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Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

SOLAS

SOLAS is the new name of FAS. Regardless of the way the government is trying to paint the picture, FAS is still alive and well. All the staff are safe, all the decision makers and all the way to the Board of Directors in FAS. The internal organisation is to change a bit, but in essence same people that made FAS what it is, and you have probably made your mind up about that, these same people are automatically now all safe in their jobs in SOLAS. Same desks, same offices, same jobs, just a change of the logo and the name. Probably a nice gig for some marketing and rebranding agency.

From the recruitment perspective FAS was a failure. Statistics are showing that job seekers that got the FAS training were less likely to get a job than those that didn’t. When I first saw it, it seemed unbelievable. A Government agency managing to achieve the opposite from what is its main goal. Like a Department of Finance that works successfully on bringing the country to the bankruptcy. Not a good example?

FAS staff cannot be fired basically. Regardless of the company performance. Now how cool is that? Imagine working in an average Irish SME that does not make any revenue, any service, any product, and profit. And all your co-workers have a safe job in the company. You go bankrupt, they just change the name on the front door. And keep on doing (or not) what you always was. Wonderland? Communism?

FAS.ie was set up as a web site where every Irish company could advertise their jobs, and job seekers could find them. In the time that FAS.ie was ‘operating’, there was a long list of private companies that realised how well FAS operates. They took that role and delivered a great service to Irish Employers and job seekers for many years. From Irish Times on Friday, to IrishJobs.ie, Jobs.ie and of course not to forget EmployIreland.ie! 

With FAS being repainted with SOLAS colours, should we expect that their new web site will actually provide a service FAS.ie was built for? Same people, same (no) agenda and a new colours, is there a reason to expect a different results? Well know. And this is what hurts me. FAS (oops, SOLAS since yesterday sorry) was built with a really great idea. A free service (eh,… OK there is an army of people on its payroll paid by taxpayer) that facilitates getting the best available candidates to fill the vacancies in Irish companies. If this task is done right, if he best people available in Ireland is hired for each vacancy that appears, and that done fast, this reduces the recruitment cost and increases the speed. Less overheads for Irish companies, makes them more profitable and hence more competitive internationally. So poor FAS.ie contributed to development of a number of Irish businesses being set up that took the role FAS.ie leave vacant. This created jobs in those companies, and tremendous wealth within a handful of the job site owners. On the other side it made hiring staff in Ireland more expensive for the Irish companies. That in essence made Ireland less competitive as a country to do business in.

Polish or Romanian or people do not speak English, are not that well educated according to the IDA presentations shown worldwide. At least that is what we thought until Poles cone over here and showed us who they really are and how their work ethics compare to ours. So when Poles introduced a Corporation Tax similar to ours, and Romanians introduced their equivalent of our PAYE and PRSI with a discounted rate for the IT and similar attractive workers – our loved multinationals started migrating there. And shutting down operations here. What is the message? We are too expensive. We are too inefficient. If you have ever been into a FAS HQ or any other building, you know exactly what I mean.

The ‘new’ FAS.ie should be a free web site that works for every employer and every job seeker in Ireland. It sounds too simple that anyone could even think it can fail. Then again only a month ago the release of the Governments internship web site JobBridge.ie, with jobs advertised where the application process requires a printed resume and a form to be filled and posted to the employer. In this century? Internships are for graduates or young people without anything to put on their CV anyway. They are unemployed, so what do they put on their CV? Their interest in painting and GAA? They live on Facebook (just in case you did not know!). They do not ‘get’ this old technology, the printers and paper CVs. They do not even wear wristwatches. They wear headphones. As a fashion statement more than anything. Signed by Dr Dre. Worth a monthly wealth care payment even in this country.

The more I think of it, the benefits a new FAS.ie would bring to all of us, to the nation, and to the EURO currency in that matter since we are seriously destabilizing it lately, the more I think how I would like to do it. Do it right. Not the FAS.ie way. Not the (same) SOLAS way. But right. So that it helps put this 14% of us back to work. So that it helps us get staff into all those vacancies almost every good company has today, and finds it terribly hard, slow and expensive to fill. Yes I do want that job! It would make me feel I do something good for my country, for the future and for my kids essentially.

