Category: Recruitment

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Blogs Google Internet LinkedIN Microsoft Recruitment

Declan Fitzgerald

Social Networking, Blogging, Recruitment 2.0, an all the other buzz words do not mean anything until all those technologies are utilised, and utilised properly. It is actually quite easy to embrace it all, or any part of it, and make absolutely nothing. How many web sites, job sites, blogs social networks or internet projects in all shapes or forms get published and just nothing happens with them afterwards? If you do it, you have to do it right, to make any kind of impact. There is a long list of people and companies trying, and all are in the same race. Only one or a small number can therefore succeed in every niche.

Irish employers have stayed out of all this new way of attracting talent. Irish companies haven’t made much success in blogging or the next step – recruiting via their blogs. LinkedIN and Facebook are used as the tool for the background checking more than what they are built for – for sourcing. Boolean searches, we all tried it and found gems, but very few in Ireland and it was disappointing.

But then it all started changing. And the change started with Declan Fitzgerald – a recruiter form Microsoft who calls himself – The Irish Cyber Sleuth. Declan was brave and jumped heads up into the blogging and social networking. Fairly quickly all his efforts come together with a great result. The result is actually so great that not only Microsoft will benefit from it, but it has far greater repercussions on the whole Irish Recruitment and Human Resources industry. Things will never be the same again. Declan lifted us and made us all think on how we do our business, and in some cases ‘Pushed’ us into the future of the recruitment.

So how did Declan Fitzgerald do it all?

Well Declan did a lot of things, and the result we see today is the combined result of all of those actions. What we have today is:

Blog: The Irish Cyber Sleuth: The Future of Recruitment is in the Cloud
Talking about someone’s blog is just like painting about someone’s music. Read it! It is the most popular Employer recruitment blog in the country for a reason. Here is how Declan describes it himself:
I am passionate about technology and recruitment. This blog is about the intersection of both, keeping an eye on what is happening in both industries in Ireland and abroad and understanding, commentating and theorising about what is happening on the gleam of the knife of recruitment innovation.

LinkedIN Group: Irish Recruiters
Declan made the largest group of the Recruiters in Ireland on LinkedIN. He closely monitors the activity, moderates it and encourages positive discussions. A lot of hard work and it is all paying off not since the group has 852 members today, and not just ‘anyone’ in it.

Tuesday Club
Being such a great networker, Declan knew that he needed to organise the Irish Recruiters to meet physically as well, not only over the Internet. The Tuesday Club is the meeting only for the members of the LinkedIN Group Irish Recruiters. And this is what makes it so good. Only the people who keep an eye on the future have been there. This makes the quality of discussions that Declan organises with the questions prepared up front, on the highest level. We all learned something on Tuesday Club! It is not that often to see people working the Irish jobs sites, multiple job posting service providers, ATS, recruitment agencies and in house recruiters all in the same room in the very open discussion? Recruiters sharing experiences like what jobs site they use for what kind of a position? The timing was perfect for the Tuesday Club. Recession brought us recruiters very close together as the industry. We genuinely want to help each other and care about each other. Even that we might be a competition some times. The ruthless ‘Sales and Nothing but the Sales’ approach we used to have during the past decade grew into a nice and relaxed atmosphere. Enjoyable. Tuesday Club that Declan so passionately organises is just the best that could happen to the recruitment industry in Ireland.

Recruitment Conference: The Future of Recruitment – Part 1:The Road Ahead!
As if the above wasn’t enough, Declan went on and organised a recruitment conference. Ireland has seen a very few of those, and if I remember correctly the biggest so far was the one Marco and his Jobs.ie crowd organised some 4 years in Westin Hotel in Dublin. Declan invited the top heads from the largest Irish recruitment agency and largest Irish jobs site, and some people from Microsoft and LinkedIN. A serious line-up. He asked them to give their views on the future of the recruitment. Declan was brave again since those 4 views should be all going in their separate directions. The Q&A session will be lively!

