Category: Social Networks

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Career CV Database Job Site Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency SEO Social Networks Social Recruitment

Recruitment Advertising Workshop

Great Recruitment Advertising Workshop event organised by Stephen Harrington Recruitment Manager: Sales | Marketing | Multi-Lingual @ Allen Recruitment. Here is the original announcement:

When and Where:
Aviva Stadium, Lansdowne Road, Dublin 4 – Vavasour Suite, registration at main reception.
Wednesday 24th April, from 8.45 to 11.30am
Enter via entrance A on Lansdowne Road
Car park is situated on Lansdowne Road

Who is attending?
Confirmed attendees include Jonathan Campbell (Social Talent), James Mailley (Monster), Jennifer Bray Kennedy (TMP), Ivan Stojanovic (Jobsboard.ie), Lynne Rooney (LinkedIn) and many more from many or Irelands best known companies.

The Format
We will run two sessions, in each one there will be four discussions happening at the same time. There will be no presentations, each discussion will be started by the discussion leader but after that, the conversation will go where ever the participants want it to. You can join in at any time by providing details of your own experiences or asking questions. If you find that one discussion is not so relevant to you, you can simply get up and join another one mid-way through!

The agenda:

8.45-9.10 Registration, Tea/Coffee and Pastries

9.10-9.20 Welcome by Brian Cunningham, MD Allen Recruitment

Session 1

Job Boards
When to use job boards, which ones should you use, quality applicant’s v quantity, filtering applicants?
Career Websites
Effectively advertising on your own careers site, employer branding, SEO, getting candidates on to your site
Alternatives to advertising
Searching for candidates directly (Boolean, xray etc), referrals, networking, job board databases
Start your own discussion
This is a break out area where anyone is free to start another topic that is relevant to them!

Tea/Coffee

Session 2


Job Boards
Getting the most from these, how people find jobs on job boards, getting your jobs to the top of the lists
Advertising Master class
How to measure success, getting your adverts noticed, the psychology behind advertising, what we can take from advertising in other industries and apply to recruitment.
Referral’s and Networking
Referrals, Networking, social networks & Talent Pooling
Start your own discussion
This is a break out area where anyone is free to start another topic that is relevant to them!

Well done again and thanks for the Allen Recruitment “cube”!

Categories
Job Site LinkedIN Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

How to use LinkedIn Skills Endorsements for Recruitment?

How to make sense of the LinkedIn Skills Endorsements?

LinkedIn Skills Endorsements is not the first time the Skills have been implemented as a part of a personal LinkedIn Profile. Some iterations had a self-scoring of out to 5 or 10 skills. Then just a pure 50 word skills. The current way the skills are implemented is by far the best I the whole history of LinkedIn! Why?

Crowdsourcing

What you say about yourself in your LinkedIn profile if more often than not a TRUE reflection of you. Your LinkedIn profile as your CV or a resume is a reflection of the portion of you that you want to show to the hiring manager of your next dream job. If that is not the case, we need to talk about it!

What your LinkedIn connections tell about you, by clicking on your Skills listed tells a whole different picture about you. In most cases the far more accurate one than the rest of your LinkedIn Profile.

How to use LinkedIn Skills Endorsements for Recruitment?

The challenge is to assess what endorsements are really valid ones, and what ones are the result of the gamification LinkedIn have created in this Skills environment. What it means is that all the skills endorsements are not the same (value).

Here is How to analyse the value of the LinkedIn Endorsement

It is quite similar to the Google PageRank algorithm actually. The more people have endorsed my skill “X”, the more valuable is my endorsement given to someone else for the same skill. Why? The more endorsements I got for a certain skill, the more likely is that I actually know about it. The more I know about the skill the more valid my endorsement for the same skill is.

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Internet Job Site LinkedIN Recruitment SEO Social Networks Social Recruitment

New LinkedIn Profile is good (for Recruiters)!

The LinkedIn haven’t really updated the Profile section for far too long time. It becomes a bit archaic in fact, so a new profile is really welcome. It is far easier to read and more importantly scan, as we consume the web sites. It also tells you far more about the person than the any older LinkedIn Profile version did.

One feature that really helps the recruiter to assess the potential candidate from his LinkedIn profile is the ability to quickly assess the candidate’s connections. You have a choice to display the connections by:

  • Company
  • School
  • Location
  • Industry

By looking at the graphical representation of your LinkedIn connections grouped by and industry the recruiter can quickly get what type of people the candidate is connected to on the social network.

It tells a lot about the person when you can see what schools are the people his connections are from. What companies do the candidate’s contacts work for is priceless. Location and industry profiles of the candidates LinkedIn contacts just add to the complete picture of a candidate.

All this data combined gives you very quickly a profile of the candidate’s connections. This data can help a recruiter profile a candidate much better than by just looking at a very static data, a document like a CV or the (old) LinkedIn profile.

