Social Networking, Blogging, Recruitment 2.0, an all the other buzz words do not mean anything until all those technologies are utilised, and utilised properly. It is actually quite easy to embrace it all, or any part of it, and make absolutely nothing. How many web sites, job sites, blogs social networks or internet projects in all shapes or forms get published and just nothing happens with them afterwards? If you do it, you have to do it right, to make any kind of impact. There is a long list of people and companies trying, and all are in the same race. Only one or a small number can therefore succeed in every niche.
Irish employers have stayed out of all this new way of attracting talent. Irish companies haven’t made much success in blogging or the next step – recruiting via their blogs. LinkedIN and Facebook are used as the tool for the background checking more than what they are built for – for sourcing. Boolean searches, we all tried it and found gems, but very few in Ireland and it was disappointing.
But then it all started changing. And the change started with Declan Fitzgerald – a recruiter form Microsoft who calls himself – The Irish Cyber Sleuth. Declan was brave and jumped heads up into the blogging and social networking. Fairly quickly all his efforts come together with a great result. The result is actually so great that not only Microsoft will benefit from it, but it has far greater repercussions on the whole Irish Recruitment and Human Resources industry. Things will never be the same again. Declan lifted us and made us all think on how we do our business, and in some cases ‘Pushed’ us into the future of the recruitment.
So how did Declan Fitzgerald do it all?
Well Declan did a lot of things, and the result we see today is the combined result of all of those actions. What we have today is:
Blog: The Irish Cyber Sleuth: The Future of Recruitment is in the Cloud
Talking about someone’s blog is just like painting about someone’s music. Read it! It is the most popular Employer recruitment blog in the country for a reason. Here is how Declan describes it himself:
I am passionate about technology and recruitment. This blog is about the intersection of both, keeping an eye on what is happening in both industries in Ireland and abroad and understanding, commentating and theorising about what is happening on the gleam of the knife of recruitment innovation.
LinkedIN Group: Irish Recruiters
Declan made the largest group of the Recruiters in Ireland on LinkedIN. He closely monitors the activity, moderates it and encourages positive discussions. A lot of hard work and it is all paying off not since the group has 852 members today, and not just ‘anyone’ in it.
Tuesday Club
Being such a great networker, Declan knew that he needed to organise the Irish Recruiters to meet physically as well, not only over the Internet. The Tuesday Club is the meeting only for the members of the LinkedIN Group Irish Recruiters. And this is what makes it so good. Only the people who keep an eye on the future have been there. This makes the quality of discussions that Declan organises with the questions prepared up front, on the highest level. We all learned something on Tuesday Club! It is not that often to see people working the Irish jobs sites, multiple job posting service providers, ATS, recruitment agencies and in house recruiters all in the same room in the very open discussion? Recruiters sharing experiences like what jobs site they use for what kind of a position? The timing was perfect for the Tuesday Club. Recession brought us recruiters very close together as the industry. We genuinely want to help each other and care about each other. Even that we might be a competition some times. The ruthless ‘Sales and Nothing but the Sales’ approach we used to have during the past decade grew into a nice and relaxed atmosphere. Enjoyable. Tuesday Club that Declan so passionately organises is just the best that could happen to the recruitment industry in Ireland.
Recruitment Conference: The Future of Recruitment – Part 1:The Road Ahead!
As if the above wasn’t enough, Declan went on and organised a recruitment conference. Ireland has seen a very few of those, and if I remember correctly the biggest so far was the one Marco and his Jobs.ie crowd organised some 4 years in Westin Hotel in Dublin. Declan invited the top heads from the largest Irish recruitment agency and largest Irish jobs site, and some people from Microsoft and LinkedIN. A serious line-up. He asked them to give their views on the future of the recruitment. Declan was brave again since those 4 views should be all going in their separate directions. The Q&A session will be lively!
Declan does not show any signs of tiring actually. The Tuesday Club ended in him making sure everyone knows their input on the topics for the next meeting is not only welcome but expected! He names his first conference ‘Part 1’ for a reason. He already has a plan what will the next one be about and when are the likely speakers.
Well done Declan!
5 replies on “Declan Fitzgerald”
I would be interested to know peoples thoughts on http://www.easyrecruit.ie it is something which has been moderately successful in the UK, but is there a place for it in the Irish market.
The premise is, much of the discontent surrounding recruitment agencies and the traditional operating standards of the industry is associated with the fee’s. easyrecruit.ie addresses this by ‘diluting’ the service offered, thereby reducing overheads etc. In this model there are no face to face interviews and easyrecruit do not manage the interview process.
@ Jonathan – It is a fairly ugly site isn’t it? As a business model it is interesting, but ugly as it is it really is hard to read much from it. Or is that my eyesight giving up on me? :)
Good points Ivan. Site has been redesigned, softer colours etc. Starting to get a few more clients now as well.
Interestingly enough it is not the clientbase I was expecting. I imagined the idea would resinate with small businesses, MD’s and HR staff who were constantly concerned about the cost of recruiting new staff. But it seems to be more popular with larger companies, HR departments that have a handle on their cost per hire and can see exactly how much they are saving.
Please keep the feedback coming and pass on my details to any friends or colleagues you feel this may be of benefit to.
All the best
Jonathan
Recruitment Managers / Recruitment Agencies around the world, dread the following scenario :
Boss ( or Client ) :
” Find me a best sales executive within the next hour ”
Of course, there are thousands of resumes in the hard disk of every recruitment manager, including the resume of that ” best sales executive “ .
Problem is :
It will take 6 days to open / read even a few hundred resumes – let alone a few thousands ! How to find that ” best ” resume in one hour ?
No recruitment manager need worry about such a perfectly reasonable demand !
All she has to do is to download ( free and without login ),
” Resume Rater ”
from almost any website listed on the very first page of Google search-results ( or Yahoo or Bing or whatever ! ).
Then ” rate ” all those thousands of resumes on the hard disk for ” function = Sales “.
The ” best ” sales-executive’s resume will automatically get listed on the TOP of the search results – within a few minutes.
Of course, the Recruitment Manager / Recruitment Agency runs the risk of many more ” reasonable ” demands from the Boss / Client !
Regards
hemen parekh
Jobs for All = Peace on Earth
@Jonathan Is the http://www.easyrecruit.ie still alive? I noticed the About Us page missing, etc?