Category: Jobs

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Blogs Jobs Recruitment

CIPD Ireland Annual Conference 2008

It is a beautiful day today, almost perfect to drive to Lyrath Estate Hotel, Kilkenny, to attend the CIPD Ireland Annual Conference 2008.

Both The Irish Times and the Independent are the highest ‘Platinum Partners’. Meaning you can see the teams of the sales people from both Loazajobs and Irish Times Jobs – doing their best to sell some advertising while mingling with the HR personnel. Wine them, dine them, (a bit of golf on the day like today please!) and sell them your expensive advertising space.

Well done both sales teams of our Irish newspapers on sponsoring the (British CIPD) sales event packaged in the HR wrapping. :)

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Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Irish Recruitment Marketing

If we clearly define and make a distinction between Marketing and Advertising in saying:

Advertising–what Larry Heiman refers to as “Lead Generation”–is the “magnet” you use to attract the customers you want to your business. Marketing is the process you use to determine who and where those people are, what they buy from you, why they buy from you, and how they think. With that information at your command, then–and only then–can you begin to construct the strategic magnet that irresistibly attracts your ideal customers.

The typical Irish Recruitment Agency hires a Marketing Manager. The Job of a Marketing Manager of an Irish recruitment agency is to… ADVERTISE! Marketing manager manages the advertising budget, typically spent on the Irish Job boards, and the print, radio, beer mats, bus shelters, LUAS, cinema, bank machines, taxi, airports and other visual advertisements.

The closest the Marketing Managers of the Irish recruitment agencies ever get to the real (Internet) marketing is when they ask the job boards to supply them with the ABC approved figures, that show the number of the visitors per day, their geography, and so no. Anyone who has ever seen the two of the such reports from different Irish Jobs Boards knows that you simply cannot compare one with another. And if you try to reach some conclusions from those reports – it is in clear disparity with what you see yourself online.

The Online Marketing Manager of an Irish Recruitment Agency should know the answers to the following questions:
1. Who are our clients (employers) looking for, and expecting us to deliver?
2. What internet recourses do those candidates use?
3. Who is advertising on those web sites (or online software like Skype for example)?
4. How likely is it that an advertisement is going to be seen on the web page where it is advertised?
5. How likely that the advertisement will result in a ‘click’, and wring a job hunter to our web site?
6. What is the cost per application from each of the web sites where the jobs are advertised?

As opposed to the above, the typical Irish Marketing Manager of an Irish recruitment agency is interested in and managing:
1. What Job boards to use and advertise on?
2. How many jobs can be advertised there (number of job slots)?
3. Are our jobs ‘seen’ in the searches on the job boards ‘high enough’ – or down below thousands of other advertisements?
4. Can we reduce the rates paid to the job boards (or increase job slots!)?

We all know that people use the search engines more than job boards. In fact, the job boards get the vast majority of their visitors from the search engines. In the same time the Irish Recruitment Marketing Managers are totally oriented and dependent on the Irish Job Boards as opposed to the search engines. The only exception is Google AdWords that most of the agencies have trued using, but were simply outbid by their own money they invested in the Jobs Boards, who simply outbid them.

An Irish Online Marketing Manager of the Recruitment Agency should think on how to put his advertisements on the web sites that are being visited the most. Google.ie is on the top, for a long time now. Why is there not a single recruitment agency on top of the search results for the phrases job hunters use to find the jobs? Simply because the Marketing Managers have got the wrong job description. They should not manage the advertising budget, but monitor what job hunters use, and where they can be ‘surprised’ with the advertising message.

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Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Recruitment Process – Getting the Right Candidate for the Job

Larry Heiman wrote a nice blog post: Recruiting is a Marketing Task
Here is the part where he explains the Marketing processes applied to the recruitment, and sourcing to help you find that right candidate for the your jobs:

As an enlightened business owner, you understand the importance of doing market research on your prospective customers. For example, you want to know where they’re located, any common characteristics they may have and, ultimately, as much as possible about how they think – their needs, wishes, and motivations. The goal, of course, is to refine your ability to effectively and efficiently target your message to those with whom you most want to do business.
Well, you may be surprised to learn that this wisdom equally applies in seeking prospective employees. In fact, marketing for customers and marketing for employees address the similar four key questions:
• What is my likely trading area? (Where are my likely employees located)?
• What is my product? (What is the position?)
• Who is my “ideal customer”? (What are the qualities of my “ideal employee”?)
• How can I best attract their attention?
Even when you are feeling the pressure to quickly fill an unexpectedly open position, you’ll save yourself a lot of grief if you take the time in advance to get very clear on the answers to those four questions.