Where LinkedIn could improve the display is in including what the number represents as opposed to displaying just the number of the connections in each group. It is annoying to have to put a mouse over each circle to find out what company or country the contacts are from. A tag cloud would be far more usefully display. A company name printed and on mouse over the exact number of the connections in that company? Would you agree?

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LinkedIN Search Engine SEO Social Networks Twitter

Top Referrers to www.JobsBlog.ie

Top Referrers to www.JobsBlog.ie:

  1. linkedin.com – 276 Visits
  2. t.co – 82 Visits
  3. google.com – 22 Visits
  4. google.ie – 18 Visits
  5. facebook.com – 15 Visits
Categories
Blogs Internet Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine SEO SERP Social Networks Social Recruitment Twitter

Recruitment SEO: How many web sites link to yours?

In the Links are the currency on the web we looked at the total number of links no the web that the Link Count tool from SEOmoz would show for our 20 recruitment agency web sites. But not all the links are equal. The more I think about it, it would be fair to say that no two links are the same. One (smart) way thinking about the links is to count just the web sites that link to your web site. So if there are 2 or 2 million links from some domain to your web site it would still count as one.

If we look at our 29 recruitment agency web sites list and www.JobsBlog.ie between them where is what we get:

URL

Sites Linking
http://www.cpl.ie

568
http://www.hays.ie

294
http://www.morganmckinley.ie

265
http://www.brightwater.ie

127
http://www.jobsblog.ie

126
http://www.hrm.ie

125
http://www.collinsmcnicholas.ie

100
http://www.eolas.ie

100
http://www.careerwise.ie

86
http://www.EdenRecruitment.ie

77
http://www.peoplegroup.ie

70
http://www.frsrecruitment.com

68
http://www.Vantage.ie

65
http://www.icds.ie

55
http://www.Sigmar.ie

51
http://www.3qrecruitment.ie

46
http://www.rftgroup.ie

44
http://www.Stelfox.ie

34
http://www.recruitmentplus.ie

32
http://www.accountancysolutions.ie

26
http://www.Recruiters.ie

19
http://www.MatrixRecruitment.ie

14
http://www.harmonics.ie

14
http://www.hudson.ie

13
http://www.gempool.ie

9
http://www.qedrecruitment.ie

7
http://www.Brompton.ie

5
http://www.placeme.ie

5
http://www.enterprisepeople.ie

5
http://www.solasconsulting.ie

4

The results show that only 5 Irish Recruitment agencies have more web sites linking to them than this blog. If you want your jobs to be seen by as many possible job seekers and as many possible clients (employers) it would be natural to want to bring visitors from as many sites to your site. Therefore having as many web sites linking to your site would help you get more candidates and clients. As simple as that. The above table show how good are you at that particular task. If your site is not on the list, you can get this figure for your site and compare yourself with the competition.

Even more important than this direct traffic of visitors that you get from other sites is the fact that from the perspective of the search engines like Google, your site the more “important” the more web sites link to your site. So the more links you have to your site – the more likely is that Google will display any content on your site above the similar content on any other web site. This is extremely important for the ranking of your jobs. When a similar job is advertised on many job boards and recruitment agency web sites, the site that will get listed on top is very often the one that has the most links from other web sites.

How to get more links to your web site?

Submitting your site to an online directory? – that is the most common answer I get when I do the Recruitment SEO Training. Unfortunately, the answer is always – no. Why not? The practise was abused and Google decides to in most cases ignore it, and in some cases even penalize it.

Just do not buy links. Please. – That is what Google would say, and in my experience, this is the best advice possible in most cases.

Spamming social media with your links. – Will make sure you get ignored, not followed by anyone but bots. Again the time and money the drain.

SO WHAT THEN?

Think about what links do you click at on the web.

You might click on a link in the article you are reading on some site. If you are reading a review on some blog, about the new tool the LinkedIn has launched, and there is a link to that tool within the article – you might click it. Ask yourself how did that article ended up on a publication you are reading? Can you submit your content there? With a link to something new and cool on your web site? If you are thinking of PR submissions at this stage, I can tell you, you are on the wrong track. Think of guest blog posts. Think of the places where different people publish content. You are probably getting where I am going with this… yes the combined name of all such sites is Social Media.

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Blogs LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine SEO Social Networks Social Recruitment

LinkedIn: Follow a company button

If you are still wondering why have you placed the Facebook ‘Like’ button on your home page this will be interesting for you!

If at some stage you got bored checking how many Facebook ‘Likes’ your page got and you have offered an iPhone draw when you reach 10 000 ‘Likes’ this is even more relevant for you.

