Category: Recruitment

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Career CV Internet Jobs Recruitment

Twitter Job Search

twitter-job-searchTwitter emailed us today to ask if they can take our jobs and publish them on Twitter. I had to read their email twice since I could not really understand / believe / comprehend / …fill here something yourself … / see value for them us or the end users.

So I tried to use the Twitter Job Search (beta), and made a number of searches. It is just a text search so not that sophisticated, you cannot really choose a salary range or a location. Just pure text search.

I wonder who is the next who will come in to the jobs sites market in Ireland. TescoJobs.ie ? Dunnes? Nothing would surprise me anymore….

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Blogs Career CV CV Database Internet Jobs Recruitment

Jobsket

I visited the Jobsket (Jobsket.ie) web site today. It’s one of those now innovative sites that their owners and founders know will be the next big thing on the Internet. Unfortunately as we all know not every single site can success, such is the nature of the market. You can recognise those sites by not really having any real meaningful info what they are about, and you cannot really do much yourself on the site.

Jobsket will force you to give up your email address (do I have SPAM…) and then they let you in to log in. When you do log in there is less to see then on the outside, so let’s not waste ink on the Jobsket here anymore. What I wanted to show you is the interesting poll results left from the people who visited Jobsket. The Question was:

Submit an Idea
We’ve setup a feedback forum so you can tell us what’s on your mind. Please go there and be heard!
20 Votes – Import CV from LinkedIn
4 Votes – Change tags
3 Votes – Improve CVs viewer
3 votes – Allow import your CV from Google Docs
1 votes – Allow sending my CV

jobsket

What this tells us is the people do not care really about the fancy feature about a jobs site. What people do care is their own time. I do not want to insert another bloody profile and online CV here. I have a profile (that I am proud of) in LinkedIN. Now go and take it from there you lazy….

Twice many more people suggested the LikedIN connection than all the other suggestions altogether. Now what does that tell you? It tells you that people are sick of creating their profiles and filling the repetitive info in the forms on the various sites. It tells you that there is the time for one site to be a holder of your personal info, where the subsets of it you as the account holder will be able to open to various other sites.

Ehm,… this blog post was about Jobsket. So what is Jobsket really? Jobsket is a spider that takes jobs from Jobs.ie and than matches your CV with the positions advertised and calculates from the published salaries what is your CV, or what are you ‘worth’. I tried. In my case rolling the dice gave more precise results.
The data they collected from Jobs.ie is so old – yeas there are the positions in there that have been published not last year, but before the recession started – so you can guess how accurate the figures are.

The Feedaback from (powered by uservoice) on Jobsket is nice though.

Categories
CV CV Database Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Canvassing in Recruitment

The following is a real life example on the canvassing email sent by an Irish recruitment agency. You might use it as a template, but then again you might read this post to the bottom, and this might change your mind – not to use this as a template, but rethink you recruitment canvassing strategy altogether!

Dear (candidate name)
(your name) here from (recruitment agency), I hope this email finds you well. Apologies for the email intrusion – if this does not apply to your circumstances please feel free to forward to anybody who might be interested. You have previously registered your CV with (recruitment agency). I am contacting you to see if you are currently looking for a role and if I can be of assistance to you.
I specialize in placing (inustry) Contractors throughout Ireland and in the UK also. Please send me a copy of your up to date CV along with your required daily rate, availability and preferred locations. I will give you a call to discuss further.
Note that we also have a permanent recruitment team so if you are only looking at permanent opportunities please let me know also.

Kindest regards
(your name)
(industry) Contracts Recruiter
(recruitment agency)
(slogan)
(address)
(phone)
(email)
(web address)
Winner of the National Recruitment Federation Award: Very Small Agency Category – Superb Agency of the Year 2006/2008/2009
All listings in the (recruitment agency) website are automatically deleted after 2 weeks, ensuring that there are no old vacancies on the site. This means that every role you see as a candidate is active and current. Check out our referral scheme on: (web site)/referral.html

That sounds just lovely doesn’t it? Kind of like the fake mails from the banks, or mails offering you different products that will help you to please your partner.

Dear (Candidate)
Joe Blogs here from (recruitment agency), I hope this email finds you well.
Candidate: This is a classic opening sentence of the American canvassing letters. Joe from Company here, I hope you are well buddy! Well the style does not travel well. The message just does not sound right. This is the basics of the localisation – making the message sound right locally. This does not. And it sounds like you link exchange request, or a mail from the lottery in some far country announcing you just won millions, and they just want €100 for the cost of transferring it to you.

