I am finally getting back into the swing of it after the Xmas break, but each day in I was getting further away from my first post of 2010.

So without further a do I shall start

Last week while I was browsing the stats of Recruitment Views and I could not help notice a banner advert from Jobsite, but what caught my eye was that this was no ordinary advert, it was serving up vacancies related to my last visit to their site, talk about being blown away, it was as if the advert was talking to me!

In some ways I was not surprised, as I am well aware cookies are used, but it is the first time I have noticed them working.

I was fascinated on how this was happening and who was behind it, so I followed the advert back, not to jobsite but to Struq, who have developed this for their client. I then contacted them to find out more.

Although they did not want to give too much away or maybe they are not the greatest communicators, it kind of happens with IT people! They replied with almost a one liner it is all explained here, which of course it was.

This was all fine except it doesn’t lead to a great posts, so after a couple more emails, I have managed to get a slightly better insight into the company. Basically the advert has done a storm for the Jobsite Campaign, more than can be said about Portsmouth FC one could say! The advert has seen a huge improvement in click through rate, making their advertising cost more efficient, which I think says it all.

The technology is all owned and built by Struq. and their technology has 4  core engines, you can find out more about them here says Sam Barnett CEO & Founder.

The adverts are served up, not through google but via their own publisher network, proving Google do not have it all their own way. So it is of no surprise to see them get a mention in the Guardians Top 100 Tech Media Companies and for the Telegraph to say “Innovation like Struq’s is essential to the online industry”, This can only can mean we will see more companies using this technology.

I know it has only been a few days since I started playing with Twitter and although I am not convinced whether it is for me, time will tell of course. But for a recruitment consultant, I believe it is a must have tool in ones arsenal.

I am thinking in particular for the small recruitment company or individual consultants wanting to get an edge within their organisation. What does make me smile is that after avoiding the temptation for so long, I can now see the value

It has to be a perfect tool for the small recruiter or the individual consultant, when you consider the alternative to achieve the same result. If you did try, you would need to have a fairly sofisticated website with RSS feeds SMS text messaging and automated email responders etc. Whereas with Twitter, one Tweet you have contacted all your candidates with the latest vacancy for free instantly, what more do I need to say!

Now if you add that you can communicate to your clients and customers on a regulary basis in an imformed way, just think about how your reputation will grow and because it is viral, candidates can easily forward referrals and ontop of this you can be found via the web as a free recruitment advert.

No if you are looking for a new job then I suggest you also read Andy´s excellent article “The ten commandments for job seekers”

So if you haven’t signed up, what’s stopping you?

Well not a bad offer, but a real one none the less.

Although Smuz had a mention in one of the recruiter magazines, I some how managed to miss the article. So lucky for me that Paul Pickthone the MD decided to make me aware of his product via a comment made on the post about SimplyHired.

What made me want to get in touch with Paul was because his product is uniquely different and works in tandem with SimplyHired and other similar sites. The huge difference is that his has a free cv database and more importantly for those who do not have an xml feed, you can load vacancies manually to smuz, very handy if you are not a programmer like me!

There is an American feel to the site when you set up an account, but rest assured Paul is in fact English and is an ex recruiter, it´s just that he is now living in the States and fortunately for him SimplyHired and Indeed now target the UK and therefore so can Smuz.

So I suggest if you have not opened an account already then you should, one because it is free and secondly it will help Paul develop the UK, because if we help him succeed we reap the benefits.

It is worth noting that the UK cv database is still small, but the more people who know the quicker it will grow of course.

Well Simply Hired has finally launched in the UK, not wanting to give too much of a head start to Indeed of course.

For those who do not know SimplyHired is an aggregator of Jobboards or any jobs that can be found by an xml feed and is an area that appears to be neglected by recruitment companies, particularly by those looking for free advertising.

I have to admit it is an area I have not tested, but when it comes to aggregators these are two of the biggest players.

So how do they make their money? Quite simply from Google adverts and payper click promoted vacancies. It is difficult to judge whether they will succeed in the UK as it is still early days, but they hope to compound on their success in the States. I believe they can make inroads on the likes of the generalist job boards such as Monster and Totaljobs, but their weakness is the lack of a cv database, giving the jobboards the pitch “let the vacancy find you” or something like that!

Still for a small recruitment company if you combine SimplyHired with linkedin, you then have the means to get candidates for free. The key to all of this is the ability of the aggregators to attract candidates and by having all the vacancies advertised in one place will be attractive to some candidates I am sure.

Another huge advantage with the likes of SimplyHired is that bloggers like myself can advertise relevant vacancies to our readers, like what I have done with indeed to the right of this blog post. This enables relevant vacancies getting in front of passive candidates, an alternative to Google Adwords and is something I tried with a huge success some time back.

So for me Simplyhired is a great way to get your vacancies found with out the huge costs associated with the job boards, and if you do want to spend more then there is the pay per click option which lets you pay for relavant candidates, a little like recruitment “Only paid on results!”

Since writing this post Jark contacted me, saying they did not write the advert and that it was a disgruntled employee, of which we have all had them at one time or another. What was interesting is that it just shows you how careful you need to be when it comes to the Internet, not just from a candidates point of view with facebook and the likes but what the client put up on the net.

On top of all this it is disappointing that www.gumtree.com leaves these vacancies on their site since August, not only that they should be aware that the ad was illegal in the first place. I decided to leave the post as to show what actually happened to give the post its full context.

