Categories
Career CV CV Database Job Site LinkedIN Monster Recruitment Social Recruitment

Irish Jobs Sites – what’s in the bag for 2014?

The recession had a very negative effect on the Irish job board industry. All the job boards are struggling. The number of jobs advertised in the last 5 years is lower than the number of jobs advertised in a single year before the recession. All that is really happening in the jobs board space are sites that really never get any mileage. Most just lack the innovation really. Publishing and marketing a jobs board in 2014 and using the marketing channels of the ’90-es, does not work as well.

Job Aggregators in Ireland

The recession brought aggregators to Ireland. Those have a benefit of a low marketing cost, so the recession suites them. They all work in some or another freemium model. The easy adoption is fuelled by the fact no manual work or investment is required from the employers. It costs nothing so why not? In Ireland, especially in the recession, we learned to like the “free”!

SPAMmers

There isn’t a month that a new Irish aggregator job site isn’t published. As an employer, they email you with the link to their site that is full of jobs. You might even find your own ones, although those might be the ones you had advertised on some job site a year ago. Those sites are usually low-cost web sites with about a penny invested in the design. They usually contain links to their supposedly social media profiles. By clicking on those you will most likely find that they have about 1 (or even not even that!), followers, likes, etc. The one I got today called www.JobsIE.ie – took their ignorance to the new level and didn’t even make the social media profiles they are linking to from their page. All those are the sites bound to disappear in the darkness of the Big Data on the internet. Never to be found by the search engines or the visitors. Their business model is based on spamming the employers and job seekers, with an aim to sell anything on top of their fermium model. Quite often they are passing off as a known job site, in this case, JobsIE.ie sounds like the Jobs.ie by SAON Group. Some employers might be fooled and actually end up paying them thinking they are paying a known job board, with over 10 years in existence.

International Aggregator job sites

The largest international aggregator job site that shored in Ireland is, of course, Indeed.ie. Is it profitable here in Ireland? I am guessing not. Do they care about it? I am guessing not as well. By having their presence in Ireland they are probably using Ireland as the rest of the internationals, paying their taxes here, or .. ehm,… avoiding to do so as to do Google, Apple, and the rest of the US gang here.

What is next for the Irish job sites?

It really depends on how the Irish economy develops in the years to come. If the recession continues, it is unlikely for any new job site to appear, and it effectively means a Status Quo. A handful of the leading sites will still be here, not turning any or turning a minimal profit. The shortage of proper advertising budgets will benefit those scammers and imposters. On the other hand, if the economy turns around, and especially if it does so rapidly (oh how we all wish that to happen!?), the new doors will open. There will be space for innovation. There will be space for the entrepreneurial spirit and new projects to be launched in this space. That is simply because there is no model that actually works well for everyone in the online recruitment today. LinkedIn, we know now isn’t the answer for most jobs. Neither is a traditional job site like IrishJobs. Monster changes so many times lately that I do not know what it is any more (but a CV database)? BranchOut and all those apps sitting on top of Facebook simply do not deliver anything to anyone. We need something new for the future. What do you think it is?

Categories
CV Database Jobs Recruitment

Mapping Your Recruitment

The recruitment has changed dramatically in the last decade or two. The older recruiters still remember the Rolodex and the Filofax. Faxing the CVs to the clients, well it wasn’t that long ago. Computers & internet replaced the paper-based systems. We, recruiters, become more productive and effective. Really? :)

The social networks changed the recruitment completely once again, but that’s not all. The whole other set of technologies are now at the recruiter’s disposal that we couldn’t dream of only a few short years ago. In this post, I will talk about the mapping software.

Mapping Software in Recruitment

How can Mapping Software help your Recruitment?

I was approached by an American company based on a talk I made on the last #TruDublin (The Recruitment Unconference) that was looking to set up in Ireland. They picked Ireland for the most common reason companies pick Ireland when setting up their HQ in Europe. They decided to set up a call centre in Ireland. I wonder if that is related to the staff number they had to promise to get their incentives, but that is another story. Their dilemma was about what is the best location in Ireland to set up. They looked at the obvious choices, as “close to the major Airports” and the usual locations the US multinationals are setting up. They asked me what are the benefits and drawbacks of Intel being in Lexlip, Microsoft in Sandyford, and Apple in Cork?