Apologies for the email intrusion…
Candidate: Off so you do feel bad do you? Well you should!

if this does not apply to your circumstances please feel free to forward to anybody who might be interested.
Candidate: Let me get this straight. You feel bad by sending SPAM and I feel bad that mi SPAM filter didn’t block you, and now you are suggesting I should forward it further? As a chain letter perhaps? You forward this to 10 of your contacts in next 10 minutes and you will feel happy! – kind of a thing??!!!

You have previously registered your CV with (recruitment agency). I am contacting you to see if you are currently looking for a role and if I can be of assistance to you.
Candidate: Did you find me a job in the first place? You failed? And what now? You want a second chance? Worming up the cold soup? What’s the story here???

I specialize in placing (industry) Contractors throughout Ireland and in the UK also. Please send me a copy of your up to date CV along with your required daily rate, availability and preferred locations. I will give you a call to discuss further.
Candidate: Ehm,… didn’t you just say that you have my CV. And that is the fact that I regret. Since you did not help in finding me a new job, but instead are sending me stupid emails like this?

Note that we also have a permanent recruitment team so if you are only looking at permanent opportunities please let me know also.
Candidate: Right… And in some different industry, and different country you say? Different continent? Actually a different planet?! What good dies it make me in finding a better job where I live. Here on our green planet? In our Green country? (who said Green Party?!!!).

Kindest regards
(your name)
(industry) Contracts Recruiter
(recruitment agency)
(slogan)
(address)
(phone)
(email)
(web address)
Winner of the National Recruitment Federation Award: Very Small Agency Category – Superb Agency of the Year 2006/2008/2009
This is like a bantam weight category then? NRF is a bit like the boxing scene. There is so many belts and boxing organisations that there are probably more winners and titles available than professional boxers. In recruitment in Ireland if you do not have a few titles every year – you are nobody!

All listings in the (recruitment agency) website are automatically deleted after 2 weeks, ensuring that there are no old vacancies on the site. This means that every role you see as a candidate is active and current.
One would thought that you actually remove the vacancy when you fill it, but not have it online for two more weeks?

Check out our referral scheme on: (web site)/referral.html
I get a an iPod when I make you earn your monthly salary? Or in other words I get a six pack or two, for sourcing the candidates to be placed in the positions that will pay your annual salary?

Well, that is how it to someone looking for a job. Or someone that was actually looking for a job some years ago. So think how are you going to structure your recruitment canvassing email…

Categories
Interview Recruitment

Recruitment Video

In the last couple of years we have seen a number of recruiters trying to bring the Recruitment Video into use in Ireland. So far, all have failed (I think?).

What is Recruitment Video?

Recruitment video is a video used in recruitment process. It is either real time or pre-recorded video.

Pre-recorded recruitment video consists of the:

Recruitment video files recorded by the recruiter or employers, that is used for company and corporate branding purposes. It is there to show how fun it is to work for the company.

Recruitment video files that applicants create and use t apply for the job advertised. (CVizz model in Ireland)

Recruitment video that is there for purpose of promoting itself. (Jobsfair – we all know how that ended)

There is also something else. Earlier this year there was also something else. There is a really good looking web site (perhaps a bit too much text, but nice graphics) that offered interviewing people with a web cam. The site is called Sonru, and again I really like the way it looks!

Here is an example of what happens when a good marketing agency creates a pure marketing video for its products and services. Guess how well does that work for their recruitment: SEO Consultant – Inbound Marketing.

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Google Internet Interview Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Sonru… or the day I ditched Skype, MSN and YouTube altogether!

2009 is probably going to be remembered as the year the Irish recruitment industry exploded! Why is that? Well this is what I am here to tell you today!

Late 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 was probably (Carlsberg) the worst time for the recruitment agencies in Ireland. Majority of the agencies have let a percentage of their staff go. Quite a number of them vent under and have been sold for not really desired (by their founders) sums.
sonru-small
And then it has happened! Sonru was born!

Sonru.com launched in Public Beta on the 27th of February. The launch took place in the Enniscorthy Enterprise & Technology Centre in Wexford in the company of Paul Kehoe TD.

So what is this Sonru and why will it change your life as a recruiter in Ireland? Here is the magic answer: Sonru is a really simple video interview tool based on the web.

What will you use this Sonru for: Sonru is used for lots of different interviewing purposes, the most common being, 1st round job interviews and mock interview preparation.

How much will it set you back? Not only is Sonru convenient it is also very cost effective. Also the folks at Sonru strongly believe that – We believe Sonru is great value for money.

