Category: Recruitment

Categories
Internet Job Site Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Dropped.ie – Get your ‘jobs’ domain name

Starting a job board on any other recruitment online business???

The first step is to choose a name. A name that is available online. I for example dream avout starting a job site in Ireland. After a long search for the available domain in the I found JobsBoard.ie and registered it for the new site: www.JobsBoard.ie

How to find a good (used but in good condition) domain name in Ireland?

Dropped.ie is your best friend!

For those of you less familiar with it, Dropped.ie brings you lists of deleted (previously registered) IE domain names.

By reading the long list of expired domains you can basically look into other peoples thought process – and learn from them. If you get lucky, you can buy a domain that already has links to it from other web sites….

Anyway, if you are thinking of starting your recruitment business, here is a current list of expired .ie domains that contain a word jobs:

accountancyjobsireland.ie
alliedhealthcarejobs.ie
alljobsdirect.ie
annsummersjobs.ie
artsjobs.ie
avonjobs.ie
bankingjobsireland.ie
beautyfuljobs.ie
biopharmachemjobs.ie
commercialsalesjobs.ie
constructionjobsireland.ie
customerservicejobsireland.ie
driversjobs.ie
ehealthcarejobs.ie
ejobs.ie
engineer-jobs.ie
fundjobsdublin.ie
gaajobs.ie
gaelicjobs.ie
hairandbeautyjobs.ie
healthcarejobsireland.ie
hospitalityjobsireland.ie
hoteljobsireland.ie
hrsynergyjobs.ie
irishfinancialjobs.ie
it-jobs.ie
itjobsearch.ie
jobs123.ie
jobs24.ie
jobs365.ie
jobsales.ie
jobseek.ie
jobsin.ie
jobsjobsjobs.ie
jobsoxo.ie
jobspec.ie
jobspharmaceutical.ie
jobssearch.ie
justjobs.ie
laboratoryjobsearch.ie
luxuryjobs.ie
managementjobsearch.ie
manufacturingjobsireland.ie
marketingjobsireland.ie
mediajobsireland.ie
medicaljobsearch.ie
myconstructionjobs.ie
pharma-jobs.ie
pharmaceuticaljobsireland.ie
pharmacyjobsireland.ie
productionjobsireland.ie
publishingjobsireland.ie
purchasingjobsireland.ie
researchjobs.ie
rugbyjobs.ie
salesjobsearch.ie
salesjobsireland.ie
salesrepresentativejobs.ie
scmjobs.ie
secretarialjobsireland.ie
soccerjobs.ie
sporttrackerjobs.ie
superjobs.ie
supplychainmanagementjobs.ie
technicalsalesjobs.ie
thejobsmatrix.ie
tourismjobsireland.ie
twtjobs.ie

Categories
CV CV Database Internet Job Site Recruitment

MyJob.ie Hacked!

Why hacking a job site?

Job sites collect CVs that contain tons of personal data. When you ring your bank, or a credit card company, they will at some stage ask you for your address. They might ask you for your email address as well. Your landline or your mobile number. All that plus tons of the personal data in contained within the CV. That makes a CV database a perfect tool used for phishing attempts. Note that a person looking for a job is not in the best moments of his life, and hence vulnerable. Receiving a call from someone pretending he is a recruiter who just received a really good CV, when you do not have a job, people will answer all kind of questions that enable scammers to gather even more data that is on the original CV submitted.

Jobs sites get hacked often

In fact, job sites are one of the top types of the web sites that are likely to get hacked. The worst part is that job sites do not get hacked ‘for fun’, for some hacker or a hacking team to showcase their hacking skills, and replace the Home Page with some funny (or not so funny!) message, but for a very ‘commercial’ reason. Job sites never end up showing a hackers message instead of the Home Page, but instead only the data – the CV’s are stolen while the site itself keeps attracting the fresh candidates applications with their fresh CV’s. You can look at MyJobs.ie even right now – it does not say anything on the home page about being hacked at all!

Irish Times has an article today with an interesting question raised in their article of the MyJob.ie being hacked:

“The attackers have already been arrested and a file sent to the DPP. If this is the case, when did the breach originally occur and why did it take so long to notify those impacted?”

Categories
Career Internet Jobs Recruitment Search Engine Social Networks Social Recruitment Twitter

#truLondon

#truLondon is tomorrow. Jet another recruitment conference in the already full calendar of similar events. Or at least events that would fall under the same category. Only this one is not a conference but as the organiser himself call it, this is an: Unconference. Interesting marketing spiel you would say, and then realise how wrong have you been after attending it.