We looked at what type staff do they plan to hire here in Ireland. We looked at the cost of living, possible buildings they could rent and their availability in the Business Centers and Industrial Zones. Obvious choices in Dublin have been Sandyford, City West & East Point and a few buildings close to Google in the Docklands. Since the staff cost makes a large part of their running costs we looked at other locations in Ireland where the staff costs would be far less than in Dublin. And the move out of Dublin seemed to have a lot of sense. Actually the move away from all the major cities.

Where are the Candidates?

In this whole long-lasting exercise no one ever looked at where will the applicants came from. Where do people that will likely work there actually live? What we did is we have made a Recruitment Campaign in the various media. Mostly online since the IT knowledge was one of the requirements for those jobs anyway. We got plenty of CVs. What did with them I extracted the address of each applicant from the CV and used the location mapping software to show where the candidates are.

The resulting map instantly ruled out most of the country. We simply got no applications miles away from some of the most obvious spots like the Industrial Zones where most of the US multinationals are set up already. And the telesales/support roles we had are not much different than the other companies have.

What we learned is that if we didn’t use the map of the applicants we would have 90% chance to set up in the area with very little or no applicants for any the jobs.

Categories
CV Database Job Site LinkedIN Recruitment

LinkedIn Is A Great Tool For Recruitment

Some people say that LinkedIn is just a job board dressed up in a social media dress. I tend to disagree. In the same time, if you don’t know how to use LinkedIn, I completely understand your frustration. LinkedIn for you really might be just another job board. The fact that some people use it “better” than you, will mean that your applicant’s response will be lower than on any other good job board. Candidates simply rarely apply for jobs on LinkedIn. They do all other things but Apply for the jobs advertised.

The first thing stopping you to hire on LinkedIn is your small reach.

With up to 500 contacts, you are scraping the barrel really. You might as well just leave LinkedIn alone. Depending on the size of your market or your niche, to recruit in LinkedIn you really need to have access to thousands of people. Candidates AND clients.

LinkedIn Premium is a great product for a recruiter. In most cases you will need the “Full Network Visibility”, so the Talent Finder and Talent Pro are the versions you should consider. The Only difference is the double number of inmails you can send at a time.

There are also a number of advocates of using LinkedIn for recruitment without any subscription. I have seen that work, but realistically for a very small number of people. Why? It requires investment in time that a very few recruiters have. Building a network of thousands of very, very targeted contacts is hard and time-consuming.

Here is a live example that shows you the power of your LinkedIn network and reach.

LinkedIn Update Reach

A simple LinkedIn update in the first 24 hours got:
2433 views, 47 likes, 2 comments

Now let’s analyze the views:

  • 789 views are from the 1st connections – people I am connected with
  • 1342 views are from the 2nd connections – people my connections are connected with.
  • 305 views – are from the 3rd connections – and you know who those are by now! 

What this shows us is that my update was seen by more people I am not connected on LinkedIn than those I am connected to. The same goes for the Likes and the Comments actually.

The size of your network and the quality of your update will determine how many “eyes” will you get on it.

On social networks you actually have to behave quite social.

Only if you intend to be successful, that is.

Time is the most determining factor for most people when choosing if to use LinkedIn free or paid accounts. It is a bit like SEO and PPC. If you want to get instant results the paid account is the best for you. If you have been using LinkedIn for years, and have thousands of very targeted people you are connected to you will most likely get away without paying for your LinkedIn account.

Whatever way you decide to use LinkedIn, I can tell you only one thing: LinkedIn is a great tool for recruitment!

Categories
CV CV Database Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment

Enterprise Ireland must think it has a jobs board?


Someone was quite imaginative in Enterprise Ireland and have decided to put an end into the growing problems of Irish start-ups. How to stimulate growth and rapid expansion? If you can hire new staff easily it will help!

To enable this hyper-growth of Irish start-up the Enterprise Ireland have decided to help them do just that – by creating a jobs board! Like his country doesn’t have enough of them. And guess what – vast majority of them are struggling.

its_happening_hereIT’s Happening Here – www.itshappeninghere.ie is the Enterprise Ireland’s answer to the recruitment and staffing problems in Ireland. A job board. But not just like any other job board guys…

Enterprise Ireland is a state-funded company, so they had funds (yours and mine tax pays that) to make it done right. So unlike all the Irish jobs sites that popped up in the last years and failed to get any traction Enterprise Ireland did it very differently. They made sure their job site will stand out!