In the Irish market – that is dominated with the recruitment agencies advertising on the job boards and the traditional media, would you see such model as a ‘workable’ one? The most agencies will try to get the candidate who is slightly overqualified, to impress the employer with a quality of the CV. Also they try to match the same role title – of the past and the future role of the candidate.

So in a sense – the recruitment agencies her in Ireland do all the opposite to what Larry is suggesting above.

I personally like the marketing processes applied to the recruitment model. I can see it work beautifully, especially with the lower level jobs in Ireland.

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Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine

LinekdIN Recruiter

LinekedIN has a really slow take-up in Ireland. Irish recruiters are only recently being less ‘glued’ to the traditional job boards like Irish Jobs, and started embracing into the modern recruitment methods. LinkedIN is the most common place all the recruiters went to in a search for a new candidates. The problem that happened is that at some stage every second Irish LinkedIN member was a recruiter! :)

The US corporate started publishing the jobs in Ireland. Up until the end of 2007, there was a handful of jobs advertised in Ireland in LinkedIN only. Today that number grows higher. For example today there is 37 jobs advertised in Ireland in LinkedIN. A closer inspection will reveal that almost a half of those jobs are not necessary based in Ireland actually. Compared to the Irish jobs boards that had tens of thousands of jobs published (duplicates, duplicates!!!), LinkedIN Jobs section really looks poor in Ireland.

But that did not stop LikedIN to start selling tools like LinkedIN Recruiter to the recruiters.

Will it change the habits of the Irish Recruiters, and make them use LinkedIN more as opposed to the CV databases for harvesting applicants? Monster has that nice feature where you get that email every morning with the latest CVs entered in the database that are relevant to your given keywords. To switch to LikedIN it would mean actively searching the LinkedIN Profiles. And those are not really compatible with the CV parsers. So it would require an ‘Active Recruiter’ searching for the ‘Passive Candidate’!

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Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine SEO

Pay Per Click: Using Adwords effectively for recruitment websites

Using Google AdWords for your recruitment campaigns? Here are some basic tips in the article below. Use it as a checklist, to review what you are doing with our Google AdWords campaigns…