Remember that job site dressed in the social network that has sent you those nice young people to show their fabulous Recruiter Package? The one that cost more than your total advertising budget? Well, they would like you to place their button on your Home Page. And guess what they do not want to you pay for advertising them on your home page. They want to help you get more followers on their platform. Why? So that they can sell those to you. In a lovely Linkedin Recruiter Package.

LinkedIn Follow Button

Quite a strange sales model from LinkedIn, isn’t it?

Google did something similar some 6 months ago asking all web site owners to put a ‘Google+’ Button. Blogs accepted it because of the simplicity of installation of it. Does it drive any substantial traffic or bring any other benefit? Well no.

Do you think web sites will not get the LinkedIn Follow button?

If you decide to place a LinkedIn Follow button on your page, here are the three nice formats you can choose from:

Will LinkedIn Follow button slow your web site? Yes.
Does the speed of the site affect the site ranking in Google? Yes.
Will you site drop in Google index because you have placed a LinkedIn Follow button. Yes, a bit.

I have to admit the ‘Like’ from Facebook was more original than any of the copycats. They could have really come up with something better in all this time!

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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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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.

Categories
Career CV CV Database Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

Vintavu

Searching for a developer, looking at client success stories I found an interesting video recruitment site. Here is a full case study from a web developer about it.

Client background
Bee Interviewed Limited is in the business of online recruitment. They are innovative and always look for smart solutions to the job portal market. They started a project in which the conventional CV would not play any major role. Instead they wanted to use Video technology to integrate with candidate profile. This would give the employer to see and evaluate a candidate on various soft skills.

The challenges
The need was to develop an interactive platform whereby both employers and candidates have the best solution concerning jobs. The market is flooded with job portals, and it was no easy task to spearhead the competition unless some innovative techniques are provided that result in more effective evaluation of the candidate by employers. A video profile system creation is the absolute solution towards judging ability of the candidate in a more distinct way.

eCeltic’s Solution
Vintavu was developed for creating an interactive job vacancy form for candidates. This web application is to be conceived in its current form as a dynamic site-requiring constant updates both from the seekers as well as the companies. It focuses on the Graduate and Pre-Graduate candidate with career experience.
On the whole the objective of the project is to enable jobseekers to place their resumes and companies to publish their vacancies. It enables jobseekers to post their resume, search for jobs, view personal job listings. It will provide various companies to place their vacancy profile on the site and also have an option to search candidate resumes. Apart from this there will be an admin module for the administrator to make changes to the database content.

Implementation
Vintavu application is the recruitment process to suit the modern jobs marketplace.
Job seekers- Job seeker, who is searching for job can enter the website, they can register and build their resume for free of cost.
Employers – The employer can enter the website & create their own account for free of cost. They can post job & search employee database.
Admin- The full control over the users & their functions

Technology used
.Net, C#, ASP.NET, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, On2 Flix Publisher

The development of job portal benefited in more ways than one.

    • Quick search through numerous candidates and explore their capabilities.
    • Video profiles offer the leading edge to gain insight into candidate’s abilities.
    • Employers content with shortlisted candidates.
    • Short listing the right employee is not cumbersome anymore.
    • Great save on time and money.
Categories
Internet Interview Jobs Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment Twitter

How to do Social Recruitment on Networking Events

Social recruitment is not just searching the LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter for your perfect candidates. Social (aspect of) recruitment is using those to find people and reach efficiently to most of them via the social media. There are people that you will have to meet, since not all of us are comfortable tweeting and communication with recruiters in public forum. The best way to reach to those candidates are the trade shows and networking events related to them. Dublin Web Summit was a great sample of such an event. Today there is another –with slightly different audience expected. It is the Dublin Beta :: Launch Event. What is it? Here it is from themselves:

About Dublin Beta

Dublin Beta is the newest chapter of Silicon Valley’s largest and longest-running startup mixer, SF Beta. Join us for a stimulating evening of stimulating conversation, classy libations, and live exhibits from ten startups, coming from Dublin’s early-stage startup and technology community.

So who is likely to show up? Entrepreneurs! Will you hire them? No. So why bother?

Not every entrepreneur is successful in running the business and making profit. In fact, a fairly small p-percentage are. Can you find them some challenge in the roles you have open? If you ‘sell’ or ‘package’ your opportunities really well – you will attract the entrepreneurs as well.

So although non corporate heads on their shoulders, the Dublin Beta :: Launch Event is likely to attract the crème de la crème of the Irish IT entrepreneurs. You just need to find the way how to talk to them. In fact the best you can do is to turn it around. How about if they would want to talk to you on the event? How? Why?

Techies tweet. Like mad. The event has a hashtag that you can follow in twitter: #Dublinbeta. The event did not even start and there is a long list of people tweeting how they will come. Find your candidates between them. Follow, retweet and mention whatever is suitable in each case. Search for their LinkedIn profiles. Invite them to connect, and do mention you would like their opinion on something (that is relevant to each of them!). Ask for a few minutes on the event tonight. Make sure they have a lot to say about it. The result – you get a room full of people who can’t wait to talk to you!