And it does. One of the features stands out more than the rest actually and it’s the:

Price!

Yes since they are not for profit they can do anything they want with their price. But here is the interesting twist. No, they didn’t make it free to use. Not, that would not really make a good story. They made the job site that is the most expensive!

€500 to advertise a job on Enterprise Ireland web site!

And guess what, they are not even sure if that includes VAT or not. Seriously. I asked. I was told that if I proceed with the registration it will tell me then.

God Bless Enterprise Ireland! What would we be without them…

Categories
Career CV Database Job Site Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency SEO Social Networks Social Recruitment

Recruitment Advertising Workshop

Great Recruitment Advertising Workshop event organised by Stephen Harrington Recruitment Manager: Sales | Marketing | Multi-Lingual @ Allen Recruitment. Here is the original announcement:

When and Where:
Aviva Stadium, Lansdowne Road, Dublin 4 – Vavasour Suite, registration at main reception.
Wednesday 24th April, from 8.45 to 11.30am
Enter via entrance A on Lansdowne Road
Car park is situated on Lansdowne Road

Who is attending?
Confirmed attendees include Jonathan Campbell (Social Talent), James Mailley (Monster), Jennifer Bray Kennedy (TMP), Ivan Stojanovic (Jobsboard.ie), Lynne Rooney (LinkedIn) and many more from many or Irelands best known companies.

The Format
We will run two sessions, in each one there will be four discussions happening at the same time. There will be no presentations, each discussion will be started by the discussion leader but after that, the conversation will go where ever the participants want it to. You can join in at any time by providing details of your own experiences or asking questions. If you find that one discussion is not so relevant to you, you can simply get up and join another one mid-way through!

The agenda:

8.45-9.10 Registration, Tea/Coffee and Pastries

9.10-9.20 Welcome by Brian Cunningham, MD Allen Recruitment

Session 1

Job Boards
When to use job boards, which ones should you use, quality applicant’s v quantity, filtering applicants?
Career Websites
Effectively advertising on your own careers site, employer branding, SEO, getting candidates on to your site
Alternatives to advertising
Searching for candidates directly (Boolean, xray etc), referrals, networking, job board databases
Start your own discussion
This is a break out area where anyone is free to start another topic that is relevant to them!

Tea/Coffee

Session 2


Job Boards
Getting the most from these, how people find jobs on job boards, getting your jobs to the top of the lists
Advertising Master class
How to measure success, getting your adverts noticed, the psychology behind advertising, what we can take from advertising in other industries and apply to recruitment.
Referral’s and Networking
Referrals, Networking, social networks & Talent Pooling
Start your own discussion
This is a break out area where anyone is free to start another topic that is relevant to them!

Well done again and thanks for the Allen Recruitment “cube”!

Categories
Career CV Database Job Site Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Recruitment Consultant job by the SAON Group

Here is a new job for the Recruitment Consultant advertised by the SAON Group (IrisJobs.ie):

Resourcer/Recruitment Consultant

 

Saongroup operates online recruitment websites for recruiters and career seekers across four continents – Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas – and websites live in 29 countries. The Group also includes Candidate Manager, a leading provider of recruitment management software. Saongroup.com has been headquartered in Dublin, Ireland since its foundation in 1995.

In March, Irishjobs.ie and Jobs.ie launched a new service, TalentScout, which in addition to advertising vacancies on www.irishjobs.ie and www.jobs.ie now gives their large corporate client base access to a Headhunting and Candidate Filtering service.

Due to the successful launch and client reaction to TalentScout we are now looking to expand the team and we feel that this position would be well suited to a candidate who is currently employed as a Recruitment Consultant. This is an excellent opportunity to progress your career with Saongroup, a company that is internationally recognised as a Market Leader in the online recruitment space. The role offers an excellent commission and bonus structure with a rapid path to promotion for the right candidate.