Declan does not show any signs of tiring actually. The Tuesday Club ended in him making sure everyone knows their input on the topics for the next meeting is not only welcome but expected! He names his first conference ‘Part 1’ for a reason. He already has a plan what will the next one be about and when are the likely speakers.

Well done Declan!

Categories
Blogs Career Internet Jobs Recruitment

Flexitimers

flexitimers_logoWhen you put a good team together with a bit of funding a good things happen. It might take a few iterations, and polishing of the product, but the end result is what makes Ireland what it is – a nest for the Entrepreneurs!

Who is behind Flexitimers?

Dervla Cunningham and Joy Redmond made it all happen.

Cormac Kelly that we all know from the Sonru site review made sure the site has its looks.

What is Flexitimers then?

Here is what they say themselves:

Flexitimers is a self-service project board enabling companies to connect with consultants, freelancers, small businesses, contractors and specialists/experts for professional project work in Ireland.

To ensure both professionals and companies receive quality matches – profiles will not be ‘live’ on the site until they have been checked for completeness and email addresses verified.

The site is completely free for both professionals and companies to use. But both professionals and employers must register their details and verify their email address. This is to ensure to ensure all users of the site are genuine. It is also important to note that Flexitimers is a closed network – employers or other professionals cannot search through profiles. Profiles are only viewable to employers whose project matches your profile.

Flexitimers Pricing?

Flexitimers joins RecruitIreland.com as a second FREE recruitment site for Irish Employers.

Flexitimers we wish you all the best!

Categories
Career CV Interview Recruitment

NEW CV & INTERVIEW WEBSITES LAUNCHED IN IRELAND

Paul Mullan has just launched two new websites for jobseekers offering Professional CV Writing Services – www.cvsolutions.ie and Interview Preparation Services – www.interviewsolutions.ie. Paul is founder of Measurability a leading Outplacement & Career Coaching – www.measurability.ie provider in Ireland.

CV Solutions – Professional CV Writing Service in Ireland

CV Solutions is a website dedicated to CV writing. The site offers a comprehensive service tailored to meet the needs of all jobseekers. The service caters for Graduates, Mid-Level Professionals and Executives. The site also contains excellent tips and advice for jobseekers on a range of topics including CV Layout & CV Format.

Interview Solutions – Interview Coaching Service in Ireland

Interview Solutions offers a professional interview coaching service helping jobseekers deliver at interview. Interview Solutions supports all levels of professional and helps prepare for all styles of interview – competency interview, structured interview, traditional interview, panel interview and phones interview. This site also contains some excellent advice for interview preparation.

About Paul Mullan

Paul established Measurability in 2006 offering Career Coaching & Outplacement Services to employers and employees nationwide. He has 15 years recruitment, careers, outplacement and HR experience. Paul regularly comments across national media and radio on a range of Career & Recruitment issues (Sunday Times at the weekend). He writes for many online websites and is Career Doctor with the Irish Independent.

If your are currently job hunting and struggling to get called for interview visit www.cvsolutions.ie and if you can land interviews but fail to perform visit www.interviewsolutions.ie.

Categories
Career CV Database Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

TalentTank.ie

talenttankieWell the recession does not seem to have any impact on the creativity of the Irish future jobs board owners. TalentTank.ie is the latest proof of that. While some of the largest ones are changing their business models drastically:

  • Jobs.ie adopted Google AdSense advertisements, and is selling pop under traffic (those popup windows that open behind the main window with some unrelated (usually dodgy) web site
  • IrishJobs.ie selling pop under traffic
  • RecruitIreland.com giving it away for free to any employer to advertise

    • TalentTank.ie has a quite different business model from a day one. This is what they say about themselves:
    In essence, TalentTank.ie is a web-based platform that provides both Individuals and Employers to quite simply make a difference in this current down-turn.

    TalentTank.ie will also explain the details:

    Talented Individuals register with TalentTank.ie to offer their talents and skills for free, for a couple of hours or days a week for a specified period, so as to demonstrate their skill sets. Employers in turn register with TalentTank.ie to avail of this free pool of resources in turn driving productivity with out any additional cost over-head.

