Linkedin is of course a fantastic tool for recruiters, but unfortunately not every company will be listed in your sector, even though that may be hard to believe!

Saying that recently I needed to top up my contacts within a certain sector and when you need to start a new desk or division from scratch, working through Yellow pages, Applegate or industry lists can be hard work, particularly if you are looking to get all your contacts into your CRM database.

Last week I decided to search the web for some software that could do this for me, having experienced using broadlook in the past I was sure I could find something just as suitable. As a result I came across Mozenda which is a less expensive alternative and if you are working a niche market without too many companies, you could get most contacts done for free.

Having used both systems I found Mozenda to be perfect when you just want to scrape a specific website for names, addresses, telephone numbers and emails, it takes a little time to set up but when working it just fly’s through the lists, then it is just a case of downloading in excel and then uploading into your CRM of choice, no more cutting and pasting!

If you want a more sophisticated set up and then you may want to look at Broadlook, which is a lot more expensive but goes beyond Mozenda, in that once it has the contact details it will then go off and find all the contacts within those companies and is known more as a spidering software or a web crawler!

So depending on budget and what you want to achieve, both products are an ideal addition to your arsenal.

I have been meaning to write this for sometime, which may seem strange as I work for Arithon, maybe its because its so close to home.

So as a little introduction Arithon has been developing their web based recruitment software package since 1999, in those years we have seen many changes with the Internet so Arithon has continually changed to take advantage of those developments.

So what has been happening recently? Well at the beginning of the year we have been working tirelessly to create the best possible website integrated package on the market, by not just enabling vacancies to be advertised direct to the clients website, but to allow candidates to up date their own details and even see the progression of their applications, without the need to contact their consultant. The candidates are now be more informed, which happens to be one of the most often cited criticisms from candidates on consultants is now solved!

Saying that for me it gives the consultant more time to concentrating on organising more opportunities.

I could go on more about the fully integrated career website, but to get a real feel it would make more sense to take a look at our first client with their newly integrated website package www.principlehr.ie and below is what the MD said after its implementation

Peter Hughes, Director of Principle hr, was particularly pleased with the increase in accuracy of his CV databases thanks to candidates being able to pro-actively update their profile and availability details via his website. He commented, ‘With Arithon’s Integrate solution in place I have found that my consultants make fewer calls to establish candidate availability, and are able to forward CVs to clients a lot more quickly when a vacancy is received – it gives us a head start. This helps us deliver a better service to our clients, and improves our chances of a successful placement.’

On top of this and with all the buzz from Linkedin and Twitter Arithon can now announce that both are integrated within Arithon, although more still needs to be done with Linkedin, but the beta version certainly makes it so easy to download cvs directly into the database with one click without even visiting Linkedin!

With Twitter you can advertise vacancies directly from within Arithon once again making Arithon one of the easiest recruitment software packages on the market place, if you don’t believe me test it out yourself on the demo version or even call me direct on 0161 408 0505.

Yesterday I came across a couple of really handy applications, particularly for those of us who have two computers and if you like me decide to work from home in the evening, only to realise one key graphic or a document is on the office computer, then Syncplicity or Logmein could be for you.

I know I have gone on about backing up data in the past, which is one of the reasons I loved Arithon but these two handy application are for those of you not using Arithon or in my case, everything else!

To be honest rather than give you an appraisal of the software you can download them for free or watch their videos. What I will say and why I was keen to recommend them, was for the huge struggle I had to set up a home office network, maybe it didn’t help that one computer was on vista and in Spanish and the laptop operates on XP! In the end I gave up, but on Saturday I tested Logmein and within a few minutes I was able to finally connect to the other computer. So now there is no need to get up from the couch, a huge relief as I am still suffering from a back injury from a run I did a few months back.

It just now leaves me to tidy up the computers, its amazing the mess after just a few months!

OK I maybe a bit behind the times when it comes to getting my email on my mobile, compounded by the fact I was waiting for the new iphone 3g I can finally say after nearly 2 months of pestering the local store, I finally have my hands on my new web enabled phone.