Job responsibilities:-

  • Conduct telephone interviews
  • Use innovation in attracting staff to include networking, headhunting, and database search.
  • Post vacancies on all available media and identify new media to source applicants.
  • Manage and filter incoming applicants
  • Create application forms and screening questions
  • Liaise with Account Managers and Sales Manager regularly on progress of open roles

Skills required:

 

  • At least 2 years’ experience in recruitment
  • Expertise in sourcing via headhunting and social media required
  • Human Resources or Business related degree desirable. CIPD qualification an advantage
  • A proven ability to build strong client relationships
  • Tenacity to develop new business, both face to face & on the phone
  • A record of success in a highly results driven environment
  • Track record of achieving monthly revenue targets
  • Great time management, computer proficiency and excellent communication skills
  • Proficiency in using Salesforce or equivalent CRM
  • Experience with applicant tracking systems is useful
  • Ability to work in a fast-paced, rapidly-changing environment
Location Dublin 2 (Dublin Centre, IE)
Payment Not Disclosed
Category HR / Recruitment, Sales – €35k+
Terms Permanent, Full-time
Last updated 15/04/2013
Contact Denise Hannon
Categories
CV CV Database Internet Job Site Jobs LinkedIN Monster Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment Twitter

Monster CV database vs. LinkedIn free Public Profiles

For the most European recruiters Monster used to perform the best as the CV database. The quality of candidates was on average higher than the average quality of the applicant who would apply on a job site in. Monster advertised this as a ‘Passive Candidate’ as opposed to the ‘Active Candidate’. They claimed that a CV is their database represents professionals that are in a search of their career progression (passive) as opposed to the unemployed person who is simply looking for a job (active).

LinkedIn came into the picture and have let anyone create a free personal ‘Professional Profile’ on their site. In the years to come the LinkedIn recruitment social network web site grew at a fast pace and the inevitable has come true – it’s number of users profiles outgrew the size of the Monsters CV database. Each day passing that difference is growing rapidly. LinkedIn is rapidly expanding while the number of CV’s in the Monster’s CV database in most cases does not grow at all.

Monetisation of the CV database

While Monster still uses the ‘old fashioned’ model in selling access to the CV database and charging per certain number of CV’s downloaded, LinkedIn sells you their packages where your credits are number of internal messages in the LinkedIn web site you can send to the potential contacts. Both approaches have their advantages. With a Monster subscription you actually end up with a few good CV’s. That is if you figure out how to use their CV search and do not waste all your credits in the process. LinkedIn on the other hand lets you see far greater amount of candidates. Again it is all up to you if you will find a way how to interact with them and intrigue them to engage with you via that brief message you can to a few them. More often than not a recruiter ends up with nothing at the end of the LinkedIn subscription. No CV’s added to the internal database or any other longer term value.

So Monster or LinkedIn?

There is no clear answer. There is far more recruiters who are proficient in searching the Monster CV database. For them it is hard to go wrong on Monster. LinkedIn recruitment packages have a far greater failure rate. Quite often a recruiter will after the subscription activation ask – What exactly is the difference between the free and this paid account?

There is a third option there as well. As opposed the investment into Monster or LinkedIn, you can also invest in yourself by getting yourself trained into what is mostly referred to Boolean Sourcing techniques. You can teach yourself by reading various resources online, or get the course that will bring you up to speed within a day! The result is that you have the whole LinkedIn opened in front of you without the limitations their recruitment packages are putting in front of you. If you are into the recruitment for a long haul – that is the best route for sure.

Categories
Career CV CV Database Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

Vintavu

Searching for a developer, looking at client success stories I found an interesting video recruitment site. Here is a full case study from a web developer about it.

Client background
Bee Interviewed Limited is in the business of online recruitment. They are innovative and always look for smart solutions to the job portal market. They started a project in which the conventional CV would not play any major role. Instead they wanted to use Video technology to integrate with candidate profile. This would give the employer to see and evaluate a candidate on various soft skills.

The challenges
The need was to develop an interactive platform whereby both employers and candidates have the best solution concerning jobs. The market is flooded with job portals, and it was no easy task to spearhead the competition unless some innovative techniques are provided that result in more effective evaluation of the candidate by employers. A video profile system creation is the absolute solution towards judging ability of the candidate in a more distinct way.

eCeltic’s Solution
Vintavu was developed for creating an interactive job vacancy form for candidates. This web application is to be conceived in its current form as a dynamic site-requiring constant updates both from the seekers as well as the companies. It focuses on the Graduate and Pre-Graduate candidate with career experience.
On the whole the objective of the project is to enable jobseekers to place their resumes and companies to publish their vacancies. It enables jobseekers to post their resume, search for jobs, view personal job listings. It will provide various companies to place their vacancy profile on the site and also have an option to search candidate resumes. Apart from this there will be an admin module for the administrator to make changes to the database content.