Why Use PPC?
When thinking about your online marketing portfolio have you ever considered Paid Search or “Pay Per Click” (PPC)? With the ever increasing competition to get you site on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Live Search for phrases like ‘architecture jobs’, ‘sales jobs’ or ‘marketing jobs’ PPC may seem like an attractive option; you can determine which keywords you want your PPC Ad to appear on, when and where you want your Ad to show and how much you want to spend per month with instant results. By following a few key guidelines you can really maximize the potential of your PPC campaign by generating quality CV’s at a low cost and low risk. You can also add tracking code so that the ROI from your PPC campaign is easily calculated, making PPC an effective and measurable marketing tool for your recruitment website.
Save money by spending time setting up your Campaign
Setting up a PPC campaign is easy but there are pitfalls to avoid. Too many people make the mistake of just adding the keywords and leaving the campaign to run ending up with a huge credit card bill and not much else to report. Remember that Google makes a substantial part of its revenue through Adwords!
So where do you start?
Thinking about your budget is a good place to start. The more money you spend, the more keywords you can bid on and therefore the more CV’s you can get. Once you have decided on your budget set your daily budget limit accordingly otherwise you could see a huge bill at the end of the month!
Writing a good Ad
Once you have decided on your budget you can start looking at what your target jobseekers or clients might search for e.g. “architecture jobs”, “social care recruitment”, “project manager jobs in London”; this will form your list of target keywords. Now you can start writing your Ad. Here the fun starts; you have got only 95 character spaces to create a compelling Ad that is going to entice a jobseeker to click on it – and not on your competitors! There are a few key rules to remember when writing your Ad:
• Make sure the keyword appears in the Ad; the words go bold and the job seeker will see that your site is relevant.
• Be creative in your writing; “apply for 100’s constructions jobs” sounds more enticing than “construction recruitment agency”.
• But also be specific; if you’re only recruiting for graduate positions you don’t want a senior professional clicking though as they are not going to apply for a job and you’ve just used up some of your budget.
• If you’re targeting a specific geographical area e.g. “surveying jobs in London” then say it. It means you’ll save money by only generating a targeted audience to your site.
• Give a call to action e.g. Submit your CV, Apply today! – this is ultimately what the jobseeker wants.
• Create multiple Ads, i.e. create a different Ad campaign for each of your sectors; if you’re a technical recruiter create an Ad campaign for architecture, another one for construction and so on.
And once a job seeker has clicked on the Ad think about where they end up…
• If your Ad is about engineering jobs, the jobseeker is expecting to find engineering jobs, so link your Ad through to the engineering jobs page not the home page.
…and what you want them to do when they get there
• Make sure that there are clear calls to action; register for a job / contact you / submit their CV so the chance of getting that CV is high.
How to make your money go further
It is worth checking your account settings before you set your new PPC campaign live. Think about when jobseekers are most likely to be searching for jobs; it is unlikely that at 4am you’re going to get many serious applications and if Monday to Friday is prime job seeking time do you want your ads appearing on Saturday? Also think about where you want your Ad’s to be displayed. By switching off the content network you can then focus on the real traffic and significantly decrease your susceptibility to click fraud. And if you want your job to display at or near the top of the sponsored listings alter you position preference so that you’re Ad’s display in the top 5.
Tracking / Reviewing / Testing / Tweaking
So how successful was your Ad? By adding the tracking code to the goal pages on your site e.g. your registration thank you page, you can determine how many CV’s you generated from your PPC campaign and the cost of each CV. Calculating your PPC ROI from there is very easy.
Feeling creative? Have another look at your Ad results, from here you can see which ads are generating a high number of jobseekers to the site or in technical jargon a high “click through rate“ (CTR) and which Ads are being displayed a lot (have a high number of “impressions”), but are not being clicked on. You can then try different Ad campaigns under the same keywords to see which one generates a higher CTR, or remove ones which are not generating much traffic. Through a bit of trial and error and monitoring your PPC performance you can tweak your campaign to have a higher spend in areas where you have the most jobs and on the best traffic converting key phrases. Linking Adwords into Google Analytics will give you even more data to play with.
With a bit of patience and tweaking your PPC campaign can be an effective marketing tool for your recruitment website, generating instant results at a high ROI which is all completely measurable and can be tailored to any budget.

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Blogs Jobs Recruitment Search Engine

RSSJobs.ie – First job application sent to the Employer!

Well it was only about 30 hours ago, when we announced The Launch of the RSSJobs.ie Job Site, and we have just sent the first application to the Recruiter!!!

There are a few milestones in the development of the jobs site:

Uploading the site to the Internet so that it is visible to everyone.
Publishing your first jobs
Inviting other employers to publish jobs
Sending your first application
The first contact from an employer interested in advertising
The first returning customer
The first approach by the competition, (another job board) testing waters, and checking how are you doing
The first approach from the buyer
SALE!!!

RSSJobs.ie is about 30 hours old now. We have done almost half of the list above! :)

Categories
Blogs Google Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine SEO SERP

Google AdWords in Recruitment?

Google AdWords was good!

Years ago I was preaching to the recruiters in Ireland to start using Google AdWords. The cost per click (CPC) was literally a few cents. The early adopters really drove massive traffic, and relevant traffic to their web sites. I remember my own www.IrelandJobs.ie – and how easy was it to purchase a thousand visitors a day. We experimented a lot and found that the best click trough and the conversion rate on our web site was for the AdWords Campaigns linking directly to a job just advertised.

Today the scenario is the opposite.

Google AdWords is bad!

Cost per click started grooving from the day one. It was just a question of time when will it all stop making sense. In the late 2007, when CPC reached the 1 Euro, a lot of people started revaluating their Google AdWords accounts and rethinking if that spend still makes sense. A large number of advertisers stopped their accounts or limited their budgets. The results are that the CPC stabilised for a time. It took some time to get used to pay over a euro for a visitor. Advertisers got used to it, and the price is soaring up again.

So why is paying a single 1 Euro per job hunter bad for your business?

Well simply because you could be paying about half by purchasing your traffic from other sources. Call today for details: 01 440 1900!

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Google Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine SEO

Job Search Keywords

Publishing a job advertisement on the web strongly benefits from the search engine optimisation of the jobs post itself. Regardless of the job board you are publishing your job you will definitely get more applications if you apply the search engine optimisation techniques to your job advertisement.