I have spent my last two years making the best Irish Recruitment Agency making even better in the Internet space. I can proudly say I made CPL a market leader in sourcing candidates online on their numerous web sites. It felt great, and the sense of achievement to bring a company you work for to the top is irreplaceable.

The chance to do it with FAS.ie or whatever the new site will be called, to make a best recruitment web site for the whole nation, especially today when it’s needed so badly, would be the best I can wish for.

Hey FAS people, will you let me create and run your online presence?

Kind Regards,
Ivan Stojanovic
Head of Online
www.CPL.ie

Categories
Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

JobBridge.ie

Good news for job seekers. The government has launched the new initiative officially called National Intenrnship Scheme that in their own words will provide a work experience placements for interns for 6 or 9 month period. There is 5000 placements available and they are paid by the government €50 a week on top of their social welfare entitlement.

The JobsBridge.ie web site shows the Participating Organisations: Air Lingus, ISME, BT, HP, Enterprise Ireland, Tesco Ireland, Quinn Group, Glanbia, Coillte, PWC, Mercury Group, 3, IBEC, KPMG, Accenture, Smurfit Mappa Group, Arthur Cox, Dawn Farms, Glen Dimplex Group, ESB, Hertz, Matheson Ormsby Prentice. All respective names, and we wish to see more taking part.

Today is the first day where the internships are being advertised and there is one advertised already. The first advertised Internship on JobBridge.ie is:

On line Marketing Executive
Description
Candidates will gain experience in customer service, online social media marketing eg Facebook, Twitter; IT and admin skills.
Skills Requirements
A flair and enthusiasm for the learner skills as cited above are the person specifications sought in this business.

It is not 100% clear who is really advertising this internship on the JobBridge.ie web site. There is no button to apply for this job – and send a CV or an application. There only clue on who is actually advertising this role is a small box on a side that reads: “In writing with CV to Ms. B.Shannon / HR, Detail LTD, J3 Maynooth Business Campus, Maynooth, Co Kildare.”

It really will be a poor visitors experience if one cannot apply for an internship online, but has to post the application? One actually wonders what kind of experience will the candidate gain from an organisation looking for an intern in online social media marketing and customer service if the application process is offline? Let’s how those are just the initial internal glitches with the JobBridge.ie web site and that those will be ironed out soon. It really does not reflect the advertising organisations well when the applicants are forced to go offline for the application for the internship (for On line Marketing Executive internship especially!).

I really hope the National Internship Scheme and its web site JobBridge.ie will help not only the 5000 future interns and the companies taking them, but the whole country. Getting 5000 unemployed people utilise their skills, and developing their skills in the work environment can only have a positive effect on the economy.

Will JobBridge.ie be the thing that will bring our Celtic Tiger back? I really think we would all be happy if it does!

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Career Internet Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Networks Social Recruitment

Interview: Ellie Doyle on how digital is changing the recruitment industry

Ellie Doyle from Pentasia Recruitment talks about how digital is changing the face of the recruitment industry regarding candidates online presence and potential employers expectations.

Ellie Doyle in her own words is a Digital and interactive recruiter running the Dublin office of Pentasia. Where she does headhunting and recruitment for ecommerce, online and interactive gaming which is a huge industry in Ireland.

How is digital effecting the recruitment industry?

It made my job an awful lot easier. Everything from LinkedIN being recruiters best friend, a free database as such, to being able to look at peoples blogs, you can really sound out the candidate, before you have even met them, before you have approach them, just by what’s on the web. Which is why it’s important to use it correctly if you are a candidate.

For candidates:

People really need to be careful about what the y do and they don’t put online. There is stuff you would want a potential dream employer of yours to see. Get that online. The other personal stuff, go on an do what you want in your social life, but keep it on Facebook private profile. From a candidate point of view it can be such a good asset, but you have to get a right mix of what’s out in the public domain and what you keep private.

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Internet Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Networks Social Recruitment

#truDublin

#truDublin is on today. It is branded as Un-conference, and I can only say – IT WORKS! A mix of recruiters from agencies and internal company ones, all interested to both hear and talk about the social recruitment. Job boards, guerrilla recruitment, facebook, LinkedIN, blogging, SEO, you name it. All the topics have been discussed in different small groups. Hey I am even going to lead a discussion thread on recruitment via twitter in in the afternoon session!