Implementation
Vintavu application is the recruitment process to suit the modern jobs marketplace.
Job seekers- Job seeker, who is searching for job can enter the website, they can register and build their resume for free of cost.
Employers – The employer can enter the website & create their own account for free of cost. They can post job & search employee database.
Admin- The full control over the users & their functions

Technology used
.Net, C#, ASP.NET, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, On2 Flix Publisher

The development of job portal benefited in more ways than one.

    • Quick search through numerous candidates and explore their capabilities.
    • Video profiles offer the leading edge to gain insight into candidate’s abilities.
    • Employers content with shortlisted candidates.
    • Short listing the right employee is not cumbersome anymore.
    • Great save on time and money.
Categories
Career CV Database Internet Job Site Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Networks Social Recruitment

Rock bottom quality journalism from Silicon Republic

In the lovely article titled ‘UK tech companies fall behind US in social recruiting – survey

Silicon Republic states:

US companies are ahead of their UK counterparts when it comes to using the web and social media to recruit new employees, new research from recruitment software provider Zartis suggests.
LinkedIn is the most popular social media network for recruitment, with one-quarter of US companies directly advertising job vacancies on the site, compared to 14pc of UK companies doing the same.

So what a Silicon Republic reader is let to believe is? Yes, you have guessed it right, and the title of the article have helped you: UK tech companies fall behind US in social recruiting.

The only fact in the whole article to back it up is that there is more top US companies advertising jobs on LinkedIn than in UK. So the conclusion that the UK companies fall behind US ones is based on the number of jobs advertised on LinkedIn.

The reason this is so sad is that it shows absolute lack of understanding what online recruitment on the social networks actually is from the author of the article from SiliconRepublic. Any recruiter that uses LinkedIn knows well that even the city with the largest number of recruiters in the World on LinkedIn is – guess what? London! The number of social recruitment conferences in London is as well greater (per capita) than in any other city in the world!

The truth is that the UK, as well as majority of the European recruiters know well that advertising jobs is the last thing to do on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a ‘Social Network’ not a ‘Jobs Board’. Making a statement that the UK recruiters are ‘falling behind’ based on the number of jobs posted is just very, very wrong.

The best will be in about a year’s time when the ‘Update’ to this statistics gets published with the update: ‘UK recruiters are catching up with the US’. That will be based on the increase of the number of jobs published on LinkedIn in UK next year. I am guessing SiliconRepublic will not see any connection on the LinkedIn sales staff numbers in UK in the increase of the number of jobs posted next year.

Categories
CV CV Database Internet Job Site Recruitment

MyJob.ie Hacked!

Why hacking a job site?

Job sites collect CVs that contain tons of personal data. When you ring your bank, or a credit card company, they will at some stage ask you for your address. They might ask you for your email address as well. Your landline or your mobile number. All that plus tons of the personal data in contained within the CV. That makes a CV database a perfect tool used for phishing attempts. Note that a person looking for a job is not in the best moments of his life, and hence vulnerable. Receiving a call from someone pretending he is a recruiter who just received a really good CV, when you do not have a job, people will answer all kind of questions that enable scammers to gather even more data that is on the original CV submitted.

Jobs sites get hacked often

In fact, job sites are one of the top types of the web sites that are likely to get hacked. The worst part is that job sites do not get hacked ‘for fun’, for some hacker or a hacking team to showcase their hacking skills, and replace the Home Page with some funny (or not so funny!) message, but for a very ‘commercial’ reason. Job sites never end up showing a hackers message instead of the Home Page, but instead only the data – the CV’s are stolen while the site itself keeps attracting the fresh candidates applications with their fresh CV’s. You can look at MyJobs.ie even right now – it does not say anything on the home page about being hacked at all!

Irish Times has an article today with an interesting question raised in their article of the MyJob.ie being hacked:

“The attackers have already been arrested and a file sent to the DPP. If this is the case, when did the breach originally occur and why did it take so long to notify those impacted?”

