter 2011/12 recruitment review. The survey is based on online research of 500 job seekers and 200 recruiters.

The questions asked focussed on areas such as the percentage of businesses trying to fill vacancies, the most used job search methods by jobseekers (job boards - but that's not surprising seeing as they asked jobseekers "online") and the most used recruitment methods by businesses; the number of job boards used by candidates and businesses (a massive percentage of business use only one job board per vacancy).  Also the most important factors when choosing a job board (pricing is unsurprisingly number one - but the other facts may interest and surprise you).

I won't go into lots of detail here because what you should do is check out the free report and read their nice concise summary.

How the latest Google update will affect recruitment agencies

This handy little article has been written for us by Michelle Hill of Red Rocket Media.

Over the last 18 months, Google has introduced three major updates to the way it returns search results, known as Caffeine, Panda and, just last week, Search, Plus Your World. Each one has thrown the importance of content into the limelight.

*Caffeine*
Launched in summer 2010, this enabled Google to display results more quickly after they were published. Prior to the update, the main content layer was updated every couple of weeks which meant there was a delay between Google indexing your content and when they actually made it available to searchers. Towards the end of 2011, they launched a further update which enabled them to determine when to give you more up to date results eg. for events  or hot topics. It was now able to identify the different types of searches and the level of freshness each one required. This affected 1 billion searches!
Results: recruitment agencies that publish fresh content win.

*Panda*
In Autumn 2011, the Panda update was introduced to penalise websites with low quality/thin or duplicated content. Websites known as ‘content scrapers’ which scour the internet for vacancies and post them on their own site, were consequently demoted in the search results. It also used artificial intelligence to identify the quality of a website by analysing how long visitors spend on your site, which pages they visit, how many adverts there are etc. Any deemed to be low quality were likewise given less priority in the search results.
Result: recruitment agencies that publish high quality, original content win.

*Search, Plus Your World*
This latest update took place last week and introduced a social element to search results. Now, when you search, Google will take your social-sphere (the main source being Google+) into consideration so say you search for a hotel in Manchester, if any of your social connections have written a review about it, they would be given priority in your search results. The thinking behind this, according to Nielson, is that whilst 42% of people trust search results, 90% trust recommendations from friends.
So how can recruitment agencies benefit from this?
Let’s say you publish an article called “5 Killer Interview Tips”. You share it with your ‘candidates’ circle on Google+. Sarah (one of the people in that circle) thinks it’s a great article and shares it with her ‘friends’ circle. Elizabeth (one of Sarah’s friends) sees it in her stream but doesn’t necessarily read it as she isn’t looking for a job at the moment.
A few months later, Elizabeth decides she is going to look for a new job and searches on Google for ‘interview tips’. Due to the previous social connection with Sarah, your article will be prioritised in her search results. Elizabeth clicks through to read the article and whilst she’s on your website, does a vacancy search. She finds one, submits her CV and voila you’ve connected with a candidate that previously may never have come across your website. Of course, the vital element here is that people want to share the content you produce. If it’s not shareable, it will fall on deaf ears at the first circle.
Result: recruitment agencies that publish highly shareable content win

Content wins every time
In every update, content has been the clear winner. Put simply, recruitment agencies that publish regular, high quality, original, shareable content are more likely to be returned in Google search results than those that don’t.

How Much Does your Job Cost You

I've been sent this "How Much Does your Job Cost You" infographic from Guardian Jobs.  It's a nice visual representation of how much time we spend on getting to work and buying coffee and lunch during the working day.  In these tough economic times who wouldn't want to save over £260 a year by making their own sarnies!!

 

 

Increase your client and candidate base through effective content marketing

I was recently sent a whitepaper specifically for recruitment agencies. It has been put together by Red Rocket Media. It was developed after last year’s Social Media in Recruitment Conference. At the start of the event delegates were asked where they spend their money:

Job Boards 39%

Recruitment Agencies 20%

Social Media 13%

Referrals 16%

Corporate Website 13%

By the end of the conference, 65% said they would be using social media.

