Category: Recruitment

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Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Recruitment

TruLondon – Career Websites Lab – Applying science to define the ideal career website

#truLondon is next week, and by the looks of it – this is going to be the biggest one ever. 48 speakers or ‘Track Leaders’ in two days? With the tweetup and RIDE events added to the #tru event as well?

On top of the most interesting,… well to be honest impressive is the better word list of participants to any #tru event ever, there are some new things happening this time. Live streaming will surely be watched globally. One other thing that caught my eye is the detailed plan and schedule to build a recruitment web site – during the two days of the show. I have spent the best part of the last 10 years of my life defining what the recruitment web site should be, and hiring and managing teams who would work on the same. In fact today, I actually do very little outside of that main task – designing and building the future recruitment sites. Obviously when I saw the detailed plan to build a recruitment web site with the collective thinking of long list of people I have learned a lot already, I got excited! This is what Bill has planned for us next week:

TruLondon – Career Websites Lab -Applying science to define the ideal career website

The Brief – Day 1

  1. Defining a career website
    1. TruCareers – The Tru career website
    2. Who is it for employer or candidate
    3. What is it – a job board, an information platform, a community platform, gateway to the ATS
    4. Defining the audience
      1. Active job seekers, semi active, inactive
      2. The visitor personas
      3. Where do they hang out, what do they use: Search engines, social, job boards, offline, mobile
      4. What should a career website contain
        1. Brainstorming functionality and content
        2. What is most important
          1. Defining what is important for the individual personas
          2. Scoring functionality and content
          3. Defining the wireframe structure
            1. Defining the user journey and what they need to see/access
            2. Defining the Home Page
            3. Defining a Job Family Page
            4. Defining the wireframe structure
              1. Defining a Page focussed at an active jobseeker
              2. Defining a Page focussed on a less active job seeker

Build the wireframe before day 2

  1. Presenting the prototype
    1. Feedback
    2. What would you change – why
    3. The candidate experience
      1. Expectations low or high
      2. Employer requirements, volume, filtering, prescreening
      3. Using channels
        1. Content via Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs etc
        2. Do you stay in channel or direct to career platform
        3. Capturing information, how do we…
          1. Register (LinkedIn, Quick Apply, CV Parsing, iProfile)
          2. Follow
          3. Express interest
          4. Apply
          5. Mobile
          6. Continuing the engagement, linking with other platforms
            1. ATS
            2. Talent Community
            3. CRM

This #truLondon, is going to be something else!

Categories
Internet Jobs Monster Recruitment

National Employment Week 20th-24th February

National Employment Week is a forum focusing on the major social and economic issues surrounding employment in Ireland.

The weeklong series of free breakfast briefings features a broad panel of speakers presenting current thinking and new ideas to promote sustainable employment and raise the skill base across Ireland.  Each day focuses on a different employment theme, with the aim to highlight the prime sectors of our economy that are ripe for job creation and to promote job creation initiatives.

The week kicks off on Monday, 20th February with the launch taking place in the Convention Centre Dublin.     Officiated by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Andrew Montague, SME Employment Day will focus on “enabling SME job creation”.  Speakers include Jim Power (Chief Economist, Friends First).

Graduates take centre stage on Tuesday, 21st February, with Louise Phelan (VP EMEA, PayPal) and Julia Davenport (Fidelity Investments), discussing the skills gaps present in the Irish market and the solutions to bridge these gaps.

Wednesday the 22nd is Mental Health & Employment Day will focus on creating workplaces where people can be open and positive about their own and others’ mental health.  Speakers include Dessie Farrell (Chief Executive, Gaelic Players Association) and Dil Wickremasigne (Newstalk).

Thursday 23rd, Self Employment and Entrepreneurship Day pushes our entrepreneurs into the spotlight.  Ireland needs more entrepreneurs to help us return to economic prosperity, so this day has an excellent range of guest speakers across entrepreneurs, contracting experts and franchise experts which include Vincent Browne and Minister Richard Bruton.

Finally to wrap up the week, – Foreign Direct Investment will promote the concept of “Team Ireland” and what we all can do in bringing FDI to Ireland.  Speakers on the day include Barry O’Leary (Chief Executive, IDA) and Senator Feargal Quinn

Click to Register

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Career CV Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

CareerZoo Careers and jobs fair

During the Celtic Tiger years and later in the recession the careers and jobs fairs do not seem to be going away. People talk about job boards (going away) and social networks, but there was a tremendous buzz yesterday over the weekend in The Mansion House. In fact so much so that the cue to enter was at some stages all the way to the St. Stephens Green. And rightly so!