How to optimise your jobs postings for the search engines?

There is very little that a job board will let you control on the web page where your job is advertised. The only element of the page that you can control is the text on the page. You cannot do much with the URL, Title, Meta,… it is on the job board staff to worry about that. You control the text. ‘The Content’. And you know what the search engine optimisation specialists say? They say: ‘The Content is the King!’. What is the importance of content in the search engine optimisation? Well search engine optimisation is actually all about the content. Search engines actually do not do much but read, analyse and index the content on the web pages. If your content is original and relevant to the particular term, a search engine will display your page in the listings for the search phrases your content is about.

But what we forget to write in the content is what people are actually searching for. When writing a job specification for the job advertisement we forget to actually mention the word ‘Job’. I the same time we are trying to attract someone looking for a job. We do know that when someone is looking for a new job, that is exactly what he will write down in the search engine, the word job or jobs. In the same time when writing a online job advertisement we co rarely put a word job or jobs in it. In fact the job boards themselves tell us to put a whole list of other words, but not to mention a most important word jobs?

Just remember, you are advertising a job!!!

For any search engine to consider your job posting worth displaying in the search ranking pages you have to use the word ‘jobs’ frequently in your job advertisement!

Categories
Jobs Recruitment

LoadzaJobs.ie Down Today

LoadzaJobs.ie

LoadzaJobs.ie is down (offline) the whole day today. Since the downtime came completely unannounced to the clients, it makes you wonder how ‘planned’ the Loadzajobs.ie downtime was. Especially in the light of the Jobs.ie being hacked last week, let’s just hope Loadzajobs.ie is done for some other reason than a security breach….

Categories
CV CV Database Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine

Jobs.ie Hacked

When there is a very negative press articles about our competition, we decided not to comment them. Here s one from the Irish Times, about the Jobs.ie Web site being hacked. It happened to Monster and http://www.irishgradjobs.ie/ only a few months ago. And now Jowbs.ie is hacked as well. Unfortunately the bad news like this are damaging he industry. Here goes the full story about Jobs.ie web site hacked:

Hackers access information sent to Irish jobs agency
PERSONAL INFORMATION supplied by job applicants to online recruitment agency Jobs.ie has been illegally accessed by internet hackers, writes Olivia Kelly.
CVs submitted by the applicants were downloaded in bulk through a non-Irish web address last Thursday.
Jobs.ie would not say how many of its clients had been affected, but said it had now fixed the security breach.
The clients whose information was taken are at risk from identity fraud and “phishing”, where criminals, often posing as a well-known, legitimate company, use the information gleaned to try to extract further personal and financial information from their victims.
It is understood that the hackers used an illegally obtained log-in and password given to employers who are registered with Jobs.ie to access the job applications area of the site. They then downloaded personal information from CVs submitted, along with job applications.
Most of the stolen information relates to archive CVs rather than those of people now looking for jobs.
The company, which is owned by businessman Denis O’Brien, has in recent days contacted those affected to warn them of the possibility that they may receive e-mails from people using their information.
“All of the people affected have been contacted and informed of the situation. We have urged them to exercise extra vigilance with inbound e-mails in the coming weeks to ensure online security,” a spokeswoman said.
The company has informed the Data Protection Commissioner but will not be informing the relevant policing authorities until it has identified which country the hackers’ web address originated in. Jobs.ie was still investigating this issue, the spokeswoman said last night.
Clients of the website affected by the breach received an e-mail last Friday from Huw Taylor of Jobs.ie, bringing their attention to a “security breach” that occurred the previous evening.
“Although this breach was identified and stopped quickly, a small number of CVs were illegally downloaded. Unfortunately, your CV was one of the records taken.
“I understand and apologise for the concern this will cause you, and I want to assure you that we are taking steps to prevent this happening again,” the e-mail continued.
It urged clients not to give any personal information until it had been established the contact was legitimate; never to give out personal banking information; not to share passwords with anyone; and not to open e-mail attachments if the client was suspicious, especially .exe files.
Victims of the security breach who contacted The Irish Times said they had “grave concerns” in relation to their exposure to identity theft.
Jobs.ie, one of the State’s largest recruitment sites, said it had never before had such a breach.
The security breach follows the recent launch by Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan of the “makeITsecure” campaign designed to combat phishing.
© 2008 The Irish Times

No Comment!