For any conference, there will be fantastic speakers and those that are less relevant to what you are interested in. The conference format forces you to sit at your table for the full duration of it, and hopefully survive to the end to get to that valuable networking time. I know it myself, talking to a group of 100 recruiters about the aspects of the social internet sourcing, a large portion of them are asleep. They are here for the next or previous speaker. Their candidates are not on social networks (or at least they strongly believe so!). Here is where the unconference style gets interesting. There are always a number of topics covered by different speakers. You choose the one you like best, and even if you find a presenter boring – you can easily walk out and join something else going on in the same time. Sometimes even whole groups if they finish earlier – just ‘walk out’ and go and join another topic. What is even more important the setting is always organised so that there is no presenting of a speakers (OK, Bill does blow a whistle sometimes!) there is no podium, but kind of like Musical Chairs setting where people just sit around and one expert starts and leads the discussion on a chosen pre-set topic. Having no stand and podium the emphasis is on discussion. All in the group are invited to contribute. A good track leader will invite everyone in the group to contribute, and allocate time for everyone to have time to do so. The format is usually like: Here is a something that I have done in the recruitment that helped me a lot. Can this help you recruit in your industry or geography or niche? Interestingly enough the ones who are track leaders, actually learn the most. They hear all kind of feedback, and ideas of different possible applications of what they spoke about. Now tell me, how much have you learned as a speaker on a classical conference where you talk for 45 and have 10 minutes Q&A session?

But Bill did not stop there. Besides organising the best possible recruitment conference Bill makes sure that no one goes home for dinner. You simply get a continuous session pretty much until you can stand on your feet (or sit on anything) that day/night. There is no corporate policy that applies to you after hours, so a true brainstorming sessions just kick inspired by combinations of all the official talks during the day. And tomorrow you do it all over again. Two full days (you can forget 9 – 5 PM schedule), of top notch recruitment futurology.

To make things worse tomorrow we will also have to dance on the #Ride event in the City Hotel.

I am 100% confident I will hear about and see things I didn’t even know exist. I just learned reading in advance about something called Google+ Hangouts that Oscar Mager is going to talk about tomorrow. I do not know where have I been hanging out lately, but I honestly haven’t heard of the Hangouts thingy before. It sounds a bit like Facebook party, but with video element as well (oops, have to get a haircut today!) Oscar is already talking about the application of in in the recruitment. Bill said here that what is discussed on the #tru events becomes practice in recruitment some 3 to 6 months later. Not all of course – but very little have emerged in recruitment that wasn’t discussed months ago on the #tru events in this year.

Glen Cathey wrote an extensive review on the last years #truLondon on his blog. Here is one sentence where sums it all up:

I found TRU London 3 to be a fantastic experience and a welcome (and needed!) deviation from the traditional conference. I was exposed to more content and more engaged discussion than I have ever experienced at a recruiting conference of any kind.

I had a chance to participate on #truDublin and #truLeeds unconferences this year, and am really looking forward for the #truLondon tomorrow.

SEO for Recruiters

I am leading a track on SEO for Recruiters tomorrow afternoon – and want to thank you all who have sent the questions up front today. I also want to thank for all the feedback on the last SEO for Recruiters session I lead in #truLeeds. I am thinking on doing the #GoogleDance in London again tomorrow…

Twitter for Recruitment

There will most likely be another ‘secret’ track (you heard it here first) about nice sourcing on twitter. Ask about it tomorrow since it is not really announced (not much!).

So that is in short what is about to happen over the next days on the #truLondon conference. 190 names confirmed so far, and a long list of great topics and speakers. Well done on preparing it for us Bill! It is on us know to make it a success!

Categories
Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Social Recruitment

Loadzajobs.ie is dead

After a few years the recruitment website Loadzajobs.ie, run by a large newspaper publisher in Ireland – Independent News and Media, have disappeared from the web.

What replaced it is jet another recruitment web site. It is called FindaJob.ie. Recruiters used to call the old one ‘Loadza’ form Loadzajob.ie, so I am getting this new one will be called ‘Finda’. So what does Findajob.ie have that was better than Loadza? At a first glance, it is not as nice. The colours and graphics are far from the quality Loadza had. On the other hand – there is far less distractive advertising, so it is easier to read. Being own by a newspaper company, it is likely they will try to monetize the space on the pages, and fill FindaJobs.ie pages with blinking advertisements again. Which would be a pity actually. What is a big step for a recruitment web site in Ireland – the FindaJob.ie has gone into the Social Recruitment! On the home page – there is a lint to a Social Networking sites: LinkedIN, Twitter, Facebook and Google+! Although most of the customer oriented web sites have those for years, this is a big step for an Irish Recruitment site especially the one owned by the newspapers. Although the global recruitment sites are frantically trying to find the way how to get into the social space (Remember the Monster’s BeKnown?), the Iris ones have tried to ‘protect their turf’ for years now.