    Basically it is a free labour for the Employers. As TalentTank.ie say – ‘no cost’.

    Thereafter, having demonstrated their net worth to their Employer colleagues, Individuals then have the opportunity to onward and directly network with potential Employers, in effect bypassing costly recruitment agencies and enabling a quicker and more cost effective route to employment for both parties.

    Recruitment agencies are being bypassed to avoid their cost as well. So Employers do not have to pay for the staff or the recruitment.

    This initiative will allow Employers become more competitive in terms of reducing labour costs and driving skills-base, which if adopted cross sectors and industries, will contribute significantly towards establishing a foundation for recovery. And of course, as an Employer’s business grows, so to will the need for new Employees.

    Employers are getting staff and the recruitment of the staff for free so they will be more profitable and as ThinkTank.ie page say – establish the foundation for the economic recovery. Staff and recruitment costs written off profit margins shoot up, and Ireland becomes competitive again. The roar of the Celtic Tiger can be heard running back towards us!

    Or did I not get it right somehow? Do you get it?

    Categories
    Blogs Internet Jobs LinkedIN Microsoft Recruitment

    Tuesday Club – Irish Recruiters on LinkedIN

    Social Networking finally started happening on a proper scale in the recruitment industry in Ireland! What accelerated is that one of the largest US multinationals present here in Ireland made the best person to stimulate the social networking available. Declan Fitzgerald is today the best known blogger on the recruitment topics among Irish employers. Declan did not stop there, but organised the social networking via the LinkedIN Group – Irish Recruiters. The group today has 840 members, and is still growing quickly. The next step Declan decided is to bring the social networking from the web to the real life, so we got:

    irish-recruiters-logo Tuesday Club – Irish Recruiters on LinkedIN

    How to sign up? Join the Irish Recruiters group in LinkedIN first, and see the Group info for more!

    Categories
    Blogs Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine

    Get Your Jobs Indexed by TwitterJobSearch

    If you are a recruiter in Ireland I am guessing you would like your jobs to be advertised in real time in as many publications as you can afford. Any Irish Jobs boards are the obvious choice, and then the FREE Jobs sites that accept job advertisements. In Ireland there aren’t that many free jobs sites, but here is a free one, trying to be a jobs site – Twitter!

    How to get your jobs in Twitter Job Search?

    You will need to get your jobs in the format below and submit them to the Twitter Jobs Search.

    <?xml version=”1.0″?>
    <jobs>
    <publisher-name>Your Job Site</publisher-name>
    <publisher-url>http://www.yourjobsite.com</publisher-url>
    <job>
    <id>unique12345</id>
    <date>2004-06-22 10:33:11</date>
    <title>Customer Service Representative</title>
    <company>Big ABC Corporation</company>
    <url>http://www.yourjobsite.com/viewjob.php?jobid=unique12345</url>
    <salary>50K per year</salary>
    <jobtype>full-time, part-time, permanent</jobtype>
    <education>Degree</education>
    <experience>2+ years</experience>
    <location>London</location>
    <postcode>W1 3GR</postcode>
    <description>Strong Applicant. Communication skills. </description>
    <category>IT, Internet</category>
    </job>
    <job>
    <id>unique12346</id>
    <date>2004-06-22 10:33:11</date>
    <title>Customer Service Representative</title>
    <company>Big ABC Corporation</company>
    <url>http://www.yourjobsite.com/viewjob.php?jobid=unique12345</url>
    <salary>50K per year</salary>
    <jobtype>full-time, part-time, permanent</jobtype>
    <education>Degree</education>
    <experience>2+ years</experience>
    <location>London</location>
    <postcode>W1 3GR</postcode>
    <description>Strong Applicant. Communication skills. </description>
    <category>IT, Internet</category>
    </job>
    </jobs>

    Categories
    Blogs Internet Recruitment Recruitment Agency

    Recruit Ireland goes FREE!