Categories
Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency SEO

‘Long Tail’ Search Results in the Irish Recruitment Industry

What is the ‘Long Tail’ search result?

According to HitTail (a nice online SEO tool), the Long Tail is an economic concept that says the collective demand for less-popular items can exceed all the most popular added together. So, long tail search is about using terms related to your prime search terms that will individually cause less search hits but collectively increase your search hits. Get it?

Long Tail Search Results - RED is people search for 'Jobs' while GREEN is people search ing with the long search phrases like: 'multilingual sales representative'

The opposite of the ‘Log tail’ is the ‘Short tail’. Short tail search result listing in the Irish online recruitment industry is your site ranked for the single word (like ‘Jobs’) or simple phrases (like ‘Cork Jobs’). Long tail example is a visitor that came to your site by searching for: “multilingual sales representative”:

http://www.google.ie/search?&q=multilingual+sales+representative

… or even longer search phrase, hence the name ‘Lon Tail’ search phrase result.

The importance of ranking the recruitment web site in the ‘Long Tail’ search engine results is absolutely huge. That is the fact. Here is why:

QUALITY
The better the job hunter ‘describes’ the job he is looking for in the search engine the more relevant candidate you are getting to apply for your jobs. Increasing the quality of the applications for your jobs will bring benefit to almost all steps in your selection and recruitment process.

QUANTITY
This is where it gets ‘unexpected’! The logic says that since less people are using the long search phrases while searching for jobs, there should not be MORE applications from the Long Tail results than from the listing for the short broad terms like ‘Jobs’. The reality is the opposite, simply because of the sheer QUANTITY of the Long Tail search phrases. The total amount of the applications for the long tail search phrases will ALWAYS be higher that the applications that came for the broad search terms.

Conclusion on the Long Tail search phrases in the Irish recruitment:
By listing your site high for the long and descriptive search phrases will bring you the best candidates in the largest volumes.

Sounds like a dream? And jet it’s sooo doable!

Categories
Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency SEO

Win a Free SEO Web Site Review Service

Are you an Irish Recruitment Agency? If so – read on! There is a freebie for you here!

There is the ‘Hard to Believe’ fact that not a single Recruitment Agency web site have ever managed to appear on the first page in Google.ie for the simple search phrase ‘Jobs’. Basically here:
http://www.google.ie/search?&q=jobs

One would think – it is a budget problem. If there is enough job boards pumping enough money in the search engine optimisation, they will fill the top ten slots, and there is no place for the recruitment agencies there. But anyone who knows anything about recruitment industry in Ireland knows well that Ireland is too small to host ten strong generalist job boards that would compete for so strong and broad search term like ‘Jobs’. The marketing budgets of the top 10 recruitment agencies dwarfs the total revenue of some of those job sites listed there on the first page in Google for ‘Jobs’.

I have always wanted to put an Irish recruitment agency there on the first page in Google for the word ‘Jobs’. I never hided that ambition.

So in partnership with the SEO Consultant, I am offering a FREE SEO Web Site Review Service to all recruitment agencies in Ireland. First comes first served. The SEO Web Site Review Service is a first step towards listing your recruitment web site on the first page in Google for the word ‘Jobs’. You need to take the first step to reach your goa and rank your recruitment web site high. So sign in for the free SEO Web Site Review Service today!

How to get the Free SEO Web Site Review Service – just request it in the Comments section below.

Categories
Jobs

WorkFair – Protecting Migrant Employment Rights

About WorkFair

A group of Irish legal practitioners have come together to offer a voluntary service for immigrant workers to combat a perceived lack of access to the legal system. The service will offer basic legal advice and representation. Work Fair will initially operate for a six-month pilot phase from January to June 2008 to assess demand and fine-tune service models.

What can WorkFair do for you?

WorkFair is a new labour rights initiative providing legal advice and representation to migrant workers in Ireland at risk of exploitation in the workplace.
You may be eligible if you have been:
• Dismissed unfairly from your work
• The victim of discrimination in your job
• Underpaid
• Denied work/promotion on discriminatory grounds
• Bullied in the workplace
• Coerced by your employer in relation to work permits
• Denied written terms and conditions of employment
If you think you may eligible, please attend one of our drop-in clinics or contact us by email or telephone to arrange an appointment. Persons wishing to seek advice through English may attend on any of the dates. Persons with language needs other than those listed will need to contact us in advance to arrange an appointment. If at all possible, please fill out this brief form in advance of attending so that we can best advise you. All information will be treated confidentially.