So how is Loadza,…. oops Finadajob.ie actually doing in this Social recruitment space.

The Facebook link is linking to their Facebook profile, the LinkedIN to some LinkedIN group. The link to twitter is to their Twitter profile and the Google+ shows the number of people that clicked on it so far. That is all well. And let us check the success of it all so far:

Facebook: 941 likes
LinkedIN Group: 5 members
Twitter: 15 followers
Google+: 10 likes

The numbers show that Finadajob.ie didn’t really get any traction in the social media space. 941 likes on LinkedIN could be called a success, but the listed ‘Likes’ are from: Independent.ie, Herald.ie, IndependentWoman.ie and similar. More can be seen when one would log in into the Facebook site. Is it surprising the Social Media reach is so limited from a company that runs a traditional Newspaper business? You be the judge of that yourself.

Categories
Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

SOLAS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

JobBridge.ie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Career Internet Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Networks Social Recruitment

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

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

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

How is digital effecting the recruitment industry?

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

For candidates:

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

Categories
Internet Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Networks Social Recruitment

#truDublin

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

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

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

Categories
Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

NRF Certificate in Recruitment Practice

NRF Certificate in Recruitment Practice

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

You can download photos from here:

NRF Certificate in Recruitment Practice
Categories
Recruitment Recruitment Agency

National Recruitment Federation Conference 2011

Jonathan Campbell at NRF 2011The Conference entitled ‘Recruitment 2011 – The Way Forward” in City West Hotel on Thursday 12th of May focused on the dynamic tools and skill sets the industry needs to embrace in order to approach the coming year with confidence. With a line up of excellent speakers from around the globe, a full schedule has been designed to arm the delegates with training, advice, and tips to enhance their business skills well into the future.

NRF President Colin Donnery said, ”The Irish economy has probably had its most challenging 12 months ever but there is an optimism returning to businesses in most sectors. The recruitment sector has proven its resilience during this period with agencies providing the flexible staffing solutions that have helped our clients get through the worst and grow into the future. Impending changes in legislation this year will have an impact on how we do business in our temporary labour markets so it is vital we are ready for all eventualities. With this in mind we have chosen a strong line up of Global expert speakers who will impart information on trends, legislation and what the future holds for the Recruitment Industry in Ireland.

With the new impending legislation for Agency workers coming into effect in December this year the Federation invited the NRF members to bring along their HR Clients. It resulted in the probably largest attendance of any NRF Conference lately.

Speakers:
Mr John Perry TD at National Recruitment Federation Conference 2011Mr, John Perry TD

Wikipedia: John Perry (born 15 August 1956) is an Irish Fine Gael politician. He is currently a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Sligo–North Leitrim constituency,[1] and the Minister of State for Small Business.

Perry was born in Ballymote, County Sligo. He was educated at Ballymote National School and Corran College, Ballymote. Perry was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1997 general election for the constituency and has retained his seat since.[2] In 1997, he became Fine Gael spokesperson on Science, Technology, Small Business and Enterprise, and the Border Counties. In June 2000, he was appointed Assistant Director of Organisation and Deputy spokesperson with special responsibility for Border Issues. He held this post until February 2001.

Between September 2002 and October 2004 he was Vice-Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications and Natural Resources. He has also served as Chairman of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee. In October 2004, he was appointed to the position as party spokesperson for the Marine, in Enda Kenny’s Front Bench. He was demoted from the Front Bench after a reshuffle following the 2007 general election. He was a member of Sligo County Council from 1999 to 2004, representing the Sligo–Strandhill electoral area.

In July 2010, he was appointed as party spokesperson on Small Business.[3] On 10 March 2011, he was appointed as Minister of State for Small Business.

Peter Cosgrove at National Recruitment Federation Conference 2011Chairperson: Peter Cosgrove, Vice President NRF
Peter joined the NRF committee in July 2009 and was elected to the role of Vice President in October 2010. Peter started his career in banking with JP Morgan before working with PWC in London as a management consultant. He began his career in recruitment in 2000 with Robert Walters, subsequently with Hudson in 2003 and currently is a Director with CPL. Peter has a strong background in running a sales business as well as turning businesses around through strategic and operational initiatives demonstrated in recruitment roles and previously in his PWC career. Peter is a regular contributor to the national media on areas of recruitment, assessment and retention as well as a speaker at industry events. Peter is also a Board member of the not for profit organisation Junior Achievement an organisation targeted at keeping students in schools to improve their education.

Colin Donnery President National Recruitment Federation Conference 2011Colin Donnery, NRF President
Colin has been working in the recruitment industry since 1998. Initially working with an international IT consultancy he has also managed agencies in the Sales and Marketing, Hospitality, Engineering, construction and scientific sectors. Colin has been working with FRS Recruitment since 2003 as general manager , FRS specialise in the provision of bespoke labour supply and permanent recruitment solutions across all sectors in Ireland and internationally.

