skype vs voipcheap
Often Recruitment consultants, in particular new consultancies starting out, ask me what I think of voip and in particular skype. Well in the past I have been very positive with skype, but at times it has let me down in quality of calls, particular with mobile phones, which is no good when you are trying to pitch a client or candidate.
Well a few days ago voipcheap was recommended to me by a friend, he told me he felt the calls were far more superior with voipcheap than skype. What made my look again, was in the same week I was told the same again, so after 3 years as a dedicated skype user I thought I would take another look. I have to say I was impressed with the canvass calls I made, more importantly to mobiles and they couldn’t tell the difference.
Based on this I have decide to move over to voipcheap, it isn’t the end of Skype as I do appreciate their skypein where I have a number that travels with me all over the world, but quality of the call must comes first.
Oh and one other important factor it’s cheaper than skype not to mention that you can have phone to phone as with Jahah.
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Back online
My apologies I have had a few issues with Recruitment Views this week so in case you wondered what had happened, Tuesday I changed the hosting company for my blog. The plan went well ie I backed up the site and tested the new server before the change.
I switched the switch and my site moved with no problems and no disruption, until the the following day I tried to access my admin page to write a post, no luck none of my passwords worked, bugger!
In the end I had to start from scratch wipe the site clean and slowly reinstall all the posts, fortunately all seems to be fine and all I need to do is update the Blogroll and I will be back to normal.
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Recruitment Video not for the UK
Well its Friday and recently it has been difficult to find some funny recruitment videos, but this did make me laugh 
Mind you I would be interested to know if they would get away with it in the UK, I can just imagine all the complaints to the Advertising Standards committee if it was aired.
I wonder if they got a huge response to their vacancies or did everyone apply for jobs with Viagra!
Mind you I couldn’t see any vacancies in Australia, maybe they have all been filled. .
Tags: recruitment, recruitment video
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Networking for the Introverted Recruitment Consultant
When it comes to recruitment consultants, few of us are introverted but I still remember the days when I was too scared to pick up a phone, mind you I still have days like that now 
In many ways my shyness has always helped when it came to getting information out of clients and candidates, as they never felt threatened. What is important to know is you can overcome this as Rod points out in The Business Pundit where he has covered 8 points, which helped him deal with his poor networking skills due to being introverted.
- Networking is an investment, not a nuisance.
- At first, you have to kiss a lot of frogs.
- Don’t spend too much time on it.
- Do cool things.
- Invite people to lunch.
- Go regularly to things you like.
- Analyse your results.
- Find the key nodes in the network.
- Don’t network just for the sake of networking.
All the above points are excellent but I wanted to mention two things that had a fundamental effect on me, because when I started out I was also very shy and introverted, yes I know it is hard to believe!
Firstly I recommend you read a book called “how to make friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie. Out of all the self-help books I have read this has had the most influence, and is the only one I can still remember 20 years on.
Secondly be passionate in everything you do, you do not have to be an expert but show a genuine interest. I learnt early on in my career that not being able to converse in football put me at a fundamental disadvantage, when it came to conversing with my peers, I also found it was a great opening conversation with strangers, Athletics never had the same effect.
Networking is never easy no matter if you are introverted or not, but these tips from Rod should make it a less painful experience.
To read more on Rods post follow this link
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Company Espionage!
I was reading an interesting article tonight on Forbes.com in regards to recruitment ads at Google.
What fascinated me is after all these years of reading recruitment adverts it never really dawned on me that anyone else read them apart from us recruiters, looking for a lead or a candidates looking for a job. It now appears others are using them to get the inside track on the next key developments within a company.
I have to admit although it is obvious, I had not really thought of recruitment advertising in this way before but it has opened my eyes to the amount of unique and classified information we are aware of, which can be very valuable to a stock market trader or a competing company.
When you think about it we are privy to some very useful and often confidential information coming from all directions, such as a director wanting to recruit a sales manager to spearhead a campaign for a new product to be launched, or a disgruntled employee leaving due to lack of confidence, we have all heard “I can see the writing on the wall” I am sure.
Looking back maybe I could have been smarter with this insider track, then again when I think about I did take advantage on more than one occasion.
So all in all we humble recruiters have a unique perspective on an organisation that others may not be aware of.
The next thing I will hear is recruiters being hired to do corporate intelligence!!
Tags: recruitment
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No Candidates No Vacancies No more Excuses
Well it has taken me some time to write this review for many reasons, partly because I couldn’t look at a computer for a week or even find time to read my feeds, still no more excuses!!
One subject that is dear to my heart is new business well maybe dear is overstating it, who likes new business after all. What is true I have the ability to build a division or market from scratch, which is very satisfying and rewarding of course.