    Recruit Ireland found itself an a bit funny situation this month. On one hand they are the main sponsor of the National Recruitment Federation Conference later this week. The NRF is the association of the Irish Recruitment Agencies, and most of them are actually Recruit Ireland’s paying clients. On the other hand Recruit Ireland has decided to give Free Jobs Advertising for Ireland’s Employers – that are basically the clients of the agencies, hence their clients. Employers loved it since there is something free for them. We all like free things. Agencies hated it since they lost revenue while their cost (a fee that Recruit Ireland charges) is still the same.

    Via the various channels different recruiters have publicly disapproved the move by Recruit Ireland. All the Recruitment Agency blogs and Social Networking Discussions state the clear and strong disapproval with the move. Recruiters feel it’s not a fair move. And they all raised the question – What will their own association (that charges them for membership as well) do about it? The 2009 NRF conference will therefore be very interesting, with the Recruit Ireland as the main sponsor, and 118 agencies, most of them angry (none has spoken anything positive about the move!)

    From the Recruit Ireland’s perspective it was probably a – no brainer. They are not managing to sell any advertising to the Employers, and the Jobs site always looks better with the Employers jobs on it. No one likes the 100% recruitment agency dominated web site. So they decided to give it up for free to employers. It will fill their database of potential future clients.

    I am really looking forward to the NRF conference later this week since there will obviously be some interesting discussions!

    Categories
    Career Internet Recruitment

    Who’s Viewed My LinkedIN Profile

    likedin-profileLinkedIN profiles are interesting thing. Your personal data stored in LinkedIN is actually the asset that LinkedIN sells. Whom to? Well to anyone interested to pay for it, even to you if you want to take your credit card out!

    Here is the bait. LinkedIN tells you how many times was your profile seen in the last week, and it also tells you a bit about a few people who have seen it. If you want to know more – get ready to pay for it.

    Who’s Viewed My LinkedIN Profile?

    Your profile has been viewed by 9 people in the last 7 days, including:

    HR Director at 3i
    Someone in the Human Resources function in the Staffing and Recruiting industry from Ireland
    Director at Premier Group
    Someone in the Entrepreneur function in the Marketing and Advertising industry from Ireland
    Someone in the Human Resources function in the Staffing and Recruiting industry from Ireland

    The popularity of my LinkedIN profile in the last 7 days is listed above. It is actually quite relative to what I actually do for living, and reflects the group of people I am linked to in LinkedIN. Recruitment, staffing and HR people, from the entrepreneur to a director level, and a bit of marketing and advertising brought in to the mix.

    Would you bite and pay to see who are those people who spent their time to view your profile?

    BTP: Here is my public profile on LinkedIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanstojanovic

    Categories
    Internet Microsoft Recruitment

    CPL, Irish Jobs & Microsoft: The Future of Recruitment

    00992CS-UFor the €200 fee CPL, Irish Jobs and Microsoft will tell you what The Future of Recruitment is going to be like.

    The conference will include content on:

    What challenges the CPL and Irish Jobs are experiencing in the current climate?

    How Microsoft recruits?

    How cloud computing is evolving recruitment?

    The future trends, techniques and technologies from the CPL Irish Jobs and Microsoft

    Examples of Irish companies that are offering innovative recruitment products and services and connecting to job seekers in new ways…. – I believe this is again from the above three companies.

    Categories
    Blogs Career Jobs Recruitment

    Financial Careers on Ireland’s Banks

    Poll results from the Cinancial Careers Jobs Site:

    Is the worst over for Ireland’s banks?
    5% Definitely, we have turned a corner
    35% Still too difficult to tell
    60% No, there’s still a lot of work to be done

    I guess no further comment needed…

    Categories
    Career Internet Recruitment

    If there is a job, Hound will sniff it!

    hound-job-siteAmerican marketing was always a bit specific. In some cases it just does not ‘cross the water’ well, and sounds a bit off on our shores here. In recruitment the example is the job site Hound.com. It is a Employers Only model job site, like Ireland has its own RealJobs.ie. It’s marketing is very original and different from the usual jobs sites. On Hound everything is about the hounds and the front page is full of dogs images. 13 dogs will welcome you on the Hound home page. Quite impressive for the jobs site, isn’t it?