Frank Collins at National Recruitment Federation Conference 2011Frank Collins, NRF Legislation expert
Director of Compliance and Regulatory Affairs at Parc Aviation Limited.
Frank is a Fellow of the Chartered Accountants in Ireland and has a Bachelor of Business Studies Degree from Trinity College. He also lectures in Trinity College on the Business and Information Technology Degree course.

Tony Goodwig at National Recruitment Federation Conference 2011Tony Goodwin, Antal International
Tony Goodwin is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Antal International, a global management and executive recruitment company and one of the fastest growing business services organisations in emerging markets such as China, Eastern Europe and India. Antal now has 92 offices in 32 countries around the world. A graduate of Middlesex University, Tony trained as a Chartered Accountant before moving into financial recruitment where he ran operations for HW Group (now part of Hudson). In 1993, spotting the potential of the new professional employment markets in the former Warsaw Pact countries, he set up his own business with an office in Budapest in Hungary and named the company Antal – Hungarian for ‘Tony’. Since then Tony and his team have developed substantial businesses in highly challenging environments across the globe, including both Russia and China. Tony has completed a book ‘How They Blew It’ which was published in July 2010. In June 2010, Tony was named as one of the country’s top businessmen after being awarded a prize at the Ernst & Young London & South Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2010.

Ann Swain, APSCO
Ann Swain is the Chief Executive of The Association of Professional Staffing Companies, formed by the merger of the Association of Technology Staffing Companies and the Forum of Professional Recruiters in January 2009. APSCo provides a strong and united voice for those recruitment firms involved in the acquisition of business professionals on behalf of their clients on a permanent or flexible basis. Ann has a wealth of experience in the professional recruitment market as a recruiter, manager, trainer, sales director, managing director and spent a few years on the client side of the fence as an HR Manager. She was the founder, in 1988 of Learning Curve, the specialist recruitment industry training company which was acquired by the Delphi Group in 1997. Ann’s first, very successful, business book ‘The Professional Recruiter’s Handbook’ was published by Kogan Page in 2009 and has become a business best seller. Ann is a well-respected authority in our industry, a hugely popular international speaker and a passionate advocate for the UK Recruitment Profession.

Jonathan Campbell at NRF 2011Jonathan Campbell, Social Talent
Jonathan has worked as a Recruiter in Ireland and the Caribbean for the last 13 years but now runs Social Talent, a talent acquisition consultancy and agency that specialises in providing technology and social media services to recruiters. The team at Social Talent build talent communities; develop employer branding strategies, train internet recruiters & source recruitment staff for clients globally. Since forming late in 2010 they have worked with most of the leading recruitment agencies in Ireland and also work with corporates in the legal, technology and financial services sectors.

Kingsley AikinsKingsley Aikins, Networking Matters
Managing Director of Kingsley Aikins and Associates and is also Senior Advisor to The Ireland Funds having served previously as CEO of The Worldwide Ireland Funds. Previously he was Executive Director of the American Ireland Fund and founding Director of both The Australian Ireland Fund and The Ireland Fund of New Zealand. He formerly worked for CTT and the IDA. Kingsley is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. Since 1976 the Fund has raised over $350 million for philanthropic projects across the island of Ireland and around the world. The fund is driven by members of Ireland’s worldwide Diaspora. Kingsley was also contributor to the Farmleigh Conference in 2009.The presentation covered both diaspora issues and networking: specifically the importance of a comprehensive global strategy that covers trade, investment, tourism, education and philanthropy and will shed light on what other countries are doing in this area. He outlined his four stage approach: Research, Cultivation, Solicitation and Stewardship.

Categories
Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment

jobswanted.ie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Advertised jobs numbers comparison

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment

Company Career Site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Unforgettable Candidate – You’re Hired

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

The Unforgettable Candidate – You're Hired

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Recruitment Recruitment Agency

National Recruitment Federation: Enterprise Ireland Breakfast Briefing

Alan Hobbs has worked for Enterprise Ireland since January 2002 and is currently Head of Corporate Communications. Prior to this he managed the High Growth Markets department, was a member of the High Potential Start Up division and Director of Enterprise Ireland China from 2002-2005. Before joining Enterprise Ireland, Alan spent 12 years with IDA Ireland working and living in Silicon Valley, Seoul Korea and Taipei Taiwan.

Alan will give a brief overview of Enterprise Ireland, talk about EI strategy for the exporting SME sector and touch on some of the growth sectors, markets that they are focussing on. This will give NRF managers an idea of the sectors and growth areas that may hold potential future recruitment opportunities.

Enterprise Ireland Presentation