With @BillBoorman organising an event, you know you will not be bored. You are also guaranteed to hear and have a chance to share your views on the current and only just emerging recruitment trends. Great, great even for Irish Recruiters. The company I work for CPL is of course the main sponsor.

I was amazed with the amount of questions I got about the Jobs Market, especially from the international delegates.
More about it all later – I am late for the discussion thread I am supposed to be leading! :)

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Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

NRF Certificate in Recruitment Practice

NRF Certificate in Recruitment Practice

The first ‘Class’ of the certified recruiters from the National Recruitment Federation has graduated. The Diplomas have been presented to the participants by Mike Crothers from the Institute of Leadership & management during the recent NRF conference 2011.

You can download photos from here:

NRF Certificate in Recruitment Practice
Categories
Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment

jobswanted.ie

By now you probably know that I get very upset when someone brings in the service of charging job hunters for … job hunting. LikedIN is the last company who did it in Ireland, with introducing of the job seekers badges. They even had 3 levels of those badges, probably related to how desperate you are. LinkedIn today is looking at the unemployed, and trying to stick a hand into their pocket. For only a small sum of euro, we will give you a badge to put on your LinkedIn profile. If you are in negative equity – just go for the most expensive one. You are worth it!

While we are talking about LinkedIn, one of their staff Lindsay wrote a nice post today about her house and her situation where she is in negative equity. Well done Lindsay! Sharing your story was uplifting.

Well the same idea is the lovely service under a name of jobswanted.ie. Want a job? Give us a few euro a month! Such business model actually benefits from job hunters NOT getting a job. Since when they get a job – the web state loses a subscriber – a paying customer.

I am a strong believer in reinventing the business models. Job boards as such are not that exciting that much anyway. Especially in the social networking era. There needs to be innovation, there needs to be progress. But please – do not let you thoughts go in the following direction:

There is a whole new market opening. There is more and more unemployed people in Ireland every day. They need a service to find the jobs. If we charge them something really small they will not mind, and it will help them find a job.

Well the truth is, when you are unemployed every charge is big. It is enormous. Mathematically if you income is 0 every expense compared to that income is infinite!

Don’t be greedy, and do not charge unemployed please. It is unfair and the immoral. Please.

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Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Advertised jobs numbers comparison

Here is a list of jobs advertised on the leading Irish job sites and the recruitment agency web sites.

Job Boards
Irish Jobs 12253
Recruit Ireland 3350
Monster 2969
Jobs 2800
Irish Times 1883
Employ Ireland 1339

Recruitment Agencies
CPL 1340
Brightwater 1291
Morgan McKinley 1178
Sigmar 671
Stelfox 627
Grafton 228
Manpower 183

Irish Jobs has by far the largest number of jobs. Actually they have about 10 times more jobs than the average competing Irish job site. Is there really that much jobs? Is that a real success story? When the numbers are so much off the scale, it always stinks a bit. Especially knowing that they own the Jobs.ie site that does so badly on the jobs numbers compared to the main site.

On the recruitment agency side there is a tight race at the top. CPL still has it top spot, while surprisingly a small company Brightwater is in second. They show more jobs on their site than a much larger company Morgan McKinley that is on the third spot. Are Brightwater really working as Busy Bees? Are they really filling 5 times more roles than companies like Grafton or Manpower? Again quite unlikely. Same as Irish Jobs web site above, the number are again just very off the chart.

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Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment

Company Career Site

I often get asked from the employers if they should build their Career Web Site. The fact is I never know what to answer. It is due to this expectations of what will they achieve with it. Since the investment in it is never small really when you put all the time of different internal people involved on the bill, the expectation is always that this will solve all their problems in attracting the best candidates. The result is always the opposite. The company Career Site always fails to deliver what was expected of it. It fails to deliver job hunters applications and speculative CV’s. It simply does not happen. Well it does if you are Google. But then again it is more a nuisance then since the volume that you are receiving is then simply too much, so it cannot really be properly processed.

