Free Recruitment Software
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.
Bad news for the recruitment industry
Although I was not tempted or found the time to write on my blog, I did try to keep up to date on my RSS feeds and keep my inbox as empty as possible.
One particular email that did catch my attention was a press release from Lisette from www.hirescores.com, which is a site where agencies are scored by candidates. Louise of UKrecruiter wrote about them here back in January.
The press release makes very interesting reading and for me sums up what is wrong within our industry, out of 1074 candidates surveyed 73% felt they had been lied to and 56% felt they had been pressured into going for a role.
I like many of you will not have been surprised with the results, as a Recruitment Consultant is a sales executive and not a consultant, whom like all sales people have targets to hit. The difficulty comes in trying to improve our image and I hope more people get involved with hirescores.com, which I am sure can only help improve standards.
But on another note if I was looking for another role as a recruiter, I would certainly look at the top ten on hirescores if I was considering a move.
You can read the full press release here.
On a Break
Tomorrow I will be away for a week in Madrid visiting family and I am under orders not to take the laptop. How will I survive without seeing who has visited or linked to Recruitment Views for a week, I have no idea!
Maybe I should have bought a blackberry and secretly posted articles while no one is looking, or would I have tempted a divorce.
To be honest I cannot wait to get away as I think this damn machine is sending me insane and a few days will do me some good I am sure, still I think I should have gone to an island in the sun without an Internet connection.
I have to admit though I will not be looking forward to getting through the backlog of emails and RSS feeds, which I am sure will keep me busy when I get back. Unless of course I manage to get a few minutes on somebody else’s computer, while no one is watching ;)
New UK online Video Recruitment Site
Sarah Stimson contacted me yesterday asking if I would mention their new website VlogYourJob, and as she is a fellow UK recruiting blogger, how could I refuse.
Although she says they are the first UK online video recruitment site, I think the lads at jobs2view may disagree, whom I mentioned back in June.
They are both keen to spotlight jobs using video, and they are different enough to help each other out. Sarah’s big advantage is her Headhunting background with Indigored, whom specialise in PR, so I cannot think of a better industry to take advantage of this relatively new medium.
So best of luck Sarah and the team and let me know how it goes.
Jobster desperately lacking
Finally I managed to get to listen to one of Jason’s teleconferences, but only just and on the third attempt. What with the differences in the time zones, and not being able to make it to the UK when Jason was over last, this post/review has been a long time overdue and nearly didn’t happen at all.
I think it was around 12 months ago when Jobster was first looking to break into the UK market and I was almost tempted to join them at that time. Luckily I didn’t, as soon after Jason made his famous retreat back to core values, always a wise management decision, although he was given a hard time when making it so public.
Since then Jobster has been more focused, and as a result they have evolved their product, which now gives a much better service to candidates and clients using technology and social networking.
This change is most obvious on your profile page, as you are fed with much more relevant information, rather than just a few tags and comments from other members about their company. The site is much more informative with many ways to promote you or your organisations impact. I particularly like the the fact that relevant vacancies are now dropped on to your profile, just to tempt you to visit.
Like many I have been watching Jobster’s growth and until now have not paid too much attention, as it was not aimed at the UK market. So with their announcement a couple of weeks back of their launch on to our shores and their recent application for Facebook, I thought I would take a closer look.
I have to admit I have not got to grips with Facebook, maybe that’s because I am over 40, none the less I have an account and proceeded to set up the Jobster application, which I am pleased to say was very easy and seamless. I also took its recommendation to upload ones cv, which is where Jobster falls down. You expect after attaching the cv the boxes on your profile are populated automatically, as in Linkedin. This doesn’t happen and what’s worse you expect the cv to be searchable, but it isn’t, which is very poor.
Although I do like the idea that ideal vacancies appear next to your profile, its a shame that they are 1,000’s of miles away! So when it says improve your profile by putting on a location and you cannot, it’s not a good sign for a company that looking to takeover the UK. It cannot be that complicated to have the regions set at the start, surely Jason.
Next I thought I would do some searching, and suddenly I thought I had found a superb free recruiting resource, as I was able to search for recruiters who may be interested in a role and came up with over 700 candidates, mostly American but that was to be expected, even yours truly appeared (me).