What makes it so difficult is the gathering of canvas material, in the past it was a case of cutting up recruitment ads from newspapers and magazines and sticking then to pieces of card, which is still a good system today. What I do find tedious is the routing through directories for telephone numbers to call, no amount of coffee could keep me awake at times.
One of the real positives about writing this blog, is I need to be more aware of the recruitment industry as a whole and keep abreast of the various tools that become available. While doing this I came across Broadlook technologies and having looked at zoominfo, which although had its advantages I could not see it working in the UK, even with all the hype, so as a result I was not expecting my view to change.
So the demo was booked and again as I sit here, I can only remember one part as it just blew my mind, to the point if another recruitment company ask me to start a division from scratch it has to include Broadlook. I know this is a strong statement but when I think of the hours I have spent compiling lists of contacts form directories such as Kelly’s or Kompass in particular Applegate, I would run a mile if I had to compile my own list again.
Why was I impressed, well when the broadlook sales rep asked me which directory I use, I thought Applegate, superb but useless, in regards to the effort to extract data. So I directed the rep to my last painful experience, Engineering companies in the UK. The sales rep unleashed Broadlook and in no time at all the software read the company list, found the contact details and if the companies had a websites it happily went of to search for contacts within those companies, while I slept ready for me to load into my recruitment software the next morning.
I know this may seem a blatant plug but I was blown away, I know there are other spidering software products, but this is dedicated to our industry. So if you are about to launch a new division or have consultants who are complaining they do not have enough candidates or vacancies, then now they have no excuses and more importantly as a manager you can keep them busy!
So I apologies for the plug but when I think of the pain I could have saved I thought this was worth sharing.
Tags: recruitment software
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Another Poor Recruitment Ad
Just a quick post as this Engineering vacancy caught my eye on Monster. I know my spelling is atrocious let alone the Grammar, but still it is Friday so I copied the ad and left out the names to protect the innocent, mind you it was quite a large recruitment agency none the less.
Apart from mocking the spelling, I have to admit I am really inspired to apply for this job.
Sales Manager-Sales Manager-Sales Manager-Engienering
UK-MID-Midlands - East/West and South
I am looking for sales professionals who possess experience of Special purpose machinery, automation or capital equipment within the West Midlands for various positions. If you possess a proven track record within an engineering company and can demonstrate your technical competence with engineering principles then I would like to hear from you.
Salaries range from £25 - £40,000 and encompass covering the midlands region for sales and marketing enquiries.
I have changed my mind, I will mention the company it was Huxley Associates, come on you can do better than this, surely!
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Jackie Chan in Recruitment Video
Now this has to be a must see recruitment video, with Jackie Chan persuading recruits to join the Los Angeles Police force. Well I am sold and if any one has a clip, let me know.
Jackie Chan helps police recruitment drive
Jackie Chan has agreed to star in a new recruitment campaign by the Los Angeles police.Chan wore a police uniform, and appeared alongside Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca in Monterey Park to publicise the new initiative, aimed at encouraging more Asian-Americans to enter the force.
The veteran martial arts star was made an honorary sheriff’s deputy during the ceremony and said he is always willing to promote police campaigns.
Thanks to the The Star online for this piece of news
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Ironic!
You put 20 years of devoted service to your employer then they take you to court over a retirement gift they actually gave you. Sometimes life sucks, I wouldn’t mind but its the tax payer that will have to pay the costs of such a ludicrous waste of time.
Just to put you in the picture former Chief Inspector Brian Seaton received a Swiss Army Knife as a retirement gift, after more than 20 years of service. He takes the knife on holiday as he is on a walking holiday, obviously it doesn’t get through security but when he pops into the police office to collect on his return (after all it has sentimental value) he finds his former colleagues want to caution him, 9 months later and costs of up to £10,000 to the tax payer the case is finally seen for what it really is.
You would think after working for 20 years for any employer you would try to settle amicably.
You can read more on this story in the Mail
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Another Job Board for top 10 Blog
Since I first mentioned Blogs having their own Jobboards, there seems to be more and more entering the arena. The latest is with another favorite blog of mine Lifehacker, who have just anounced theirs. In their case they are using Job Thread rather than Simply Hired (Job-A-Matic).
I am all for using blogs to find passive candidates but I can see this getting messy for recruiters, with so many choices. Still at $25 for a 30 day post with Lifehacker, isn’t a bad deal when you consider the exposure you will get.
For me I still like using Google adwords as there is more control and more importantly I do not need to work out which blogs I need to advertise on, as Google does that by picking up on key words for your industry, still time will tell who will win.
What I did like about JobThread over Job-a-matic is that the vacancies are world wide which, in my opinion is a must, as these blogs have an international reach.
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