The exhibitors list was great. There have been jobs in plenty of sectors. From the general feeling browsing around, I couldn’t help the feeling that the IT sector, in particular, is buzzing like crazy. Plenty of companies to choose from, and not all of them in Dublin’s Silicon Docklands. Plenty of new ‘faces’ as well this year. Gamin sector with their nice stands and of course Twitter. Twitter in fact deserves a special mention since they are the first company that brought T-shirts back into the goodies and did not even bother with the usual pens, etc.

Besides plenty of employers, there was a long list of universities as well as showcasing their educational programmes. It made me think that it would have been a perfect opportunity to lock all the exhibitors in the room, without any visitors, and let them make sure that the training courses and programmes on offer actually do produce the skillset the other side – the employers currently have, and will have in the future. It could be organised as the half day conference with the roundtable at the end. It would benefit both sides, the education sector and the employers, and most of all the job seekers. Note that in the recent pols 70% employers in the IT sector stated that they are aware they will have to look outside of Ireland for their staff needs in 2012.

CareerZoo was a truly great event that will definitely help match a lot of employers and job seekers. Talking to the company representatives and HR managers, every single one of them I spoke to have been happy with the response. The quantity was there definitely. Judging by the excitement of the recruiters – the quality was there as well!

The directors of CareerZoo Brian Ó hOisín and Jackie Slattery have done an excellent job once again!

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Career Job Site Jobs Recruitment

No quality candidate needs apply.

Once a year I get an urge to write about the job seekers experience on the employers careers sites. Why? It really is an easy topic to write about because the careers web sites are usually some hybrid sites. Partly managed by the employers content management system and then some application tracking system brutally glued and stitched to it. The results are in most cases horrendous. Marketing people are not allowed to even come close to the carers section of their own company site. It is owned by HR and via some strange channel managed by the IT department outsourced to some ATS solution provider’s partner. Who is really responsible for the HR site of a corporation is in most cases a total enigma. The results are that it is a really tough work to apply for a job in most companies on their own web sites.

The problem with that is that good candidate do not need to spend their time to get through the hurdles of an employer’s career site. They get headhunted by the agencies. So your poor careers section if filtering quality candidates. Like saying to the visitors:

No quality candidate needs to apply.

Looking at the largest companies in Ireland and their careers sites, there is one that has been completely different from the others. Oracle has a recruitment web site where a candidate can actually apply by just uploading their CV on the same page where each job is advertised! I know you must be thinking, well that is not really rocket science. After all, all job boards work like that. But go to apply to a random job to each of the 10 employers of your choice. It is a full days’ worth of work!

Now Oracle buys Taleo – this might be the best thing that happened to job seekers ever.

Categories
Career Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment

Richard Bruton, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation interested in career opportunities

It is not that often that LinkedIn makes me laugh. But today it did! After accepting a connection request from a friend LinkedIn displayed a list of people I should connect to. Great and handy feature from LinkedIn. On the first page, there was one I recognised. But not from real life but from the TV screen. It was Richard Bruton, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. I instantly felt good that LinkedIn thinks I am so important that I should link with a Minister in the Irish Government. And not just any minister, but a minister for Jobs. Since I work in recruitment for more than 10 years, there actually is a merit in that connection.

Anyway, I clicked on the photo to see the full LinkedIn profile of Richard Bruton who LinkedIn recommended I should connect with. I was scanning the profile – searching for the email address that (as usual!) wasn’t on the profile page. Fortunately googling the name and the title brought me to the page where I could get Richard’s email. But one thing caught my eye at the bottom of his LinkedIn profile.

Contact Richard for:
• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch

There I had to notice that it is a bit funny that the Minister for Jobs is also interested in the career opportunities himself?!

I have sent MR Bruton an invitation as LinkedIn suggested, and of course, mentioned that it could be understood in unexpected ways that he is interested in the career opportunities while having the ‘Minister for Jobs’ title.