So how does it really look within the company when you decide to set up a Career Site?
You get your Marketing and HR to talk. Now if that function is not in the same person (lucky SME’s!), those two functions are not really that compatible, so the ‘Requirements’ will be very contradictory. And as such given to some ‘IT’ who will create a small standalone unit within your site and call it ‘Jobs’, Careers’ or ‘Work with us’. After few releases, and many very happy faces you will all do the launch and a big ‘Push’ in the media. Now that ‘push’ thing is your local radio, newspaper, or marginal TV station where you will secure an interview based on some sponsorship. That ‘Push’ will cost the company about the same as what the Career Site coasted to produce. The expectation are high, and all involved are tapping their backs. The goal to get rid of enormous cost that your job board advertising has and even more expensive recruitment agency services is in your sight already!

Your push lasts depending the depth of your pocket from a week to a month. After that month there is 0 (yes – zero) budget available to market your website. When you analyse the performance – how many visitors, how many applications and speculative CVs have you collected in that first month during the marketing push, the first cold shower hits you. A lot’s of blaming around, and it ends ups with the faces that read: Who’s idea was this career site anyway?’.

Why do Company Career Sites fail?
Lack of knowledge and understanding the online recruitment business is the most often reason I have seen so far. Let us look at a bit of statistical data provided by Jobs2web published a month ago. What is shows is the dropping off as the candidates who land on your site and follow steps on it towards sending an application, and then further on to the actual hiring.

What you will see there is that (on a sample of a job hunters a few times the population of Ireland!) for one person hired on a Career Site you will need 826 visitors to the site. So why is that? Why is the average conversion rate below 1%? Why do less than 1% of job hunters who come actually apply? Well that is how it is. You are unlikely to change it (much) on your site. You might get to perhaps 2% or in best case with very targeted traffic to some 3% conversion rate. But as you know you will still need hundreds of job hunters to visit before you make a single hire.

All that initial push, again depending on the size of your offline investment will make about 1 hire. You will realise now that you have spent a multiple budget that the cost would be if you have advertised on the job board or have used the services of a recruitment agency. What we have learned is that the company career sites are not profitable. Period (except for Google).

Attract more job hunters to your Career Site
Realising that now you have ‘State of the art’ career mini site, and one and a half visitor a day on it, the next step is to go and get some traffic on it. Google is your best friend with the lovely Google AdWords service, providing you with instant traffic ‘on tap’. On average you will spend about €1 per visitor that really depends on the industry you are in. The statistics above show us it will cost you between €500 and €1000 for a single applicant to send you the CV. We all know that there is not much to choose from if there is only one, so you will get 3 or 5, or perhaps 10 candidates bringing them via the Google AdWords to your career site. That bill from Google is again going to be larger than what the job board advertising would cost and perhaps the same as a recruitment agency would charge you for the whole process.

What is a Career Site good for?
Well branding really is their main purpose. If you are in some industry that can be perceived immoral by some people like gambling, dating or even worse ‘evil’ like Microsoft or Google, than you can publish data on your career site that will convert the minds of those potential applicants. It is also a very good PR channel, and there is no better news than that you are hiring. The large the scale of your recruitment drive the better. Happy faces of your staff, and HR people will drastically improve the conversion rate here. Light colours, clear font, no small print ToC, honesty and trustfulness need to be projected from the careers section of your site. Benefits, canteen, gym, parking, crèche, sports and social club, charity activity, barbeques,…

Career Site can do wonders for you. Long term especially. Integrate it with blogs (RSS) and company twitter accounts, and it will come to live by itself. Just to not expect it to deliver by itself – you will still need to work it out. It is just a controlled channel where you can brand your company in the way you want to be seen (as opposed to Facebook). So do drive people to it, and make sure that if there is not job for them right now, that you still capture them in some mailing list, social media group or anything where you can reach them when you do have a job they are suitable for.

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Career CV Internet Interview Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Networks Social Recruitment

The Unforgettable Candidate – You’re Hired

The Unforgettable Candidate – You’re Hired a presentaton and photos of by Peter Cosgrove, Director of Cpl alongside Professor Ian Robertson, neuroscientist from Trinity College Dublin in Paccar theatre in the Science GalleryDublin.