After about two weeks of playing with it I thought it was time to make a few comments on how it has changed my life, that may sound a little over the top but true.

For the first time in quite a few years I finally find that I am not chained to the computer or have that feeling of being a fish out of water if I cannot get the laptop connected to some wifi network. I have to admit it was a huge relief, I think if you work from home or self employed it is exasperated.

Just over a week ago I wanted to take my wife out for lunch, well we did just reach our 20th wedding anniversary and no kids around, but for the first time I didn’t feel guilty not letting anyone at the office know, because the office was with me at the restaurant. I could relax knowing if a call or an urgent email came in, I wouldn’t miss it and Conchi wasn’t too upset either!

Carrying on with this freedom I find myself able to check and delete emails when I am not in the office and there is no need to boot the computer when I am, so at weekends or evenings I can just have a quick look to see what has arrived and deal with it there and then, my inbox has never been so up-to-date!

On top of this there are a number of applications that can help a recruiter be more efficient, not just the fact that all your outlook contact database is available to you on the phone, you can keep tabs with your linkedin contacts, read cv attachments, set up interview dates, track that hotel or client offices with GSP and Google maps, very handy when you are walking round London completely lost, check out the clients website before you arrive and for you fellow bloggers with wordpress you can even update your blog on the move.

On top of all this it is Skype enabled, what else could one need.

I do not know how this compares to the blueberry, which I know many of you have, but I have been blown away with this.

One thing I have always tried to do with Recruitment Views is to pass on any tips to save you money and this post is one more, which I hope you find useful.

When it comes to setting up your own recruitment company, apart from recruitment software you will also need to buy a Microsoft Office suite or an alternative for opening and reading those cvs, but with a price tag of £329 for the Office Standard Edition, it can put a dent in those set up funds.

Obviously there are ways to get around this, like borrowing a friends disk, downloading an illegal version or even paying for it with your credit card. But the other day I cam across an alternative via my web hosting company www.fasthosts.co.uk, where you can get a legal version of Microsoft Office from £4.99 per month, more details can be found here. OK it is rental but at least you can get up and running before you need to fork out £329, and if you combine that with a 3 months free trial from Microsoft you can spend the savings on some advertising or a coffee machine for the office.

Now if you still want to pay nothing and do it legally you can always go with www.openoffice.org and combine that with Thunderbird a good alternative.

Why is it whenever you go on a company visit or out interviewing, there is always an urgent call to cancel or arrange an interview and you haven’t the candidates or the hiring managers number.

OK I could have one of these new Internet phones or a Blackberry or even the trendy I-phone, but there was none to be found in my stocking on Christmas day! Although I did get the new I-Pod Nano, so I could finally take my music with me. Yes I have to admit I have been a bit slow here, but that’s what comes from working from home.

Anyway to my surprise when I hooked it up to my computer, I found it synced with my Outlook contacts and diary so although I cannot pick up my emails at least I can find that urgent number without having to phone the office.

Mind you I am sure some companies will feel uncomfortable with this with data protection and all, but none the less a cheaper option than having to buy a Blackberry and the associated network charges.

It’s been a few days since my last post, which was mainly due to having my right hand in plaster, fortunately that will be removed on Monday and I will be able to get back into the swing of it again. My other excuse is I have been working hard on the production of my first ever video demo for Arithon’s recruitment software, which you can watch below via youtube or follow this link to see a larger and clearer version.

I have to admit it hasn’t been easy to put together, and it is still far from perfect, but I have been promising to do this for sometime. With the hand in plaster, it was a good excuse to take some time out to finally put the task to bed. So I am happy for any criticisms to help improve the presentation.

What I did find funny was yesterday a competitor tried to attach a link to their recruitment software video from within the comments on my blog, what depths some people will go to!

As you may or may not know I am keen on VOIP, although at times quality can drop. Still I couldn’t survive without my skype number for so many reasons. The most obvious of which is, I never miss a call and generally I will know who is calling. You just cannot rely on virtual receptionists these days, as they never seem to want to answer the call!

Still last week I got the latest upgrade and I was finally pleased to see that they had implemented the call transfer feature, an absolute must when you have more than one in your company or you finally have a new recruit.