So now you know. Sonru is The Thing in 2009. And just in case you didn’t get it by now, here is a comparison chart for you:

sonru

And this is why you should as well as I did, ditch your Skype, MSN and YouTube instantly! This is all so ’08! Sonru is NOW! Sonru is the future! Long live Sonru!

The author of the above post is not in any way affiliated with any of the above companies Sonru and Skype wile holds some shares of MSFT and GOOG, but their value seems to be melting quickly. Obviously accelerated by the Sonru arrival).

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Blogs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Brightwater: Are we as a nation too hard on ourselves?

Irish recruitment agency Brightwaters online poll for January 2009 was:

Are we as a nation too hard on ourselves?

online-poll-feb-results

David Bloch, CEO of the Brightwater Group comments:

Until now I have gone with the “ask the audience” answer, but not this time. I think the Irish are too hard on themselves!

I am speaking as a person who has worked in Ireland for 11 years, but was born in the States, and lived in 6 different countries. I love Ireland, but recognise that while the Irish are wonderfully proud and patriotic, they are also the first to be hard on themselves. Self-deprecating humour and an almost disbelief that they really are as wonderful as so much of the rest of the world believes them to be. Even during the Celtic Tiger years, while certainly there were Irish people who believed their own hype, there were so many that believed Ireland’s success was too good to be true. Now that the bubble has burst, there seems to be the belief that it really was just an illusion and Ireland will sink back into the mire. The UK, the US and most of the rest of the world exhibit more self confidence!

Confidence is a fundamental emotion and cannot easily be switched on and off. Ireland must believe in themselves and believe they are worthy of being at the top table, to remain at the top table.

Self belief springs from many things, but starts with honesty and trust in the country and the system. I am therefore adamant that wrong-doers (there are question marks hanging over several government, banking and other officials) should be dealt with quickly and severely! The worldwide view of Ireland Inc is at stake. Is Ireland a country of law? A country we should invest in? More still, the self confidence of the country is at stake. Are we still a nation of corrupt politicians and businessmen (you scratch my back & I’ll scratch yours), or are we a nation of integrity and strength who will not tolerate corruption? It’s time Ireland stopped putting themselves down and stand up proud and strong. We will not accept being treated like that, we deserve better!

Only by overcoming obstacles can you prove to yourself what you’re really made of. The recession is a challenge and an opportunity. As President Obama says: Believe!

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CV Database Internet Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Irish Jobs Advertising Prices

The jobs postings on Irish jobs sites are purchased as job slots. The slots last for 30 days and can be re-used. Some of the web sites do not let you reuse the jobs slot, but sell you jobs credits as opposed to the jobs slots (be aware!). Extensive discounting is available with volume that usually follows the pattern below:

Quantity Price Per Slot Cost
1 €150 €150.00
3 €375 €125.00
5 €575 €115.00
10 €725 €72.50
20 €775 €38.75
50 €1750 €35.00
100 €3000 €30.00

* all prices are exclusive of VAT at 21.5%

In addition to jobs advertising services jobs sites will also offer sponsored branding opportunities to recruiters via jobs by email alerts and monthly newsletter emails. Banner advertising on most of the sites is also available.

What do you think of the Irish Jobs sites pricing?

Categories
Career Jobs Recruitment

Bankers applying for jobs in McDonald’s

jobs-in-mcdonaldsPhoto credit: Myung Jung Kim/PA Wire

Evening Echo:

Jobs in a new McDonald’s branch in Ennis have attracted applications from unemployed bankers, architects and accountants.

There were 500 applications for jobs in the new branch in 10 days. The jobs were advertised solely on a banner at the site which was taken down after 10 days because franchisee Kieran McDermott had received so many CVs.

He said the situation was the direct opposite in 2002, when he opened a branch in Shannon.

Employees were difficult to find then, as Ireland was at the height of the boom with very low levels of unemployment.

Categories
Career Jobs Microsoft Recruitment

When will the recruitment market in Ireland turn around?

There is the current state of the LinkedIN Poll from Microsoft Ireland:
When will the recruitment market in Ireland turn around?

likedin-poll-When will the recruitment market in Ireland turn around

The responses do not seem very optimistic! :)

likedin-poll-results- When will the recruitment market in Ireland turn around

The fact is that recruitment in Ireland is still very much alive. It might be hard to believe since you are bombarded with the news about job losses every day. Check the Jobs News site for the published news about jobs in Ireland. But the reality is that the vast majority of the Irish workforce is still working. The Irish companies are still doing what they have been doing before the crisis. A large number of the companies have made some staff redundant, and those have been the staff that are not triticale to the operations. If company can get their product out with 20% staff reduction, they did it in the last few months. The words like efficiency and productivity finally got their meaning now. The end result is actually going to be good for the Irish economy. We will get more productive workforce. The people who lost their jobs will eventually find a job somewhere else or start their own business. This is what we are good at in Ireland.