More info and contact on: http://www.workfair.org/

Categories
CV Jobs Recruitment

Resumes – Chronological vs. Functional. Which do you prefer?

An interesting thread on the toppic of the CVs from LinkedIN:

Patrick Myers
Risk Management, Process Improvement, Consulting, Credit and Operational Risk expertise

Resumes – Chronological vs. Functional. Which do you prefer?
There are many opinions as to what resume should be used. Which do you prefer and why?

Answers (18)

Bryan C Webb, P. Eng.
► Technical Product Marketing & Sales Professional ◄

Recruiters ALWAYS want chronological.

On the other hand as long as you specify companies and dates, a functional may be more appropriate to stress the myriad of accomplishments.

Why not do both and use accordingly?

Henrik Brinch
CEO, TriGemini, ProDocumentor, PointGlass, [LION]

To sum up what I prefer in resumes (in this order):

1. Personal information (name, age, contact information, civil status, children)

2. Short personalized summary (photo is a plus)

3. Education (chronological, descending by year), type, place, period.

4. Professional experience (chronological, descending by year), period, company, position, short description on assignments and preferably a connection to the qualifications given in my #5 and a reference person.

5. List of qualifications, each rated by level: Very high, high, medium, low., Years of experience, Year last used. low. E.g. French (spoken), lmedium, last used 1999, 10 yrs. experience.

6. Date of availability´and expected minimum wage.

Given these information in the given order, enables me to categorize the resumes pretty fast. Unfortunately candidates have numerous of different ways of setting up resumes, so I usually reformat into the format above.

Alesia Lewis
Human Resources Manager at The RPM Company

I’m recruit as part of my overall HR responsibilities and I usually prefer funtional. This format allows me to, at a glance, get an clear understanding of the skills a candidate possesses. As long as the employment history is included somewhere, with dates, I prefer this style. I’ve also used it myself, successfully, when job searching.

Functional is also the better format when looking to switch to a field that you have experience in that isn’t readily understandable by looking at a chronological resume, or when seeking a position with increased responsibility when previous titles don’t necessarily show that type of experience.
Clarification added 1 day ago:
Ugh. Editing…it’s a good thing! I meant “I recruit” not “I’m recruit”!

Karl Kabanek
Senior Program Manager

As a hiring manager, I have returned resumes and asked the candidate to put them in chronological order. I expect each entry to pertain to the position and company they are applying for and to. Chronological allows me to see how recent and relevant the candidate’s experience is.

Veronique Serritella (Trusal)
Recruiting Manager at Robert Half Finance & Accounting

There are reasons to use either. Anything other than chronological is used to hide a gap, IMHO. This can be good and bad.

For those with a lot of similar experience with many different companies, I like to see a summary of qualifications, followed by a chronological list of companies with job titles and a very very short description of the tasks. Then the usual education, … It’s a hybrid of the two.

Aggie Gajewska Diamond
Director, Interim Staffing at Smyth Solutions

Need to put my two cents in…
In reply to Henrik’s answer: in US – don’t put your photo on a resume – recruiters and HR managers are uncomfortable that little bonus feature due to anti-discrimination laws that may become shaky if you go there…

Don’t write your resume in first person and don’t list your marital status, number of children, and hobbies unrelated to your professional life.

Chronological resumes make most sense – but you can turn your experience with the same employer into a functional one. Example: You worked for ABC Inc. for 20 years and served in many functional areas of the company. List them.

Let me know if I can help.

John Gravanis
Sales Director @ Ergoman ||| Onwer of ManageIT

Both are great for different candidates, going after different placements…

However, more experienced professionals will tend to write functional CVs, where more junior professionals, favor chronological CVs and taking it a step further (rather a step lower) people fresh out of school/college write chronological with education up top, followed by ‘professional experience’ right after…

Although chronological are easier on my eyes (especially when we are hiring and I need to go through several of them in a short period of time) I find that I give functional CVs guys a first crack at an interview more frequently, & usually endorse/vouch for them easier…

Point is, this one is definitely, not a ONE SIZE FITS ALL matter.