Final tip: Make sure your profile photo is recent! If not make one right now and stick it online. The more recent the photo, the easier it is for people to recognize and find you on the crowded event. For best results – our make a photo of on the day of the event – in the same clothes your will appear on the event.

Categories
Career CV Database Internet Job Site Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Networks Social Recruitment

Rock bottom quality journalism from Silicon Republic

In the lovely article titled ‘UK tech companies fall behind US in social recruiting – survey’

Silicon Republic states:

US companies are ahead of their UK counterparts when it comes to using the web and social media to recruit new employees, new research from recruitment software provider Zartis suggests.
LinkedIn is the most popular social media network for recruitment, with one-quarter of US companies directly advertising job vacancies on the site, compared to 14pc of UK companies doing the same.

So what a Silicon Republic reader is let to believe is? Yes, you have guessed it right, and the title of the article have helped you: UK tech companies fall behind US in social recruiting.

The only fact in the whole article to back it up is that there is more top US companies advertising jobs on LinkedIn than in UK. So the conclusion that the UK companies fall behind US ones is based on the number of jobs advertised on LinkedIn.

The reason this is so sad is that it shows absolute lack of understanding what online recruitment on the social networks actually is from the author of the article from SiliconRepublic. Any recruiter that uses LinkedIn knows well that even the city with the largest number of recruiters in the World on LinkedIn is – guess what? London! The number of social recruitment conferences in London is as well greater (per capita) than in any other city in the world!

The truth is that the UK, as well as majority of the European recruiters know well that advertising jobs is the last thing to do on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a ‘Social Network’ not a ‘Jobs Board’. Making a statement that the UK recruiters are ‘falling behind’ based on the number of jobs posted is just very, very wrong.

The best will be in about a year’s time when the ‘Update’ to this statistics gets published with the update: ‘UK recruiters are catching up with the US’. That will be based on the increase of the number of jobs published on LinkedIn in UK next year. I am guessing SiliconRepublic will not see any connection on the LinkedIn sales staff numbers in UK in the increase of the number of jobs posted next year.

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

Blue Belt in Internet Recruitment

Recruitment training is an on-going hot potato in Ireland. When in early 2006 one of the largest recruitment agencies in the country called me to deliver a training, I was flattered but in the same time shocked. It was true that I knew how to write a job spec so that it appears on top of the job boards. It was true that I knew how to search LinkedIn. I know I am a good trainer. But,… shouldn’t recruiters know all this already?! Why do they call themselves recruiters if they cannot attract or find candidates?

I spoke to a lot of recruiters while traveling and training them around the country, trying to find out what do they do about their training and coaching. Interestingly enough almost all of them told me they have some internal training programme. What was even more interesting no one thought them even the basics about writing for the web, or searching the web to source candidates. The web as such was not a part of the recruitment training in Ireland in 2006! Fast forward to present.

Today I got my certificate: Blue Belt in Internet Recruitment. And I am very proud of it! And I know that everyone who did a one day course with me to get the Blue Belt in Internet Recruitment certificate is valuing theirs as well! Why? We simply learned so much within a day that it was hard to take it all in.

Only a few years after there was NO training for any usage of the web for Irish Recruiters, there is all of a sudden something that is a world class recruitment sourcing training programme? For this to happen the following was needed:

1. Internet, and especially the social part of it – where everyone can publish. Blogs written by enthusiastic experts have change the way we learn.
2. Recession that have shaken up the recruitment industry so much that every recruitment agency or HR employers department had to rethink the way they do their business.
3. And the most important ingredient – a RECRUITER with a passion for recruitment and the web.

There is no better person that I know of that would do it better than Jonathan Campbell. An inspirational speaker, innovative recruiter and a patent trainer.

Do you know how to find all public profiles, see a full profile of every single LinkedIn user, know how to find his/her email address, and the same for blogs Facebook and twitter? You do? Well than the Blue Belt in Internet Recruitment course is not for you.

Do you publish your jobs on job boards and search the CV databases to find candidates? And are happy doing so? Then the Blue Belt in Internet Recruitment is NOT for you as well.

Jonathan’s Blue Belt in Internet Recruitment is for everyone else in between. And I can tell you I know very few recruiters that are in the first group who know it all already. On the other hand I know a lot of recruiters who are job board ONLY oriented. And happy to do so. I do understand that there are niches, and industries where that works well. I also know that there is less and less of those every single day.

If you are short of candidates there is nothing else currently available in Ireland that I would recommend better than Blue Belt in Internet Recruitment course. Why? You WILL learn to find ANY candidate that has left his professional footprint anywhere on the web.