Photos:


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Blogs Career CV Internet Job Site Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Search Engine Social Networks Social Recruitment Twitter

Facebook or Print ads?

Ivan Andrija Stojanovic, Head of Online, CPL Osijek CroatiaWill you advertise on Facebook or in the traditional proven media like newspapers or radio?

I was talking to some postgraduate business and IT students (Overeducated and under experienced for Jobs of tomorrow) and asked them who has the Facebook account. I wanted to show how deep the Facebook penetration actually is. I got more hands up than that I could count. So I reversed the question – and asked who doesn’t have or didn’t use his Facebook account in the last week. I have 3 hands up. In the group of 80 people.

I asked them if they bought papers (any papers) in the last 7 days. Two bought local classified advertising paper looking for flats to rent. One bought photo magazine and one other bout a gardening magazine. Same 80 people.

All are postgraduate students, and all are looking at the job market. All are exactly those you will want to target with your jobs advertisements. So where will you advertise?

To look into it even further – the question is how will you actually advertise there. Facebook and LinkedIN will gladly take your money. Since those are ‘Cash Hungry’ businesses. Twitter and most other social networks do not provide a facility where you can just bluntly dump your advertising budget. It is a known fact that the proper ‘usage’ of a social networking site will give you far better results that advertising on the same site. Painfully small is a list of jobs filled from the advertisements on Facebook or LinkedIN. The way one sources the candies from the Social Networking sites is by constant branding, inbound marketing, networking – all the opposites from classical advertising.

Facebook seems like the best place to invest 90% of your recruitment marketing budget from todays perspective. Tomorrow? Ahh… it will probably change again… Just remember, it will never be the same as it once was, and the wheel will never start turning back. Where you will invest next year, is most likely into something that does not even exist today.

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Career CV Internet Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Recruitment

Career Zoo

Looking for a job, internship, work placement, course, or starting your business? Career Zoo as the name says will have all you need to do any of that there for you. And what is the best, it is free. There are some great speakers like Peter and Paul there as well, that I can highly recommend!

Unfortunatelly the Career Zoo site does not display the schedule who is speaking when and about what. I know Paul is speaking about How to get a job without a CV. But when.. is the enigma to me.

It is a day before the exhibition, and the Career Zoo site just reads:

An exciting schedule of seminars will be posted on our website early next week so please check back in.

Well next week is after the Career Zoo exhibition, isn’t it?

Anyway, here are the all the details I could find on the CareerZoo.ie web site:

Grab Your Career by the Horns at Career Zoo
The Round Room at The Mansion House, Dawson St., Dublin 2.
Saturday 15th Jan: 11am – 6pm
Sunday 16th Jan: 11am – 5pm
ADMISSION FREE

Get ready for the career event of 2011 for experienced professionals and graduates who are considering upskilling, retraining or exploring new career opportunities.

Meet leading employers with real career opportunities
Explore thousands of courses including cert, diploma, degree, postgrad and masters. Talk to leading course providers and get clear information in an accessible and friendly environment
Employment growth sectors – what are they and how to prepare for them
Discover work placements, internships and volunteering positions
Career Clinic – get free advice from recruitment experts (click here)
Start Your Own Business – how to become a successful entrepreneur

Categories
Career CV Jobs Recruitment

When do job hunters apply for jobs?

Blue Monday allegedly the most depressive day in the year that falls on the fourth Monday of January is a strong contender that everyone thinks of the day the most people will start searching or apply for a new job. But the statistical data is actually very different. By looking at tens of various recruitment sites, job boards and HR sites of employers, the actually data the most applications come to all the recruiters is the first working Friday of the year. This year 2011, it was the Friday January 7th.

So why are people most likely to send their job application on the first working Friday in the Year? Is it New Year’s Resolutions? Are we just fed up with our work, and decide to do something about it when we came back from the Christmas holidays?

Are employers hesitating to let people go before het Christmas, and break the news in the first week back to work – so people actually get fired on that first working Friday. There is no such jobs news to support it, but then again negative news on the jobs front rarely get to the press anyway.

As a job hunter, if you have sent your application on the first working Friday of the year – you might want to check with the recruiter, since your CV got there in the worst possible time for you – the largest possible amount of the competition of job hunters are applying for the same jobs you are.