    This is Hound they think you should use them:
    Hound shows its members jobs from every employer website it can find in the United States and throughout the world. It is the most powerful job-search engine in existence and powers several job boards. Recruiters use Hound to track down potential jobs for their clients.

    Meaning: If there is a job, Hound will sniff it!

    Categories
    Career Internet Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine SEO

    How to post a job online Part 3: Job Description

    The following article is the third part of three articles on – How to Post a Job Online. The first article is Job Titles. The second is Job Tags and Keywords.This third article concentrates solely on the Job Description.

    Job Description

    Do not start your job description with:
    Your job title – since it is probably printed above it on your Jobs Page in larger font.
    An advertisement – We are the best company for…

    Do start your Job Description with a sigle sentence that is 3 – 5 second sales pitch for your position. When a job seeker gets to the page your job is advertised you have a few seconds to get his attention to read the full long page and apply to your job. That is why your first sentence of a Job Description is crucial. Remember that a job seeker have seen the Job Title already, and that message brought him to the job advertisement page. The first sentence have to be the natural extension of the Job Title, so do not repeat it in full again, but tell the job seeker more about your job.

    Under your first sentence very short paragraph use the headings to name the following parts of the job specification. Do not use more than 4 or 5 headings. Use the combination of the lists and the text in every job specification. It makes the page easier to scan and digest in seconds.

    Do not end your job specification with jet another advertisement. Apply button is where you want the job seeker to end up, as quick as possible. Your conversion rate drops a single percent with every word too many in your job description. The unnecessary words at the need of the job description have even worse effect. A pure branding sentence about your company can reduce the conversion rate of a page where the job is advertised more than 10%, especially if it contains a hyperlink to another page (your home page).

    A job description advertised on a web site has a function. When writing the content for that page – a Job Description, have that in mind. Be aware that the goal is to get the right candidate to the page (write relevant content) and get him trough the content as quickly as possible (headings, lists, formatting) to the application form. Your advertisements and branding messages have its place in your Company Profile (on jobs sites or anywhere else on your own web site. Their effect on the job advertisement page is just the reduction of applications.

    Categories
    Blogs Career Internet Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine SEO

    How to post a job online Part 2: Job Tags / Keywords

    The following article is the second part of three articles on – How to Post a Job Online. The first article is Job Titles. This second article concentrates solely on the Job Tags or Job Keywords.

    Job Tags

    Tags or Keywords are the words or phrases we can associate any page with to help the search engines and content management systems understand what is our content about.

    How to create a set of tags that will drive traffic from the search engines to your job advertisement?

    When you have crated your ‘perfect’ Job Title, you will most likely and up choosing one of the number of the good ones you came up with. That best one will then be your Job Title, and the rest of them you can use as Tags. How many? The more the better! Job sites usually let you publish around 1000 characters in the Job Keywords field, so do not exceed that limit.

    Tags multiply the power of the Job Title. How do they do it? Simply because most jobs sites and modern CMS-es know how to use tags to generate pages, and links from them. If tags structure is applied correctly, it can multiply your job applications numbers.

    Categories
    Career Internet Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency SEO

    How to post a job online Part 1: Job Title

    The following article is the first part of three articles on – How to Post a Job Online. This first article concentrates solely on the Job Title.

    Job Title

    Job Title is the most important part of your job description. Why? Job title is the first part that the job seeker will see of your job advertisement. In half of the different displays that is also the only part of the job description a job seeker will see. If your Job Title is not catchy, you will lose the attention of a job seeker and he will go to apply for a job better presented by its title.

    Besides the visual presentation, the Job Title has the extreme importance in driving the traffic to the web site where the job is advertised. Why? Best job sites are designed so that the Job Title from your job advertisement actually generates dynamically the most important web page elements on the page the job is displayed. Your job title will also become a web page title, a link title, and will display itself on huge number of the places on the web site where the job is published. The result is that the search engine will drive traffic to the page where you have advertised your job – and the traffic will be related to the job title you have chosen for your job.