The next result is that we will eventually bring our prices down. January 2009 was the first month in the long time that we had negative inflation, or deflation. And we need a quite a few more months like that. That will drive the prices down. Cost of living will be balanced with the rest of Euro zone. We will stop going shopping to Northern Ireland, because ‘everything is half price up north!’. Ireland will become competitive.

We do need this process of restructuring of our companies, and if we do it right we will come out stronger.

I know that this sounds a bit like David McWilliams. But guess what, the Microsoft Recruitment Poll results are even less optimistic! More than half of the people think the recession is to stay here for MORE THAN 2 YERS!

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Internet Jobs Recruitment

Recruiting Blogs: Social Networking and Jobs Board

Posted by Ivan Stojanovic | www.JobsBlog.ie on October 13, 2008 at 3:43pm
View Original Blog Post on Recruiting Blogs

Delete Post Manage Blog If you would be given a chance to create your own recruiters profile on Monster or any other job board, would you do it? The profile would be your page on that job board, with a number of customizable elements like the profile on RecruitingBlogs.com or LinkedIN has.

How about being able to create groups, to link the people in your company, or with your interests. How about job hunters being able to create the profile on the site as well, with various levels of the content published on them. Would that be a LinkedIn that would actually function as a recruitment platform 9as opposed to the current LiknedIN). Wouldn’t that be Monster that would give you that little bit more? Wouldn’t that enable ‘passive’ job seekers in Monster instead in being able just to publish a CV – but also actively approach the recruiters they are interested in?

Would your own profile with your name, contact details, URL to your company web site & logo, links to your blogs, to your online profiles, jour photo and your latest jobs listed be a nice ‘Branding Package’ as well?

What would motivate you to populate such a profile on the next job board that enables such a ‘Social Networking Profile’ of a recruiter? What would it have to contain for you to go and fill it up with your data?

Categories
Career Internet Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Web design in Ireland

Serving the needs of the online recruiters in Ireland for the last 5 years I got to know a number of the web design companies in Ireland. There is quite a large pool of excellent web design and/or web development companies. The fact that there used to be over 600 registered recruitment agencies on average during the last 5 years generates a need for a hundreds of recruitment agency web sites. On average a recruitment agency (or any other) web site needs to e replaced every two years. That defines the size of the recruitment agency web site market in Ireland of about 200 to 300 web sites per year!

So no wonder the web design companies in Ireland had it good over the last number of years. The average budget was about €25 000 per the recruitment agency web site and a number of big players got their site done for over €50 000. And then the Celtic Tiger got a bit tired, and could not sustain pricing structures implemented in the Irish recruitment industry. As a side effect the web design in Ireland was and still is hit badly. The web design was the industry where huge sums of money have been changing hands for many years between gentleman. Today, when the market is almost gone completely, there is this bitter taste in the mouths and the solicitors are getting involved to untangle the complex contracts and unfinished projects.

The number of the new job boards in Ireland is greater than the number of the new recruitment agency web sites being published in the last 6 months. The job boards owners are forgetting that it is the recruitment agencies who are supposed to be paying their fees. And the Recruitment agencies cannot even invest in their own web sites?

It seems that the online recruitment is the industry that is disappearing from the radar of the web design companies in Ireland. And that is the same industry that up until the last year had a few hundred new web site releases. The size of the market is not smaller, but the market almost do not even exist for the recruitment web site design.

We all had it good for many, many years now. In the same time we become extremely expensive and therefore uncompetitive on the international web design (or any other) market. Foreign companies are running away, since our tax breaks cannot justify our costs any more. It simply does not pay to do business in Ireland any more. Irish web design companies should rethink their strategies and pricing in general. Otherwise very few of the web sites will actually be made in Ireland any more. We all know it would really be a pity, simply because there is and there is quite a few really good web design companies in Ireland. If we loos them, the internet based businesses like the online recruitment will suffer as well.

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Blogs Career Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Any Jobs in Ireland?