This whitepaper explains how, through highly effective content marketing, recruitment companies can build an audience of loyal clients and candidates before their recruitment journeys even begin. It describes how to:

Attract more traffic to your website

Increase job description ‘view to application’ ratios

Use social media more effectively

Improve brand awareness

Compete with the big boys

To download the whitepaper visit the Red Rocket Media site.

CV-Library’s TV Debut

I think this is quite exciting news; CV-Library is debuting its first ever TV campaign this month.  I’ve known the chaps at CV-Library since the very early days (for both of us) and have enjoyed seeing their business grow (database of 4.2 million CVs now!!).

They have worked with the creators of the MoneySupermarket.com and Confused.com adverts for their own advert which has it’s first outing on Monday 9th during Dragon’s Den at 6pm on Dave.

The stats sound impressive.. “during the six week campaign the advert will be aired over 1,200 times on more than 14 of the premium digital channels. The 30 second advert will be seen by more than 5.5 million ABC1 adults with a total of 22 million viewings.” 

I’ll apparently get a sneak preview on Monday morning – shall comment more then!

Directors Only Event – 9th February

It’s just over a month until until our first Directors Only Networking event of 2012!

The event runs on Thursday 9th February from 3pm to 6pm at the RBS building in central London.

For this event our subject is "Selling or Sustaining - the differences of trading for an exit or trading for a lifestyle". It's ideal for those Directors looking to move their business to the next level, anyone thinking of creating a new business from scratch, or wanting to help enable an MBO or sale of their existing recruitment organisation.  We'll help you understand how to make a lifestyle business work for you, put in place the plans necessary to exit your existing business or establish a brand new recruitment business with the end goal of a sale in mind.

We've got superb speakers in the form of Helen Reynolds (Managing Director, HBRIDA), Adrian Kinnersley (Managing Director of Twenty Recruitment) and Gail Sampson (Managing Director of Knockbuckle Associates).  RBS will be on hand all afternoon if you have any questions.

As well as informal networking time we will have breakout sessions with our sponsors.  Networking is an important element of the event so bring your business cards!

We've got some great sponsors again for this event.  As per last year we’ll be partnering with HBRIDA during all of 2012 for the Directors only events and at this one we have Broadbean, Fish4, Juice TDP and Bond Adapt Software as sponsors.

You can find out more and sign up at our networking page. 

Ps, there is also a Facebook group for our events (with photos) and a list of all 2012 events on our website.

Online recruitment 2012: The Year Ahead Conference - 26th January

This is the the 10th anniversary of the Enhance Media "year ahead" conference; it takes place on 26th January in central London.

This year's event focuses on "online recruitment strategy, candidate attraction, mobile, online law and global social media".  I've been at least five times in the past nine years and always enjoyed the event. 

The content includes: 
1. Google presenting on Google+ and mobile within recruitment.
2. ITV talking about how they have successfully implemented a new careers website and social media strategy.
3. The FIRM talking about 3,000 FIRM employer recruitment strategies.
4. Boots talking about the market a year on (they spoke last year) and how they successfully used Facebook for social hiring.
5. A social media recruitment legal and compliance masterclass.
6. Monster talking about how BeKnown could change the recruitment world forever via Facebook.
7. LinkedIn discussing their vision of the future of online recruitment in 2012.
8. Plus Enhance Media giving insight from the world’s largest piece of online recruitment research (I always love how excited Giles Guest, MD of Enhance, gets when talking about stats!).

I will be tweeting from the event using @UKRecruiter and @louisetriance (& the hashtag #EMConf) and I will be writing a review of the conference for here after.

If you are attending the event as well please feel free to comment on which areas are of most interest to you.  If you’ve not yet signed up you can still buy tickets and if you use the code UKREC10 you can get a 10% discount.