Categories
Career CV Database Internet Job Site LinkedIN Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

LinkedIn 2010

The following series of articles I will write about the long list of changes LinkedIn have brought in lately, and how does it all reflect the recruitment process in Ireland. The main topics are:
Free Job Advertising by LinkedIn
Paid Job Seeker Account on LinkedIn
Why Would I Pay LinkedIn?
LinkedIn Future – Advertising Platform

If there is any topic in relation to LinkedIn you think I missed – please let me know in the comments from below, and I will do my best to include it.

Categories
Career CV Database Job Site LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Why Would I Pay LinkedIn?

The service I would gladly pay LinkedIn to do for my today is to do the sourcing for myself. What they did is they have created this wonderful social network, and it is super easy to use, and has so many job hunters on their database. I can use it for free, or I can pay to use advanced features. LinkedIn is really easy to use, and a great product in a whole.

But guess what – I am a busy recruiter. I have no time to spend on web sites. I have my clients and candidates I need to put together to fill roles. So since you have all those nice sourcing tools, and large database, why don’t you do the sourcing for me and I will give you a cut of my placement fee? That is something I would pay LinkedIn to do for me today.

Unfortunately LinkedIn is not jet on that stage of a development as a company. They still think – we are the internet company, we have a web site and charge the usage of it. Just compare it with Google for example. Google was exactly like that years ago. There was just a form to place your credit card details and pay for your Google AdWords ads. All you had to do yourself on the Google site. Today – you tell them what your business needs are, and Google does it all for you. They charge you of course for all that, but they are higher in the food chain now. They work closely with the customer. They look after you. They give you what you need. If you look at the titles of numerous opening Facebook has in Dublin – they are doing exactly the same. Hundreds of Account managers will be available to you.

And where is LinkedIn? LinkedIn is still a few years behind in their business model. They still think they can ask for your credit card without talking to you. They still think they are there to provide tools as opposed an overall service – and just do your sourcing for you.

Categories
Career CV Database Job Site LinkedIN Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

Paid Job Seeker Account on LinkedIn

Dara O’Briain defined how wrong one can be in the eyes of the Irish low as:
1. there is all this stuff which comes under: That’s grand
2. then it moves into: Ah now don’t push it
3. … and finally it comes under: Right now you’re takin the piss, and that’s when the police come in.

LinkedIn is also placing the job seekers in three categories and offering a product for each. If you are looking for a job you should pay different fee based on how desperately you feel:
1. Basic Job Seeker
2. Job Seeker
3. Job Seeker Plus

What those get you is that you: Get noticed by recruiters with a Job Seeker Badge. And you can send some from 0 to 10 LinkedIn messages called inMails to other LinkedIn members.

Large numbers of us Irish feel a bit strange with this public display of interest in another job that you present with your profile on LinkedIn. In the US, people are in fact far more honest on the labor market. The size makes a difference, and Americans are far more mobile within the country. The way we are is we are looking for a job close to where we live. A Cork-man will hardly even contemplate to move to Limerick just because there is a better job there. Americans would move thousands of miles away easily for a better opportunity. So when social media comes into play where you publicly state your intentions (and what you feel about your current employer), we have a problem here. Everyone knows everyone, and have a cousin that knows someone, etc. So the job seekers accounts in Ireland can actually be looked in Dara’s classification as well. This time it is a classification of a job seeker – how badly do you want a (new) job? LinkedIn accounts here should be renamed as:
1. Basic Account (just paying and faking I am not looking!) – I am grand.
2. Job Seeker (coming out aren’t we?) – Don’t push it!
3. Plus- Right now you’re takin the piss, and that’s when the HR come in!

Categories
Career CV Database Internet Job Site LinkedIN Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

Free Job Advertising on LinkedIn

Well, we all know that job advertising on LinkedIn is for most of us, far from free. With a lack of a volume discount that is the industry standard in within job board, LinkedIn actually priced themselves far too high. For that reason, the number of job advertisements sold in Europe was always really symbolic. It was always just a handful US multinationals with jobs in Ireland advertised.

LinkedIn decided to give away free job advertisement to recruiters. They know the ‘First Time Free, Pay Later’ model only too well. Remember, for a number of years, LinkedIn was 100% free to anyone. Only in the last couple years they brought in the paid LinkedIn Recruiter product, than all the different paid types of the accounts as well. The move I personally really never liked – the paid account to the job hunters is now available on LinkedIn. I just never liked asking unemployed for cash, to help them find a job. Regardless if you call it unethical, or just super greedy, in my books it is just bad.