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Career Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Brightwater Salary Survey 2012

There is no doubt that the market has improved on the jobs front. Of course, we are talking an improvement from the drastic situation of 2009, to an improvement in 2010 and on into 2011. The best thing to improve the jobs market is confidence. Confidence means that people are optimistically looking to the future of their businesses and planning for growth. Of course, there isn’t universal optimism at the moment, and how can there be?
However, what we have is the next best thing and that is stability. Management can plan again with some surety and this confidence was reflected in quarterly figures where from April – June 2011 the numbers working in Ireland increased on January – March (1,804,200 to 1,821,300). This was the first growth in employment since quarter one 2008, with particularly strong growth in Dublin.
As you will see from the salary survey, salaries are beginning to rise again, but with some sectors performing better than others. Surprising areas of growth have been in things like Financial Services and Pharmaceuticals, with Information Technology continuing its long boom. Construction and related industries continue to suffer, but even these appear to be bottoming out.
I believe we will continue to see slow but steady growth for the next while, before the austerity measures run their course and the tiger roars again! –
David Bloch – Managing Director at Brightwater Recruitment


This is our 13th annual salary survey and one of the most interesting to compile so far. Whilst conducting the survey we have found that companies are diligently watching what’s going on within their sector and are keen to hear what their competitors are doing in relation to pay reviews and salaries in general. The overall sense we are getting is one of cautious optimism. Companies are being sensible and in general are looking at slight increases for key personnel.
Some companies still have a number of staff members that they feel are ‘overpaid’ in the current market and where this applies they are freezing their salaries to try and bring them in line with the market rate.
We are seeing a return of bonuses this year but nothing like those that were paid out during the boom. Sales staff are being rewarded on their sales growth and not necessarily seeing it in their basic salary. Not surprisingly, contract roles are on the increase and these salaries are on par with permanent salaries, however, completion bonuses have made a return.
Finance roles in general are increasing and modest increments are being offered at review time. As the IT market is still candidate led, salaries are increasing in this space at a slightly higher rate than in other areas.
Overall, things are moving again, albeit at a modest pace. It has been encouraging to hear our clients projecting growth again in 2012 and budgeting for new hires. – Mairead Fleming – Deputy Managing Director at Brightwater

The Office Support permanent recruitment market has remained fairly static for 2011 – we expect this trend to continue for the foreseeable future with little uplift. For those employers that are hiring across permanent office support roles, multitasking is the order of the day. Employers expect more “bang for their buck” and expect employees to take on more responsibilities – so flexibility and upskilling from an employee is what is required to ensure that they are keeping ahead of their competition.
However, the trend to hire temporary office support staff as a stop-gap has been pretty vibrant for the majority of 2011 and we absolutely see this trend continuing for 2012. Temporary staff to cover holidays and maternity leave offer the perfect solution to employers to test an employee’s all round skills and willingness to take on additional duties without the employer feeling the need to add to their head count until their overall business improves.
Notwithstanding this, there is a feeling of a little improvement across most sectors currently and should this optimism continue, we expect employment in the office support area to increase albeit slowly for the duration of 2012. – Barbara McGrath – Director at Brightwater

Download the full Brightwater Salary Survey 2012.

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Career Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Morgan McKinley Ireland Salary Survey 2012

Morgan McKinley Ireland Salary Survey 2012

Survey finds more than half of Irish professionals have a more positive business outlook for 2012 compared to 2011

Thursday, 5th January 2011 – Morgan McKinley has today released its latest Ireland Salary Survey which offers insights into business confidence, remuneration and human resources trends for professionals working in financial services, professional services, manufacturing and IT in 2012.

Salary Survey Highlights:

o Almost half of respondents (47%) working in financial services, professional services, manufacturing and IT have a more positive business outlook for 2012 compared to 2011. A further 11% feel significantly more positive about the business climate in 2012.

o The majority (58%) expect salaries to remain the same within their businesses over the next 12 months

o Talent attraction is perceived to be the biggest human resources challenge (chosen by 23% of respondents), followed by talent retention (19%) and skills shortages (16%)

o Positively, a low percentage (4%) of HR managers and business leaders are concerned about handling redundancies this year.

The Morgan McKinley Ireland Salary Survey 2012 found that almost half (47%) of HR managers and business leaders surveyed have a more positive business outlook for 2012 compared to 2011. A further 11% feel significantly more positive about the business climate in 2012, whilst 32% say their outlook has not changed from last year.