I was in two minds about writing this post as I sell recruitment software, still I was a Recruitment Blogger first, so honesty should win me a few more friends!!

This post was inspired as a result of a comment on UKrecruiter forum by Mark of Project House, in regards to Recruitment Software. What caught my eye is he mentions Google Desktop for searching candidates. A concept I had not thought of before. So before I tested it out, I spent some time searching for any free recruitment packages on the web.

Obviously it was difficult to find, because who in their right mind would give it away for free, still I managed to come up with one company called chameleon-i who offer the first user licence for free, but you will still need to pay for some add-ons and of course extra users.

As an alternative I wanted to test out Google Desktop as mentioned by Mark, so yesterday I downloaded the application and let it index my computer. Whether or not you use this application for recruitment, I will still recommend it because on a personal note I found it a very useful tool. What I particularly liked is how it integrates with outlook or thunderbird to find messages with ease, in all my folders and even on my gmail account. I have to admit I hate spending 10 or 20 minutes looking for an email, when all I can remember is their first name or just part of the conversation, or am I just getting old ;) .

So if you have a database of a few thousand cvs and want to find a sales engineer in Manchester, then Google Desktop will do it. There is also a nifty preview screen of the cv, saving you the need to open the document. Then just attach the cv as a contact in Outlook, which you down loaded for free with an email account at Fasthosts and you have a fully functioning free recruitment software package.

To be honest it isn’t the most ideal scenario but it will get you up and running on a limited budget. On a personal note I still would prefer to pay the £50 per month to Arithon, but then again I am biased. The reason is that by using a recruitment software package that has been developed exclusively for Recruitment Consultants, over a number of years will save you time and money, because you will get your candidate in front of the client faster than your competitors. Which is what its all about at the end of the day.

So to finish with a small sales pitch, which I had too do after passing some fee leads to our competitors!!

Isn’t Arithon free, if it saves you between 1 and 2 hours a day?

I will let you make that decision.

After my recent computer crash, which seems to be at least twice a year at the moment, I thought I would revisit the subject of “backups” something that is critical to recruitment or any other business of course.

In the past I would have backed up my data on CD’s, which was never as often as I should have, and I always managed to lose some data. (It is also worth noting that CD’s have a limited time date, as they degrade).

One of the advantages of using a web based recruitment software package is your resumes and contact details are backed up off site automatically, so if your computer crashes you can always work on someone else’s while its being fixed.

Whatever the case you still need to back up those contacts and cv’s off site, and the best way without an ASP recruitment package, is to use a virtual server or an online backup system.

Fortunately the prices are now coming down, which I am sure is reflected by the number of competitors there are, you may want to visit Mashup for their recent list of 80+ File Hosting sites they have compiled. 

Over the last 8 months I have been using www.box.net, which is free up to 1 GB and has an easy interface, where you can drag and drop your resumes onto their server. More recently I have been using Omnidrive which integrates into your computer so you have a virtual harddrive, but unfortunately they do not do automated backups. 

So before I finally wrote this post I wanted to find a good alternative and after checking out a few sites I finally opted for Crash Plan, it isn’t expensive and you get a 30 days free trial, which always helps. What I liked about their offering was its simplicity in its setup and they give you an option of backing up between computers, such as one in the office an one at home, without the cost of having to pay for a server application if you do not want it. Still it certainly saves you having to remember to take your CD home! In addition it does automated backups and at times to suit you, which makes it the real winner.

Which is the best offering, well that is a little difficult to say, particularly as I have not checked out the other 70 odd, but I do like the 3 I mentioned earlier for different reasons. At the end of the day it will come down to cost, but so long as you some kind of backup off site, then you will be able to sleep at night if someone steals your computer or it decides to give up on you.

One final thought and tip regarding emails, which are just as valuable as the cv’s of course and that is to set up a imap account rather than the pop3 for your emails, that way all correspondence will be saved on a virtual server, with the added benefit of being able to read them from any computer with web access. A small thing but in my opinion essential, if only someone had told me about that a few years back!