So how will the free job advertising on LinkedIn change the recruiters life?
If you did not get your free LinkedIn job advertising slot – ask for it. There is plenty of Irish LinkedIn staff fairly active on LinkedIn itself, so get connected, and ask for free slots.

When you publish your jobs on LinkedIn, and I will cover that topic later on it this LinkedIn series – How to publish a Job on LinkedIn? You will notice that only a certain jobs in Ireland can be filled via the LinkedIn. Do some research before – since publishing a wrong type of a job on LinkedIn is exactly the same as publishing a CEO job on Jobs.ie (a.k.a Nixers.ie).
But the real problem will actually happen if you do manage to hire via paid job advertisement on LinkedIn. You will want to advertise again – and the far too high advertising price by LinkedIn will stop you.
The only way for recruiters ‘Friendship’ with LinkedIn going forward is if LinkedIn gets a bit smarter and creates a super low cost entry level Recruiter package. To get recruiters used to pay a small nominal fee and upsell from there. The current jump from Free to Paid product for the recruiters is too high for LinkedIn’s product to be considered as a ‘Freemium’ offering.
Would you pay LinkedIn in the PPC model (clicks on your ads to jobs)? YES!
Would you pay LinkedIn in the PPA model (per CV received)? YES!
Aren’t those the super low cost, and tight budget control products? Didn’t that exactly built Google into the largest advertising agency (and platform) in the world in the shortest timeframe possible?
So here is an open letter:

Deal LinkedIn,

Stop taking money from job hunters, and get to business. Just implement the appropriate business model used by all eh market leaders in online advertising –Google and fast growing Facebook. We will all be far more interested to be placed in the control seat, and monitor our budgets in some PPC or PPA model than purchasing an unknown value – Job Slot Advertisement. Your current model is a showstopper. PPC model will be embraced instantly by far larger number of potential customers (recruiters and employers), so instant cash flow, and in the end will also bring in far higher revenue than your job slot or job credit advertising model.

Yours truly,
Irish Recruiter
irishrecruiter@gmail.com

Small note on the article of this article
To write successfully for the web you have to put something extremely catchy in the title. Most likely something that is not really ehm,… true. You need to make sure your title is so intriguing people will click on it to follow the link and land on your article. Hence the title of this article is:
Free Job Advertising by LinkedInAs opposed to what the article is really about:
LinkedIn Have sent a number of free job slot advertisements to a few recruiters in Ireland.
You are far likely to click on something like free job ads by a leading global recruitment social network – especially if you are a recruiter – which this article is for!

Categories
CV Database Job Site Jobs Recruitment

Free Irish Jobs Sites

There is more than a ten of Irish jobs sites that advertise themselves as free Irish jobs sites. Advertising the jobs is free. Some of them would then try to charge if a recruiter or employer tries to engage with the job candidate, and most of them would just send the job applications and CVs for free to the employers as well.

There are a number of business models here – where if an employer wants’ a extra exposure on the front page, he can pay for that. Or banner advertisement are available, or in most case Google AdSense is there on the site to monetise the web site traffic.

Job Aggregators would even go a step further, where not only that the job publishing is free, but they will also take the jobs directly from your job site for you.

Then there is a few dozen Irish jobs sites that are not really advertising that the job advertising is free, but if you ask nicely, you can get your jobs advertised on them for free with no problem. Those are usually smaller and niche web sites that cannot attract enough web site traffic to be able to charge for it. They usually start with a Free Trial for job advertising for all the employers and recruiters. Then they hope the jobs advertised will build the required amount of job seekers on visiting the site that the job board owners will be able to sell that traffic later on. When that does not happen, and it doesn’t in most cases, the pay per click advertising is usually brought on in the form of Google AdWords to try to keep the job hunters visiting the jobs site. When the budget for that is gone – the job site usually turns silently in the free job board – with some sort of monetising the web site traffic like Google AdSense.

The majority of the Irish Jobs sites end up in this category of free jobs sites – simply because they cannot attract enough job hunters to be attractive enough to the job hunters.

How to find where to advertise your jobs for free?

Search for jobs in Google. When you see a web site with no physical address and just a form to fill to contact them, or a mobile phone – you just found a free jobs site. The exception might be only the site owner is still finding it hard to realise that his jobs site is not really head on with the top Irish jobs sites (as he hoped for) but silently become a free Irish Jobs site.