When asked about compensation trends, the majority (58%) said that they expect salaries to remain the same within their businesses over the next 12 months. However, 21% predict that salaries will increase, albeit modestly, by approximately 1-5%. Conversely, 13% feel that salaries within their businesses will decrease by 1-5% in 2012. These findings are similar to last year’s survey results, in which 64% of managers thought salaries would remain stable in 2011.

Survey participants were also asked what they thought would be the biggest human resources challenge they would have to face in 2012. The highest response was for attracting professionals (23%), followed by talent retention (19%) and skills shortages (16%). Positively, the percentage of managers concerned about handling redundancies in the coming 12 months is quite low at 4%.

Please note: a breakdown of results by sector (financial services, professional services, manufacturing and IT) is available upon request.

Karen O’Flaherty, Chief Operations Officer, Morgan McKinley Ireland commented:
“The findings of our latest Salary Survey point towards a slight lift in business confidence in Ireland, with almost half of managers claiming to have a more positive outlook for 2012 compared to 2011. Although there is still considerable uncertainty in the market and growth predictions are sombre, the major steps taken last year towards Ireland’s economic recovery have made many professionals feel that it is time to ‘move on’ and work towards a stronger and more stable 2012.

“This increased optimism does not necessarily equate to increased salaries however, with the majority of respondents expecting salaries within their businesses to remain unchanged over the next 12 months. A negligible number of managers surveyed (0.2%) expect to see salary increases of more than 10%; it is likely that any significant rises will be within fields where demand for professionals far outstrips supply, for example, IT software developers, multilingual specialists or senior finance professionals.”

“Taking into account the current mood of austerity and ongoing uncertainty over the Euro currency, it may seem strange that talent attraction, talent retention and skills shortages are seen as predominant issues facing human resources managers in 2012. Employers recognise there are still shortages of skilled professionals in certain sectors, so sourcing and retaining top talent within allocated recruitment budgets is a priority, even in this challenging economic climate.”

To compile the Morgan McKinley Ireland Salary Survey 2012, Morgan McKinley conducted telephone and email surveys with 584 HR managers and business leaders working for financial services, professional services, manufacturing and IT companies across the Republic of Ireland.

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Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Search Engine

Indeed coming to Dublin

Indeed in IrelandAfter Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter setting up in Dublin, the global job scraping site Indeed is setting up its European HQ on our soil. The first interviews will be held in the second half of January by their US staff (VP level) and the UK based Indeed staff.

About Indeed from their own web site:

Indeed is the #1 job site worldwide, with over 50 million unique visitors and 1 billion job searches per month. Indeed is available in more than 50 countries and 26 languages, covering 94% of global GDP.

Indeed has been active in Ireland in some form by sending traffic to the Irish job sites for many years now. They would ‘scrape’ the jobs from the job sites, display on Indeed.com and when a visitor clicks to apply, he or she lands on the job advertised on the job site (and exact page) the job is taken from. Indeed has also registered the Irish domain indeed.ie quite a few years ago, and a couple years ago started actually displaying jobs on the Irish sites on their own indeed.ie. Paid service includes submitting a feed to Indeed, with your latest jobs in the XMPL format that they update once a day on their own site.

We wish all the best to Indeed with their future in Ireland!

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Career Internet Jobs Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

#truDublin Social Recrutitment Video in the making

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Blogs Career Internet Job Site Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

Ivan Stojanovic interviewed for the Irish Executives (LinkedIn Group): Inspire Ireland award 2011

Jobs Board got shortlisted for the Irish executives Inspire Ireland 2011 Award. 7 of us got shortlisted and one after another we presented our business plans to the Irish Executives judges today. It was an online event. Video conferencing was used that connected us all. I never presented a business plan to a camera as opposed to the live audience in front of me so it was a bit strange doing it the first time. The video quality regardless of how good it is, still makes it harder to ‘read’ your audience. You do not see those fine details of their facial expressions. Also, you only see the part of the body that the camera is capturing. I only realised all that at the end of the conference, since although I ‘saw’ the recipient, I could not really confidently say how good did the whole presentation actually work. Was it all convincing? I am not sure actually.