    Choose a wrong job title, and you have missed the opportunity to drive interested job seekers to your job.

    So what should a Job Title be on a job site?

    In most cases you have some predefined title already. It is usually a name of the role the position will be working on in the company. It is something like Welder, Project Manager, Quality Assurance Specialist, etc.

    Now let’s think like a job seeker for a second, and try to imagine what will a job seeker be searching for in the search engines? He might logically start looking for the role name (like Project Manager). If the results are not close enough, the job seeker will include the location. The search phrase will look like Project Manager Dublin. If that does not return what he is looking for, he will filter further with a skill he possesses. So the search phrase comes to Program Manager Dublin Six Sigma.

    Now let’s go back to your job advertisement, and look at the ways to attract that candidate. Why him? Well he knows exactly what role, where and with what skills applied is his desired role. People who do not look for a job in Dublin are not potting the word Dublin in the search phrase. It’s a natural filtering process, and the perfect candidate is the one who comes to your job advertised with a search phrase that is a good representation (or the exact match?!) of your job and therefore your job title.

    The average quality of the job applications for the position advertised as just a role (Program Manager) is really low compared to the job advertised with a Job Title constructed as a role + location + skill.

    Furthermore your jobs page with your job advertised as a simple job role name most likely has a greater competition, meaning many other sites have a page like this, and it will be extremely hard to get the job hunter to your page from the search engine. The more complex your job title is – the less competition for that phrase exists in the search engines, Jour job is more likely to get there on top of the search result and drive the traffic to your job page the page your job is advertised.

    Next: Job Tags & Keywords

    Categories
    Internet Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

    Irish Recruiter

    The Twitter Job Search post today reminded me about an account I opened to check Twitter some time ago. The Irish Recruiter Twitter account: http://twitter.com/irishrecruiter

    By using the Twitter Job Search I found and Irish recruitment agency Grafton Recruitment using the Twitter Job Search already. Actually they submitted their jobs 6 hours ago. I wonder if there have been any applications. Grafton Recruitment also has their own Twitter account and I found the press release linked from it. The PR is on onrec:

    Grafton tweeting recruits to a new career
    26/03/2009

    Recruitment firm connects online offering to global twitter phenomenon.
    Grafton Recruitment has become the first recruitment agency anywhere in Ireland to incorporate the revolutionary internet tool ‘Twitter’ as an integral part of their e-marketing strategy.

    The company have used existing technology to ensure that every new job posted to their own website broadcasts as a ‘Tweet’ on Twitter which is then added to the TwitterJobSearch.com database opening up Grafton jobs to a potential worldwide audience.

    As well as this facility Grafton Recruitment will also be ‘tweeting’ updates on news, industry statistics, market trends as well as exclusive jobs making it one of the must-read recruitment Micro-blogs online.

    Nico Fell, Grafton Recruitment e-Business Manager said:

    “By allowing candidates to follow Grafton jobs on Twitter, we have created a channel of pull media which is perfect for those on the move or people who aren’t based in front of a computer all day. With mobile access and the explosion of the iPhone and Blackberry into the online world, sites like Twitter and TwitterJobSearch.com are ideal for keeping up to date with the latest jobs. With this new tool commuters weary of their current job can keep up to date in the market for a more rewarding role on the way home from work.”

    Outlining Grafton’s experience of how the job market has become increasingly global in recent years. Mr Fell said,

    “Grafton Recruitment’s own site attracts visitors from over 130 countries worldwide and will be complimented well by the global reach of Twitter’s new job search service which is already serving over 80 countries. We see the competition for roles coming not only from local candidates but also those from overseas as the willingness to travel to find your ideal job increases.”

    This weeks’ announcement comes on the back of Grafton Recruitment’s recent shortlisting for ‘The Recruiter Awards’ for Best Recruitment Firm Website and Nico Fell said the Twitter service was just one of a number of recent innovations Grafton Recruitment had added to their online service as web-based traffic continued to grow.

    So the new buzz in town is: Grafton is on Twitter!
    (you read it here first! …. or perhaps on onrec,… or actually on Twitter,… :)