I bet that raised a few eyebrows, I have to admit I just had to show case this advert. It was advertised on the 24th of August, their only excuse is it must have been in 1996 when the company were established, even then it was illegal if I remember rightly.

But my gut feeling was it’s some rookie that joined www.jark.co.uk and knows nothing about recruitment advertising, mind you surely everyone knows about sexual discrimination.

Now as my inquisitive nature was sparked I thought I would try to find this chap or chapess on linkedin! I then had my next surprise, would believe that a company turning over in excess of £40 million and 150 employees there would be one recruitment consultant, trying to push the boundaries of recruitment using probably the best business networking site on the planet, wouldn’t you!

Oh well I will leave you to read the advert below and postulate, how on earth someone got away with such and advert.

Also I have highlighted some of the best mistakes and just for your information, the only employee at the time of writing was the Technical Director on www.linkedin.com

Trainee Recruitment Consultant

Hi and thanks for your interest in this ad.
Jark Recruitment in Maidstone are looking for a bright and intellegent female to join our team as a trainee.
The successful candidate will be given full structured training in all aspects of Industrial Recruitment including canvassing clients, business development, client visits, skills matching, job placements, after service etc.
To be considered for this role you must have a strong determination to build a career within recruitment, be of strong character and hold a willingness to learn.
Key skill/attributes required are:-
Excellent communication Skills
Ability to Sell
Organised
Determined
Strong character
Analytical
Confident
Presentable
You will be cold calling and visiting prospective clients across Kent in order to promote and sell JARK staffing services. Therefore you must be confident to speak with people at all levels.
Once you are fully competant within this role, the opportunity to progress to Recruitment Consultant will be offered.
This is an excellent opportunity to join the Uk`s fastest growing recruitment agency.
Applications should be sent with covering letter, a picture and your salary expectations to jstephenson@jark.co.uk
Many thanks and good luck!

When you think of all the fuss about facebook and Jobster, Linkedin have quietly reached its 1 millionth member. Still this should be no news to readers of this here blog, whom I would expect are all members by now.

Thinking ahead I can see Linkedin slowly but surely having a major impact on jobboards, particularly the likes of Monster and Totaljobs who have been so dominant in the industry for the past few years, again no surprises to those using them.

There are many consultants in the UK that now use Linkedin exclusively, which when you consider 1 million equates to 1 in 60 people in the UK are members it isn’t surprising!

So well done Linkedin and I look forward to new applications and more members.

As I cannot do much else but surf the net, I did manage to come across some good video recruitment advice for job hunters on an Australian Job board, called CareerOne.

They have a series of videos covering core subjects such as “Resigning” “how to get a pay rise” and “how to deal with us recruiters,” which I had to embed below. You can also watch the others by following this link.

The videos are short and to the point and star Kate Southam, whose blog can be found here 

All in all I thought this was an excellent job board, from which I am sure many of the UK and US job boards could learn from.

I cannot completely confirm this as I picked it up from www.virtual2.co.uk, what is interesting is why on earth has it not been mentioned on their site!!

Not only have TMP not mentioned it, two of their clients KPMG and Yell who are supposed to be involved on the TMP island, have not mentioned it either. 

Also to register for the event you need to follow this link www.i-jobsforreal.co.uk which has no information posted either.

So TMP how about a heads up on what’s going on?

Stop Press the link www.i-jobsforreal.co.uk now works, so its for real, pardon the pun!

I have to say I am a bit late with this one and I completely missed Reed’s launch of Jobcast on the 3rd,that’s what happens when you take a holiday I suppose. The only reason I spotted it was thanks to youtube, the beauty of viral marketing.

So having now popped over to Jobcast you cannot help be impressed, their promotional  video is excellent and the BBC’s recruitment video appears to be the first to take up their offering, not surprisingly I suppose!

I have to admit that I am not convinced video job portals will succeed, but as it is part of Reed if anyone can make it work they will. I remember many years back when Reed came into the jobboard market, many didn’t think they would succeed and many agencies were skeptical in using them, not only did it work I have even placement the odd candidate from them too, not bad for free a free advert with a competitor.

This is no longer up to date, but I have now implemented Indeed on Recruitment Views where although there is a cost of $50 dollars it does go in some way to support Recruitment Views, also you get the added benefit of having you vacancy exposed here and across the Indeed network, just follow this link to Recruitment Jobs

What I have always tried to do with this blog is help Recruitment Professionals by passing on my experience, which I have gained over the last 20 years and more recently keeping you informed with any new developments that I thought would be of interest or may help you grow your business.

With this in mind I wanted to give Recruitment Companies an alternative to advertising in the Recruitment Magazines, Job Boards, or using Rec2Rec or head hunters for those hard to find Recruitment Consultants, by giving you the ability to advertise on Recruitment Views, to attract from the 1000′s of passive recruiters who read his blog each month. More importantly it is free of charge, well at least in the short term, unless you want to buy me a beer of course!

So if I have caught your attention and the idea of reaching passive candidates interests you, but not for recruitment consultants, then you may want to consider reading my article on using Google Adwords to find candidates, as I have documented my success with my previous company.

Finally I wanted to highlight one of the first vacancies to be advertised on Recruitment Views by CRM Appointments for a Recruitment Consultant in Manchester or you can advertise for free by clicking the banner below.