Ivan Stojanovic interviewed for the Irish Executives (LinkedIn Group) Inspire Ireland award 2011

The format is also distracting a bit because the PowerPoint presentation has to be managed by a precise click on the screen, as opposed to the clicker. This makes you look for a second or two at the screen as opposed at the camera, and being aware it does not look right on the other end it made me uncomfortable a bit. A hint if you are developing a video conferencing software. Make sure people can use the keyboard or the clicker for their PowerPoint presentations as opposed to some super small arrow buttons on the screen.

Being shortlisted for the Irish Recruiters Inspire Ireland Award is probably the best thing that could happen to JobsBoard.ie so early in its lifetime. The only better thing would be to actually win the Award! The publicity is what it is all about, and a recognition by the very high-level judging panel.

I wish all the best to all other participants, especially those that got shortlisted and interviewed today with me. Regardless of the end results being shortlisted is an achievement we should all be proud of. Let the best man win tomorrow!

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CV CV Database Internet Job Site Jobs LinkedIN Monster Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment Twitter

Monster CV database vs. LinkedIn free Public Profiles

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

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

Monetisation of the CV database

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

So Monster or LinkedIn?

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

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

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Career Google Internet Jobs Recruitment Social Recruitment

Eircom Jobs Video



Eircom Jobs Video

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Career Job Site Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Recruitment

Press Release: NRF Awards Winners 2011

Press Release NRF Awards Winners 2011

NRF in association with Irish Independent

Parc Aviation “FLY AWAY” with 4 awards at NRF Recruitment Industry Awards 2011
Parc Aviation scooped the best agency of the year award for large agency whilst Recruitment Plus scored Best Small Agency for the 2nd year in row, at the 5th annual recruitment awards which took place on Friday evening, (25th November 2011) at a gala awards ceremonyin The Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. This was the biggest event ever held by the NRF with more than 320 attendees at the Ceremony which was presented by RTE’s Pamela Flood.
Robert Walters clinched the award for Best Agency Online Service for the second year running whilst Careers Register won the Accountancy and Finance category for ‘Best in Practice’.
Parc Aviation and Recruitment Plus were hailed by the judges as ‘leaders in their industry’. The judges found them to ‘have clear roadmaps of where they want to be, their commitment to the customer came across very strongly and they are completely in touch in what is required of them. Staff retention is testament to what they have achieved and in both cases professionalism has shone through’.
Parc Aviation got off to a winning start from the beginning of the night. First up to the winning podium for Parc Aviation was Nikki King who was awarded one of the coveted Graduate of the year awards.  Also receiving recognition in the ‘Best in Practice’ category they won Best in Practice Technical, Engineering & Science and the Best Practice in “Specialism” Awards.
Sigmar’s Peter Nunan was awarded Recruitment Consultant of the year narrowly beating off stiff competition from the other 6 shortlisted nominees who were,Grafton Recruitment’s Kevin Clarke, Lisa Collins from Hays, Sandra Mc Guirk from Parc, Lisa Russell from Servisource, Louise Delany from Quest Recruitment and Karen Kavanagh from Noel Recruitment. Sigmar were also awarded Best in Practice Sales & Marketing for the 2nd year running whilst Shaun O’ Shea was another winner of the Graduate of the Year award.
Servisource took the Best in Practice “Healthcare” and O’Reilly Recruitment took the Best in Practice “Light Industrial”.
CPL was awarded Best in Practice “IT & Telecoms” and Misty Plotner received a winner award for Graduate of the year.
Osborne Recruitment took the Best in Practice “Office & Secretarial” and Joanne Murray received a graduate of the year winners’ award.
Noel Recruitment took the Best in practice Hotel & Catering for the 4th year running and Karen Kavanagh took a winner award for Graduate of the year.
Designed to identify and reward excellence in recruitment in Ireland, the initiative was open to all NRF members and judged by an independent panel.
FULL WINNING LINE-UP AS FOLLOWS:
  • BEST AGENCY ONLINE SERVICE – Robert Walters
  • RECRUITMENT CONSULTANT OF THE YEAR – Peter Nunan Sigmar
  • BEST IN PRACTICE – HEALTHCARE – Servisource
  • BEST IN PRACTICE – ACCOUNTING & FINANCE – Careers Register
  • BEST IN PRACTICE – OFFICE & SECRETARIAL – Osborne Recruitment
  • BEST IN PRACTICE – IT & TELECOMS – CPL
  • BEST IN PRACTICE – HOTEL & CATERING – Noel Recruitment
  • BEST IN PRATICE – LIGHT INDUSTRIAL – O’Reilly
  • BEST IN PRACTICE- SALES & MARKETING – Sigmar
  • BEST IN PRACTICE – TECHNICAL ENGINEERING & SCIENCE – Parc Aviation
  • BEST IN PRACTICE – In a Specialism– Parc Aviation
  • AGENCY OF THE YEAR – SMALL – Recruitment Plus
·         AGENCY OF THE YEAR – LARGE – Parc Aviation
·         NRF Cert RP Graduates of the year – Karen Kavanagh Noel Recruitment, Nikki King Parc Aviation, Joanne Murray Osborne Recruitment, Misty Plotner CPL and Shaun O’Shea Sigmar Recruitment.
The panel of judges were; Tony Lambert – CEO, Fingal Chamber of Commerce, Patrick Meehan, Invictus Management, Gillian Econopouly, Recruitment Employment Confederation UK, and the online award was judged by Sorcha Corcoran of Silicon Republic. Chairperson of the Judging Panel, Tony Lambert told the delegates how challenging it was for the adjudicators to elect a winner in a lot of categories. Not only had the volume of entries increased on every other year since the awards began but the sheer quality and outstanding excellence was evident in all applications. To be on the shortlists this year was in itself an achievement.
NRF President Mr. Colin Donnery (FRS Recruitment), “It was a fantastic celebration of our industry and the industry should be proud of all it has achieved over what has been another hard and turbulent year for some. Resilience and determination has shone through and this was echoed by the number of entries to this years awards and the turn out at the ceremony. The atmosphere in the room was one of great camaraderie and respect amongst our industry.”
The NRF also awarded Mary B Cremin with an Honorary Fellowship Award. Director of NRF Geraldine King gave the delegates a little bit of history of how Mary came to be one of the most respected names in the Industry. Even though she is now retired her reputation and her passion for excellence will always be remembered.
The National Recruitment Federation is a voluntary organisation set up to establish and maintain standards and codes of practice for the recruitment industry. Representing member companies throughout Ireland the NRF focuses its attentions on providing these members who have opted for self-regulation with the best possible service in terms of communication, support, advice sharing and problem solving.
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Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Networks Social Recruitment