Today’s announcement from one of the leading jobs sites in Ireland nicely describes what does a jobs scene look in Ireland today:

Hi All

Just a quick note to let you know we have now added some new locations;

Europe
Australia
United Arab Emirates
New Zealand
Canada
USA
South Africa
North Africa
Middle East

If you have any queries please let me know.

The jobs sites cannot really survive advertising the jobs in Ireland only. Simply there is not enough jobs in Ireland to sustain the business model of advertising jobs in Ireland only. There simply isn’t enough jobs here anymore. Irish Jobs are gone. Jobs are elsewhere today.

Welcome to the emigration wave…

Categories
Interview Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Business Development Manager required with excellent sales capacity

www.EmployIreland.ie is growing! We need help to manage that growth! Are you the one?

About EmployIreland.ie
www.EmployIreland.ie is the Irish Jobs site with a bit of the twist. It differs from the usual leading Irish Jobs sites by the fact that it is the only Irish Jobs site that is not advertising it’s services. Simply not paper, no radio, no TV, no print brochures, no cinema, no …. no advertisements. The removal of the advertising cost have helped us keeping our prices down to the minimum.

The current recession in the Irish industry pushed Irish recruitment and jobs advertisers to rethink their online advertising strategy. www.EmployIreland.ie with it’s unique pricing structure is the obvious answer. we are announcing a Sales manager / Business Development Manager position to help us manage the expansion.

The Sales Manager / Business Development Manager Role

Experience
Working in the Irish recruitment agency environment with at least 2 years experience essential. Both recruitment consultant (with hands on usage of the Irish job boards and multiple job posting systems) and team lead / branch manager (managing online advertising budget) experience is desired. Experience in the multiple recruitment agencies or recruitment web sites is a big plus.

Interview Questions:

Do you use LinkedIN or other social networks?
Do you write a blog?
Do you know what SEO stands for?
Can you explain why different job advertisements for a same job attract different candidates?
Do you use or have you used jobs sites to advertise (on daily bases) in your career?
Do you use an ATS?
Do you use the multiple job posting service?
Do you enjoy all above?

If the answer is yes to all the above and you love sales, you are the perfect candidate! We believe we have a perfect job for you!

Salary
We offer a wide range os the salary packages and different remuneration options tha YOU can choose from. From a basic salary plus benefits, to Basic plus sales bonus to a partnership or a pure revenue sharing offers. If you are the right person for www.EmployIreland.ie we will have the right package for you!

We are growing company. The number of clients is growing year after year. The number of services we offer grows every year. As such we do not believe in the salary freezing!

Categories
Blogs Jobs Recruitment

Irish Jobs sites prices falling

It is interesting to see how the overpriced Irish jobs sites started reducing their prices drastically. I just saw this ad this morning, and I still think they should reduce it much, much more, but at least it is a step in the right direction… Perhaps a too small step and too late?

Categories
Blogs Career Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Sales Staff Salaries

I often thought how to structure the remuneration package for a sales staff in the recruitment or even more specific is the sales of the jobs site subscriptions. The jobs sites sell the three month, six months and the most often the annual subscription that includes the free usage of a number of jobs slots on the site. What it means is that the client, an employer or a recruitment agency can use their XX number of jobs slots as they like. There is usually some side products on the jobs sites like the CV Database Access, or a Hot Job – that is displayed on the home page. Some company branding packages with the company logos around the pages on the job site are also common practice.

The sales staff are usually paid so that there is a percentage of their salary that is a Basic Salary. It is guaranteed and not related to their performance. For a junior sales staff it is not far off the minimum wage, and it grows with the experience of the person. The other part of the salary is the bonus that is related to the performance achieved in each time period. The bonuses are really structured differently in different companies and industries.

Obviously the sales person should bring more in (revenue) the company than what his own costs are. So here is a question then:

Should a sales person rather accept a percentage of the revenue or the classis sales remuneration package comprised of a basic plus a bonus?

Obviously for a good sales person a percentage of the revenue if it is a substantial percentage should be a far more interesting option, since it brings the person to a ‘Partner’ level instantly. It is actually even better then a partnership since the sales person gets a percentage of the revenue generated, regardless if the company is actually profitable at all.

I have heard recruiters saying, that the percentage of the revenue is interesting for them but that the sales process can take long time to close, and there is the mortgage, the car,…

So I tried to look at it from a different perspective. How about a sales person taking home 100% of any revenue he makes for the first month or so? How about 100% of all the revenue made in the first two months??? Surely there should be quite enough clients you can close a deal with within 60 days?

What do you think? Am I on the right track? Would you take a job where you take home everything you make for the first few months?