Then it all goes horribly wrong as I start to dig deeper, when I search for candidates who are tagged “recruiter and United Kingdom”, the result was 15 and as far as I could tell nearly all were not from the UK, and what’s worse I didn’t even come up in the second round ”a recruiter and located in the United Kingdom!” What else can I say.
So in the end I really wanted to write a positive review for Jason and Jobster, but when you take away the hype Jobster is hugely lacking, certainly for the UK. I really wanted them to do well, as I believe their goals are good for all clients and candidates and they take recruitment from the Jobboards to the next level.
I cannot think of anything better when it comes to looking for your next career move, and to be able to see who you know has worked for the company and can ask them questions and get honest answers about the organisation. I can see users of Facebook really benefiting from this application, and anything that makes it easier for clients to tap into this resource has a huge advantage. But unfortunately there are fundamental flaws that raise questions and impacts on Jobster’s paid applications for clients in the UK.
So in the end I hope Jason sees my critique, as more of support and exposing areas of weakness that he and his team can improve upon. And if Jason or others want to add to this, I am more than happy to accept comments too.
I should have thought of that!
I am a big fan of mybloglog, a smart idea which got them bought by Yahoo, say no more.
Anyway I have seen a few people leverage the system to get hits to their site with posting logos. Don’t think I didn’t notice you both ”Jason and Chris”, changing your mug shots to logos for jobsinpods and jobster, cute!!
Still that’s not the reason for the post, what caught my eye was cheezhead taking it one step further, so in case you missed his post follow this link on how to take it to the next level, for passive candidates and yes I should have thought of that one.
Need some free leads?
If you are scratching you head because you are under pressure to find some fresh candidates or clients, then you may want to take advantage of this offer from Andy at Broadlook.
Broadlook have just launched a new product called Diver. I am not sure about the name but I get what they mean!! Anyway if you like me and find yourself staring at Google and saying “there must be some leads here somewhere”, but the effort to extract them makes it not worth while, then this little application may help.
With this tool all you need to do is search as you would do normally, then let Diver find the contacts within those results, saving you the need to click each link just to be disappointed. Then with this fresh new list of contacts you upload them to your database, ready to call.
If you want to test it it out then download it here, and enter this code (M21D39301R3318671) for free access, for as many leads and candidates you can find in 3 days.
In addition Andy has asked for any comments to be directed to him at atheimer@broadlook.com, as it is a new application and any views will be appreciated.
Following Cheezhead
I thought Cheezhead post yesterday on what people searched to find his site, made me take a look too, with some interesting searches.
- recruiter placed me at a job i now want to leave
- sexist walt disney
- dead end job
- brain surgeon interviews
- recruiter placed me at a job i now want to leave
- i lied to my recruiter
- irish institute of inkeepers
- what is so bad about recruitment consultants
- how to become a brain surgeon
- how can i break my restrictive covenant and take my clients
Some interesting searches, I wonder who it is that’s looking to steal his companies database.
Mind you I cannot beat Cheezhead’s number 6 jason goldberg is an ass, hilarious.
Broadbean TV whatever next Dan!
Well it seems as though our friend Dan at Broadbean, is putting together some videos to help promote his recruitment job posting tool. I suppose with all that success recently he could afford to buy a new video camera. Mind you a comb would have been my first choice for Dan 
You can visit BroadbeanTV to see the start of Dan’s viral marketing campaign on youtube.
Stop Work Immediately, Dangerous Virus Warning
There is a dangerous virus being passed around electronically, orally, and by hand.
This virus is called Weary-Overload-Recreational-Killer (WORK).
If you receive WORK from any of your colleagues, your boss, or anyone else via any means DO NOT TOUCH IT. This virus will wipe out your private life completely.
If you should come into contact with WORK, put your jacket on and take two good friends to the nearest grocery store. Purchase the antidote known as Work-Isolating-Neutralizer-Extract (WINE) or Bothersome-Employer-Elimination-Rebooter (BEER).
Take the antidote repeatedly until WORK has been completely eliminated from your system. You should forward this warning to 5 friends. If you do not have 5 friends, you have already been infected and WORK is controlling your life.
I just had to post this. It was sent to me by a friend this morning, perfect for a Friday afternoon for those Recruitment Consultants not at the Pub!
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