The National Recruitment Federation will hold it’s fifth Recruitment Industry Awards tomorrow #NRF11

www.JobsBoard.ie is sponsoring the
National Recruitment Federation’s Recruitment Industry Awards. Here is the Irish Independent Appointments page today:


The National Recruitment Federation 5th Recruitment Industry Awards - Click for a full size image


320 people are expected making it the largest NRF event ever (at least that that I can remember). I am excited about presenting the award to the Best Recruitment Agency.

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Career CV Internet Interview Job Site Jobs Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

Jobkey.ie

INTERVIEW with Robert McGonnell, founder of the new Irish video recruitment web site:  Jobkey.ie.

How did you come to the idea of starting the site (tell us about yourself here a bit)?
My background is primarily recruitment orientated having managed a busy Sales & Marketing desk in a Dublin based agency and having dealt with some major market leading FMCG companies. I also worked as a Grade IV Office in St. James’ Hospital in Dublin where I was responsible for the wage processing and recruitment administration of over 400 Nurses, Attendants and Clinical Nurse Managers. But my work history has also included employment in the high end equine breeding industry, motor vehicle sales and tourism so I guess I like the challenges that a bit of variety can throw at you. This experience coupled with an academic business grounding from the Michael Smurfit Business School in Blackrock had the cogs turning in my brain about how to deconstruct and re-approach the online recruitment business model.

What was the gap that you found out in the crowded market of job sites in Ireland?
Basically I found that many of the mainstream recruitment websites in Ireland offered very little differentiation and I wanted to launch a recruitment site that had a “help-centric” focus. I decided to focus on presenting an alternative website that offered a benefit for both job seekers and employers.
Granted the mainstream recruitment websites in Ireland are well established and have thousands of registered users, high traffic volumes, brand recognition etc but in many ways they’re just a talent swamp. The main problems I identified; if I as a candidate upload my CV on one of these websites it’s tricky to stand out from the crowd and get noticed which ultimately translates to a reduced likelihood of securing an interview/job. A CV can’t effectively demonstrate how a candidate may present, give an indication of their personality, communication skills etc. Jobkey.ie offers candidates the opportunity to upload a 60 second Introductory Video Profile to accompany their standard CV application. A Video Profile gives a candidate an opportunity to bring their CV to life and give a personal touch to their job application.
The main benefit of a Video Profile as an employer is this. If a recruiter posts a job they’re likely to receive dozens if not hundreds of applications with limited tools to rank or select according to suitability. It can sometimes be a gamble when inviting candidates to interview based on their CV/cover letter alone which can often lead to disappointment and time waste. A 60 second Video Profile is in no way meant to replace a face to face interview but is intended to be a useful stepping stone by providing a recruiter with an immediate online first impression prior to interview stage.