Bob Garrett 3600+ Looking for employment . LION TOPLINKED
> LOOKING < for employment - bobcgarrett@gmail.com

Guess it depends on how much experience you have.
I prefer chronological

Send an invite to connect if you like

Kristen Fife
Technical Recruiter, Author

The *only* time I recommend a functional resume, as both a Resume Consutlant and as a Recruiter, is if you are in a portfolio-based profession and you have multiple concurrent clients or projects simultaneously using the same skill set. Examples would be creative agency/PR, stock broker, actor, public speaker,etc. .

The reason *why* a functional resume is frustrating is because I (and my hiring managers) want to see what you did, when you did it, if it was something you used recently/currently, and how it pertained to the job we are looking at you for now. Listing out a bunch of skills that have nothing but a string of job titles to tie them to tells me *nothing.*

Here’s a recent example. I am looking at an accounting resume, and the candidate sent me a functional resume. I asked her for a chronologic resume, and she told me that she used the functional format because she used the same skills in every job she has had in the last 10+ years.

This says to me that she doesn’t seek out new challenges, doesn’t keep track of projects that can add to her total worth as an employee, and that (perhaps) she is just working for a paycheck as opposed to taking pride in her work. When she sent me her chronologic resume, all she did was copy/paste the information time and again. She had a few different titles and worked in a couple of different industries, so she *should* have had at least some different experiences, and working at different sized companies should have produced more or less responsibility for her, but that wasn’t the case as she portrayed her professional history to me.
posted 21 hours ago | Flag answer as…

Greg Coyle
Experienced information technology and services leader, expert in delivering quality solutions to complex problems.

Functional resumes are useful for highlighting experience in a way that facilitates bridging into an industry or role for which you have no explicit history. However, most people are only familiar with the chronological format these days, and find functional resumes confusing. For cold calls, or any situation where you are not going to have a chance to present (and explain) your resume in person, you’re pretty much going to have to use the chronological.

Paula Cohen
Career Coach and Consultant

Reverse chronological vs. functional… The chronological resume is best for people who are seeking positions similar to, or the same as, they’ve been doing. It’s the easiest format to read, and potential employers can eyeball it quickly and make the most sense out of it. Summary, experience, professional development, education, and professional memberships are the suggested sections in the suggested order. Put accomplishments — measurable / quantifiable, preferably — in bullet points under a brief job description in the experience section. Note: to make them stand out, only accomplishments get bullet points. Ordinary job duties are written in paragraph form; and don’t be too wordy. No one cares what you’re doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual basis, they just want to know the broad outlines of what you do, and what you handle — how many people do you supervise, what’s the size of the budget you control, whom do you report to, etc.

Functional…you’ll need an objective. This is the format you use if you’re looking to do something very different from what you’ve been doing. The objective is necessary because the landscaping company with the position for a gardner will be plenty stunned by getting a resume from an IT person unless it’s clear that the IT person is looking to switch to gardening. The objective comes before the summary. After the summary comes a section just for accomplishments…and those accomplishments can be put into separate sections, for instance “Programming”, “Project Management”, “Operations”, and “Leadership”, with three, four or five bullet-point accomplishments under each.

Then comes a brief section of experience or work history, with nothing but company names, job titles and dates. After that, professional development , then education, etc.

Chronological is preferable if you’re continuing to do what you’ve been doing. Functional is preferable if you’re looking to make a significant change in career direction, since if focuses on transferable skills and expertise as illustrated by the accomplishments, rather than on the specific industries, companies and roles you’ve held within them.

Any more questions? Contact me!

Richard Kirby
{LION} Executive Career Coaching and Recruiting
If you want a recruiter (executive search firm, staffing company, or internal/HR recruiting staffer) to read it, they prefer reverse chronological.

If you think the people who will review the resume are not knowledgeable and you feel a function suits you better, you might get away with a functional one. Sophisticated resume readers/screeners know why people use functional resumes (no clear career progression, lack of career momentum, lots of jobs, blank spaces in work experience, general inability to stay focused in one area, returning to work after being out for several years, etc.) and they LOOK for confirmations for these negatives the writer is attempting to hide. A functional resume, 90%+ of the time, will work against the person.

Anyone who wants an article on this subject can email me at rkirby@executive-impact.com.

Hal Moore (LinkWithHal@gmail.com) LION
Executive Search Consultant

As a recruiter, I have had very little success with my client base using functional resumes. I cannot tell you how many times hiring officials have asked for a chronological resume after first seeing the functional version. Most of my clients want to understand what duties the candidate performed at each position they previously held.

Many people view functional resumes as an attempt to hide something in the candidate’s experience, such as frequent job changes or the real amount of time that someone has experience in a certain field.

Denise Anne Taylor
Expertise in Business Etiquette, lnternational Protocol, Conflict Management, and Career Transition: Speaker, Writer

There really is not an option when creating a resume. Chronological is your best choice. Most recruiters and those that interview do not desire the Functional format. Chronological shows your most recent accomplishments that would be applicable to the current job search process.

Ray Miller
Energy expert, educator, award winning sculptor

I definitely prefer functional resume’s.

Much more informative and more of an expression of who the candidate sees themselves to be versus what they did and when.

Bobbie Rogers
Your Trusted & Preferred IT Services Provider!

It depends on the audience receiving the resume: MOST HR Professionals view Functional Resumes as a RED FLAG! What is this person hiding? So always send Chronological resumes to HR.

Managers with the budget don’t care what TYPE of resume you have as long as you have a stable work history with no gaps of employment and the skills to do the job!

Executives don’t care! Executives only want people who were referred and prescreened. They tend to make their own decision based on the interview & feedback from their trusted advisors. MOST Executives never read or looking at the resume, they rely on others to summarize your expertise for them.

The purpose of a resume is to OPEN THE DOOR to get the interview, if you are not communicating exactly what they are looking for in the top paragraph of the resume you will be screened OUT! You only have 6 seconds to grab the attention of a Recruiter / HR professional & 10 seconds for Managers.

The REAL KEY is to make sure every keyword in the resume matches the specific job description you are applying for; otherwise, you will be screened out NOT “In”! If they ask for an MCSE & you stated M-C-S-E or Microsoft Certified whatever you will be screened OUT Not “In”.

Lavie Margolin (Laviemarg@yahoo.com)
Job Search Advisor, Employment/Career Counselor, Job Developer

Chronological if you are on a smooth path- applying to a job you are currently doing or has just ended.

Functional if you are applying for the type of job you have not done in along time but still have the skills for or have been out of work for a significant amount of time.

Marc LeVine
Owner, Integrity Consulting Associates

Chronological or, at least Chronofunctional. Recruiters look for closure. We want to see career progression (was the current position a step up or step back from the one before it?). We want to see how long the individual stayed at each company? We need to kow if there are any significant gaps or periods of unemployment between jobs?

Problem is…just by using the functional approach, most recruiters can smell that something being covered up.

With the Chronofunctional resume, at least, everything you need is there. It is just listed in such a way as more attention is given to the developed skills of the candidate, while the job history is buried near the bottom. It’s a gamble that scanners andthose with a short attention span will note that the information as present, but may not focus on the detail.

Some people have to use this approach, but the more experienced recruiters can usually read between the lines.

Sooo…. not really a 100% straignt answer, isn’t it? :)

Categories
Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Java Developer

Archer – 23 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2 Phone: +353 1 479 2069

Java Developer

Ref. no.: DHJAVAP
Tags: Analyst Programmer Java Developer
Location(s): Dublin South Wicklow
Salary range (€): 40000 – 50000
Additional benefits:
Minimum experience required: 3 – 4 Years
Employment type: Permanent Full-time
Minimum qualification: See Description
Contact person: Darina Hall
Contact e-mail: darina.hall@archer.ie

Job description:

Java Developer

Java Developer/Analyst Programmer

Our client is an eminent brand name within the financial industry. With its headquarters based in Dublin South, they currently have an exciting opportunity for a Java Developer to join their professional and highly motivated team.

To be considered for this position you will have skills and experience in the following:

· 2-5 years of commercial experience in Java development.

· Ability to demonstrate good knowledge of Java

· Work experience with SQL, JSP, ASP.

· Exposure to J2EE, JBOSS, Tomcat, Relational Databases (Sybase, Oracle).

· Hands on work experience with CRM Systems would be an advantage.

· Work experience in Web development, HTML, UNIX, JavaScript, XML, XSLT, and Perl.

The key responsibilities for the role would be:

· To translate design document specifications into physical implementation following documentation and coding standards.

· Design, code and test modifications for exiting programs or components of systems under guidance from senior developers.

· Translate business requirements into user interface design following best practice web designing techniques.

· Supporting, maintaining and enhancing existing business systems.

· To participate in all facets of project and software delivery across a variety of applications, including business and technical requirements gathering, analysis/design, coding, testing and implementation.

Apply for this Java Developer job now!