Categories
Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment

Advertise with CVrecruit.ie

Jet another Irish job site is born. You know how I love those!

The difference that CVrecruit.ie brings to the Irish jobs advertising marketplace is… Well let me be fair and let them explain it in their own words. Here is from their ‘Advertise with us’ page:

Advertise with us
If you are looking to reach a wide audience via relevant fully branded advertising then CVRecruit could be the site for you. With a large database of both employee and employer/agency users CVRecruit works by providing a cost efficient HR solution for those looking to find staff. It also allows potential candidates to upload their CV’s for the attention of employees, for free.

Through advertisement on CVRecruit you will be able to begin networking via cost effective banner ads throughout our site and system.

The full branding of your business can be expressed through banner ads viewed by hundreds of users. You will receive free links to your business website which will gain international exposure.

If you wish to project a professional image of your business to a varied professional audience (both employers and employees) we promise to help make this happen for you, with dedicated support at all times. We also offer affiliate business possibilities for those interested increase your business levels today by advertising with us !!

At CVRecruit we are also launching a new service, CVRecuit.ie TV, using the latest software this will allow advertisers and employers to create relevant and targeted videos or text ads to be viewed by CVRecruit users in the latest and most advanced media styles , high impact and outstanding visuals will get your service and products featured in high definition on our site take a look at the cvrecruit tv link we believe this will gain you great exposure in an explosive new way also incredibly cost effective

Also our search engine optimisation team will make your wording reach the correct audience you seek and not waste time with irrelevant audiences you are our priority !

So if I am not wrong, the differentiator is that this site will have a good SEO team making sure you do not get wrong applicants, and there is also some kind of video involved here. Kinda alike CVEye, Sonru, CVizz or other video CV sites that popped up lately in Ireland.

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Career Internet Jobs Recruitment

Hundreds of IT jobs available – will there be candidates?

Every second day there is another announcement that het another hundred new IT jobs are available in Ireland. City Bank announced 250 last week, and only today there is 105 new HP Jobs in Galway. With so many of the graduates leaving Ireland, will there be enough heads to fill all those new IT positions announced? Recruiting from other countries to bring people to Ireland as well might not be the easiest thing with Ireland being broke mentioned on every international news published in the western world.

Are we getting into the even worse shortage of the IT candidates than we ever had?

If the shortage of the IT professionals deepens, it will eventually drive to the following outcomes:
1. Higher cost of hiring IT staff – since employers will start offering more to attract new candidates
2. Higher cost of doing business in Ireland, because of the high staff costs – making Irish IT export suffer, and blocks new IT companies setting up in Ireland.
3. Less new jobs being created, as a result as the un-competitiveness
4. Fewer job opportunities in IT for the existing IT graduates – pushing them to emigrate

The cycle goes on and on and the outcome is all but good for the country, for employers or for candidates. It does sound like a Loose–Loose situation far more than a Win-Win one. Do I see it just completely wrong? Or am I just a bit pessimistic today?

What do you thing the shortage of the IT staff in Ireland will be like in the future? And also what will it result in?

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Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Search Engine Social Networks Social Recruitment

Simply Hired releases their first-ever UK Today’s Job Seeker Report

SimplyHired.co.uk has released it’s first annual Today’s Job Seeker report for the UK market. Based on the results of more than 60 user polls conducted on the site since October 2009, the report provides the industry’s most comprehensive picture of job seekers and their interests, behaviours and motivations. To download the full report visit http://scr.bi/ukjobseekerreport.

Highlights of the report include:
• Today’s job seekers say the most important consideration when looking for a job is work-life balance (36%)
• 69% of job seekers are willing to take a pay cut to avoid redundancy
• More than half of job seekers use social media sites in their job search, including Facebook (18%) and Linkedin (31%)

Gautam Godhwani, co-founder and chief executive officer, Simply Hired, said: “The current recession has created a new group of candidates, distinctive in their job search methods and what they want from their career. Today’s job seeker is part of a selective, independent and passionate group actively searching for work through social networking and personalised online job sites. We are pleased to share this data through our first UK Today’s Job Seeker Report.”