Unique selling proposition?
The Video Profile feature coupled with Jobkey.ie’s help-centric focus could save could save time, cost and effort for everyone involved in the recruitment process.

What is the intended route to market?
Mostly online advertising with planned radio advertising, “grabvertising” and guerrilla marketing campaigns planned for the New Year 2012.

Monetisation strategy?
The website’s build has been self-funded with a zero debt policy. It’s meant having to live like a bit of a hermit over the past year but I’m confident this sacrifice will pay off in the long run. I plan to introduce an online payment system on the site where recruiters/employers can choose an advertising package that matches their requirements. For the time being though I’d like to invite all first time advertisers to a FREE trial of the site. Simply register on Jobkey.ie and we’ll help you find new staff for the Christmas rush or New Year 2012… no fee, no charge, no catch or tie-in, 100% FREE. Contact me at contact@jobkey.ie for info.

How are you finding it so far?
It’s been a big learning curve as Jobkey.ie is my first venture but the experience I’ve gained is amazing and will stand to me in the long term. Right now I’m looking forward to earning Jobkey.ie a reputation as a mainstream recruitment website in Ireland.

What do recruiters say?
The feedback I’ve receive has been very positive however there’s always going to be some reluctance and hence persuasion involved as it’s a brand new website. Recruiters are especially interested in the potential time save that Video Profiles could result in as they would reduce the reliance on having to conduct preliminary screening interviews.

What do job seekers say?
Ok, to put this question another way…’Why would a job seeker be bothered creating a Video Profile?’ I think this would’ve been a tricky question to answer a couple of years ago but essentially now job seekers really should be prepared to try any means possible to get their application noticed. The instance of the ‘Jobless Paddy’ during the summer highlights the extreme lengths some candidates are willing to go too just to get noticed. Couple this reality with the spread of tech savvy knowledge regarding online social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, Twitter, MySpace etc and I think it’s reasonable to say that a large section of job seekers should be perfectly capable to record a 60 second video profile on a webcam and follow the instructions for uploading it on Jobkey.ie!
The candidate will find helpful tips and guidelines on creating a Video Profile on the Jobkey.ie homepage. The merits of a Video Profile basically allow a candidate to back up any claims made in a CV, for instance if they say they have effective communication skills or fluent French the video permits them with an outlet to validate those claims. The jobseeker can also select the level of privacy for their Video Profile/CV on their private account.
A Video Profile is generally new territory for job seekers in Ireland. However recruitment is going to move more and more in this direction in the future and the feedback that I’ve receive so far has been very positive.

What re the next steps?
Jobkey.ie’s focus is to offer a help-centric approach to online recruitment in Ireland. The Video Profile is the first step. Jobkey.ie plans to introduce innovative new features and solutions on an incrementally basis as the site goes from strength to strength so stay tuned.

What are the next milestones?
Jobkey.ie’s mission is to become a mainstream online recruitment solution in Ireland. However there’s no sense in having an unrealistic expectation that that sort of milestone is going to be achieved without a lot of hard work. So for the time being it’s going to be baby steps, the 1000th registered candidate isn’t far off now so that would be a mini triumph.

Where do you see it in a year?
I see Jobkey.ie a well-recognised brand within recruitment circles and a cost effective online recruitment solution for employers.
I also see Video Profile’s as a more accepted standard of job application method for job seekers.

How do you see the online recruitment market evolving in Ireland?
10 years ago the majority of CV’s/job applications were sent in the post, that’s pretty much unheard of today as job applications are mostly done online now. So I think recruitment in Ireland is sure to move further into the realm of online technology and social media platforms in the future. Taking this into account I think virtual interviews and ready to view Video Profiles will become standard practice.