Louise's UK Recruiter Blog

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

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!

Recruiter Clinic - Gary Franklin

This is part of our "Recruiter Clinic" mini series (which has inadvertantly been on a mini break!) 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 Gary Franklin

Question:  How do I get onto your PSL?

Answer:  many large organisations with traditional purchasing models follow complicated and cumbersome RFQ, RFI and tendering processes to select the suppliers for their PSL.  There is no sure fire way of getting through the rules, weighting and scoring matrices that can be set up by procurement teams I’m afraid.  This kind of process and the resulting set up, tend to leave suppliers feeling they are being kept at and arm’s length, with limited relationship potential, other than that of traditional supplier/buyer and that any quality in service is diminished.  I agree. It’s a lottery.

In organisations where there is more emphasis on quality of service and importance placed on cooperation and understanding of the business as well as the personalities required in the different roles, it is crucial that you build a relationship with the key stakeholders.  These will either be with the in-house recruiting teams or the hiring manager.  A bit of advice, if the organisation you are trying to sell to has an in-house recruiting team, bypass them at your peril, for they can be the decision makers not only on which agency to deal with, but also on which people will be hired.   You will almost certainly ruin any chance you have of dealing with that company if you try and go around the in-house recruiting team to the hiring managers directly. 

 In many instances PSL’s are built based on suppliers’ previous track record with a company, on feedback and input they get from the hiring managers.  In-house teams in many of the HR departments talk to each other and compare notes on agencies and thus it is important that the levels and quality of service you offer is of the highest standards at all times.  If you are invited to give a presentation as part of a PSL review, be sure that you know the company you are presenting to inside out.  You have  to know the scope and scale of the company, which markets in operates in, who its competitors are, what the competitors are doing (in respect of sales strategy , reorgs, hiring) why they hire, how they hire, what competences they look for in the various departments, what technologies are important to that market, what is the buzz in the market, what legislation could affect them.  This is more information than you can get from an hours superficial searching on the internet.  This is proper and through research, but it has to be done if you want to have any credibility.  If you can clearly show that you know the market better than the recruiters then you will be adding value already. 
Gary has over 13 years’ experience of successful recruitment experience having worked for agencies, run his own business and for the last four years as an In-House Recruitment Manager for one of the largest computer software companies in the world.  In addition he has had a successful and rewarding career as a Sales Manager, selling enterprise class computer software and hardware.  This has given him  a unique and diverse set of experiences that provides him an understanding of the issues, challenges and expectations on all sides of the recruitment process; candidate, hiring manager, agency and in-house HR recruitment manager.

Gary has over 13 years’ experience of successful recruitment experience having worked for agencies, run his own business and for the last four years as an In-House Recruitment Manager for one of the largest computer software companies in the world.  In addition he has had a successful and rewarding career as a Sales Manager, selling enterprise class computer software and hardware.  This has given him  a unique and diverse set of experiences that provides him an understanding of the issues, challenges and expectations on all sides of the recruitment process; candidate, hiring manager, agency and in-house HR recruitment manager.

In 2008 Gary founded The Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers (The FIRM). The FIRM has now become a respected and award winning international community of corporate in-house recruiting professionals from over 1000 companies in 44 countries that share knowledge, expertise and ideas with each other, raising our own standards and the quality of the services offer to our employers.  Gary writes a daily blog about his own personal job hunting experiences and can be found online at www.garyffrranklin.wordpress.com on Twitter at www.twitter.com/garyfranklin, or my email at gary@thefirm-network.com.

If you want to take part in this series just drop me a note at Louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk

Recruiter Clinic - James Whitelock

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 responses from James Whitelock.

I know Social Media is important, but where do I start?

You and your team probably know more than you think. It is almost guaranteed that someone in your team is using LinkedIn and that even more are using twitter and Facebook in their spare time or even for work. So first tap into this resource.

Trying running a survey of who is using which sites and for what…try to be opened minded and make sure everyone is aware that the purpose is not for recrimination but simply to find where your expertise lay.

Once you have identified your key social media users…make sure you share and replicate their success with the rest of your team.

Either run the survey every few months or define a mechanism for sharing new social media tools/sites across your team, like a weekly update on your intranet. This will keep you fresh and up-to-date.

James Whitelock has over 6 years experience with recruitment technologies, working for agencies like Select Appointments and Randstad.  James now works for Empresaria Group plc as Digital Strategy Manager, where his focus is to create a digital strategy for Empresaria Group plc and raise awareness of digital tools across the Empresaria Group.  You can contact James via email at whitelockJ@empresaria.com, via http://uk.linkedin.com/in/jameswhitelock or on Twitter at @ThinkinCircles

If you want to take part in this series just drop me a note at Louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk