What has pleased me is that all the work I put into making Recruitment Views successful for this term, has paid off, and now I am at number one position on Google.co.uk and google.com for recruitment tips and would you believe recruitment blog.

Although I may be at number one that could and will probably change, as other sites will continue to try to compete using various SEO tricks, but none the less it certainly made me feel chuffed with myself.

What has surprised me is how few recruitment companies have taken on blogging to generate quality candidates for free, even though I have mentioned it a few times in the past.

To give you an example of how it can work, a couple of years back I was involved in finding welders. Although this was an industry that didn’t appeal to me I was able to generate candidates via Google Adwords, which I wrote about here. What I have not mentioned until now is that I set up another blog at the same time as this site purely for finding welders.

Although I hardly write on International Welder, it generates welding candidates every single day for Indeed.

So if it is something you want to try then I will give you a few of my tips.

1. Get a domain that represents the keyword that a candidate would hunt for, such as welding jobs NB anything with jobs in the domain will probably have gone, so look at alternatives i.e. international-welder.
2. Get a co.uk domain if you are recruiting in the UK and use a UK hosting company, I used Fasthosts.
3. Optimise your site for google, ie include a site map
4. Get quality links to your site, maybe from Recruitment Views, just ask.
5. Update your site on a regular basis
6. Use wordpress as it does most of what you need with some excellent plugins making the process painless.
7. Get free advice using Aaron Wall’s SEO Book
8. Get someone to do it for you and contact Adam Taylor from Brand Attention, whom I can recommend as he has worked with a few recruitment companies to date.

And if you still don’t believe me Andy Headworth is so convinced at Sirona they offer a jobinablog as a package!

I hope this helps but if you want to know more feel free to contact me direct.

It seems not, so I will continue. I was partly inspired by a recent post from Gareth Osborne on “It’s time for a change at the top of recruitment”, because when looking back on my career I was happiest when I was just recruiting. OK it’s fantastic being promoted to Manager then Director, but the heartache of training new young things just to loose your clients was so frustrating, Gareth is so right in how it could be done better.

There is unfortunately an obsession in this industry to recruit young guns to train and promote, when in truth the best are not necessarily the young. How can someone in their twenties give good careers advice to any job hunter or client, as a professional you want to deal with professionals.

I couldn’t help laugh at a recent thread on UKRecruiter “don’t call me mate“, can people honestly believe this is acceptable when it comes to doing business, it almost sums up what some companies produce these days.

The second part in wanting to have a dig, is to name a so called professional company who recently advertised for a European Recruitment Consultant on Linkedin. As it was so relevant I couldn’t help get in touch, knowing how ideally suited I was even though I wasn’t serious in a move. I thought it would be at least worth getting Linkedin and seeing their reaction.

Guess what this company did not have the decency to reply as someone worth Linking in with!

Still I persued the contact just in case the email went missing, on the third attempt I managed to get a reply

Hi Stephen,

Your background is not relevant for any positions we have available.

Rgds

David

Now I maybe assuming here that Robson Taylor fits into this bring them in young and burn them out, I will let you guess, but it certainly strikes me as though they are a company full of their own self importance or was it me?

Fortunately I was not looking for a job, but I cannot help think how short sighted David could be or was David Greenwood just being ageist!

So to finish on one thought;

I had the pleasure of working with a very successful recruiter who billed more business than anyone else at this well known Recruitment Company, but what made her achievement so special was she worked part-time to bring up her children.

While I was at it, I thought I would give the site a complete overhaul.

Firstly I had to upgrade Wordpress, which was a small nightmare last time hence the long delay, but this time it was a breeze as I used the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin from Techie Buzz no problems whatsoever!

Secondly I thought I would change the theme, which is some ways I was sad about but it had to be done and with great regret I had to take away those seductive eyes, which have stared at me for what must have been close to two years.

So out with the old and in with a new template from Brian Gardner, whom I have to say has some of the best designs for wordpress you can find and this one is free, you are just too generous Brian!

So I hope you all don’t find the the change too over the top, while I do some tweaking.

As we are all interested in Linkedin as recruitment consultants, I thought it would be better to have its own post rather than as a comment.

Update After writing this post Andy made a very relevant comment here, which should also being taken into account at a price of $649 it is a bit steep although it is part of another package, resume grabber. The bigger issue I suppose is that it is taking away the whole point of Linkedin and with that should linkedin let scrapping of details be allowed!

Hi

I thought you will be interested to
know that my company, eGrabber (www.egrabber.com), has just
released Social Network Grabber for Excel.

This tool enables recruiters to capture and import all LinkedIn profiles
from LinkedIn search results into Excel with a single click!
There is no programming to do. This tool can be given to admins
and others to help create an initial database of prospects.

The tool automatically opens each individual profile and imports
every attribute from the LinkedIn profile into a column in Excel.
All formatting is automatically and professionally handled.

Recruiters can quickly shortlist candidates and forward the Excel
list to hiring managers. Links within Excel allow hiring managers
to directly access resume. This is a real time saver!

For more information, please visit
http://www.egrabber.com/resumegrabberpro/rg_lidriver.html

Ravel Lee
408-705-1106
408-516-5671
Business Development Associate, eGrabber.com
Developers of resume sourcing tools for 12+ years

I hope you enjoy the video below Andy and have a good weekend.

Something I have talked about a lot is the generation of new business, probably because it was something I have gained a reputation for. You can read some of my tactics here. What I didn’t go into great detail was how to get past the Gate keeper, maybe because I have been doing this for so long I just never saw it as an issue, mind you there is still the odd contact I haven’t spoken to.

The reason why most people find this so difficult is because the client gets inundated with calls, which brings me to an excellent post from Louise, where we get a unique insite on how our clients see us, a must read.

So how do we get past the Gate Keeper, well Emma gives us a few clues and for me it was simple “be professional, make each call unique and never give up” this is the same technique I used to get on to PSL’s.

OK that may be over simplifying, but all I am saying is before each call remember that the client has been called 32 times today why should they speak to you!

Oh and one important fact always smile, they can tell and as Emma puts it “people buy from people”

What can you say to that, well I replied and said pay me a small fee and I will give you a link, at the end of the day Hewitt can afford it and I am still waiting!

So after this disappointing request I thought I would take a look anyway. On doing so I was so impressed I decided to write a small article, lucky them I say.

So dropping the sarcasm Hewitt Associates have put together, or should I say their design company Glass have created one of the best recruitment websites I have seen from an employer for some time. I believe they are worthy of a nomination on NORAS, their site is aiming to pull in  graduates for a career in pensions and Investments management, oh and for you recruiters out their I believe they are looking for about 30 to 40 consultants.

The videos explaining the roles of the consultant is superbly executed and add to the visitors experience, for me the only thing that lets it down is its integration to their CRM software, on which I will have more to say in the next week or so.

So to check it out go to www.hewittgraduate.co.uk  and maybe someone from Hewitt will thank me.

What I will tell you about is an experience back in 1987 as a recruiter, which has helped me turn round a number of counter offers in the past. What reminded me of this was a recent post from Andy “Do the 350 top companies really give a c**p about their employees?”

So whenever I have a counter offer I will remind them why they wanted to leave in the first place, that their company should have offered you this before you had resigned and that there is a likelihood they will be looking for your replacement, and by then you will have missed that Golden Opportunity.

Now if that didn’t work and loyalty comes into the equation, I would bring up my experience of the Coke Cola and Schweppes merger in 1987. I have no idea how many redundancies there where, but I do remember I was suddenly interviewing rep after rep from these two companies, all over the age of 40 many with over 20 years of service and no chance of finding another job. At this point I realised that loyalty counts for nothing and you can be disposed of at a moments notice, in this case instantly.

So yes Andy companies dont give a C**P about their employees, and it will go on happening with no consideration of the implications except for the share price!!

What I like about this initiative is that they want as a group to shout about what is good about recruitment, where candidates can apply to vacancies knowing that the agencies work to a higher standard of practice.

To start with RAN is open, initially, to Scottish-based recruitment agencies but is receiving enquiries from further afield and will be rolling out across the UK as soon as time and resources allow. To be considered you need to contact Ian Tickell on 07816 277604 or Roddy Hammond on 0141 226 2224, or by email to ian.tickell (at) ranjobs.com to be invited to one of their two road shows in May

Monday 12th May 16:00 Clydesdale Bank Plaza, 50 Lothian Road, Edinburgh

Thursday 15th May 16:00 at Clydesdale Bank Exchange, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow

To finish I thought I would include this Quote from Gordon Adam of Head Resourcing, one of RAN’s Founders

“It takes a considerable leap of faith to work with companies that you’ve been in fierce competition with for years.” says Gordon Adam of Head Resourcing. “However, in the best interest of our candidates, our clients, and the recruitment profession we believe that this is the right direction. We’ll still compete as individual businesses, but we’ll be able to better champion the industry by supporting RAN’s aims and objectives.”

As someone who works from home and in one of the best cities in Europe (Granada Spain), I should have the best work life balance of any recruiter. Although on greater reflection working from home does have its drawbacks, you are never away from the office and when I am, the phone redirects so there is no escape!

It is just as hard to get away from the computer and when I do it’s usually for chores like collecting my Daughter from school or being asked to put out the washing, its almost as though they don’t think I do any work at all, but in truth I probably work more hours than if I was in the office, at least at 5.30 you can go home. Mind you as an ex recruiter you would still be making those calls from home, certainly in the days without mobile phones, if anyone can remember that.

I have been working from home on and off over the last 7 years and if I was to say what one thing has made it all worth while, it would be watching my daughters grow up, something many parents miss out on these days.

So I am sure no one out there has any sympathy for me, but at least I don’t get as stressed out as this reporter did for the BBC, I hope his work life balance has improved.

Follow this link for the video courtesy of the BBC, mind you I have seen the odd boss over react a little like John Sweeney in the past!!