Categories
Blogs

TheJobs.ie Jobs Site by Approach People Recruitment

TheJobs.ie Jobs Site by Approach People RecruitmentIt is a dream of every recruitment agency to have a job board. Some only dream about it but some actually make it happen. Here is the nice example: TheJob.ie by Approach People Recruitment. A nice colourful web site. About a hundred jobs published with the direct employers name (but not contact details) disclosed.

Advertising costs are comparable to the highest in the market. Relatively to the sites traffic, it is probably one of the worst sites when it comes to the ROI of your marketing spend. Recruitment Agencies are not allowed. Perhaps simply they know better that it’s not worth that kind of money.

One thing that I don’t like about TheJob.ie jobs site is the fact that they are representing themselves as TheJob.ie there, and do not mention anywhere that they are in fact the recruitment agency Approach People Recruitment. I guess that is because of the fact that a large number of people just do not want to hear about the recruitment agencies at all. In my opinion, this is one of the reasons for such a poor opinion about the recruitment – where a recruitment agency is trying to hide, or represent itself as something else. A number of UK and US recruiters have just opened their web sites for employers to publish jobs – and made success with their sites. This sounds more like passing off as someone you are not.

Advice: Just get your name printed on the site. Do not try to hide. In the long term it is better for the brand as well.

Categories
Blogs

JobisJob.ie – Irish Jobs Aggregator


JobisJob.ie is another jobs aggregator that popped up in the Irish market. Interestingly this site decided to stay out of trouble, and is publishing the source of every job it displays on the site. Also when you click on a job listings it brings you to the job site where the job was taken from. The problem with such a process is that the links from the job aggregator site often link to the jobs that have already been removed from the job boards, so the user experience of a job hunter is not really high.

Business model of the JobisJob.ie seems to be purely in trying to monetize the traffic achieved. So far they display Google AdSense. The majority of the Google AdWords Publishers seem to be the Irish Recruitment Agencies.

Spaniards, we wish you well!

Categories
Blogs

Job2Do Have Lot’s to Do

Job2Do - Irish Jobs SiteJobs2Do seams to heave really lots to do to get someone to apply for those jobs now.

Google PR2
Job2do.ie has a traffic rank of: 3,469,434

Google showing 1 link to their site?

Hum…. A bit unusual approach for the Jobs Board. One would assume a lot of people visiting the web site, but Job2Do obviously have slightly different approach?

Categories
Blogs

The Monster Job Forum

The Monster Job ForumMonster has something strange on their site. And we are talking about the ‘Real Monster’ here. Are they looking into getting the job hunters engage in some social networking on the Forum on their site? It is an interesting attempt from the Search Engine Optimisation perspective, but wouldn’t it look a bit better if there would be a few messages in the forum? It looks kind of empty the way it is – a forum with absolutely no messages in it.

Categories
Blogs

Monster Finance – New Irish Job board!? NO! Just a Recruitment Agency With a Name of a Job Board

Monster Finance Logo - What is it really?I am not entirely sure what does the logo represent, but I am afraid it stands quite well in the internal competition we used to have in the company – who will make the worst logo for a job site. The www.Jobs-Ireland.ie logo used to be in the lead, but Monster Finance is really quite an impressive contender as well!

The name,… Monster. If the real Monster finds out it might not do anything, but if they ever take a jeopardise a single client contract, Monster will put up a fight that no Irish start-up can fight against that easily. Remember when IrishJobs.ie sued IrelandJobs.ie for the same?

Since I have this ‘other’ interest besides the online recruitment (call it a hobby!), I cannot not to notice that from the SEO perspective this new Monster Finance is quite a strange recruitment web site. Probably quite a different marketing plan, since Google for example has their front page at ‘0’, and all the other pages are not rated (greyed out). Google traditionally was the driver of the traffic to the Irish Jobs Sites, and Monster Finance have decided to get it from somewhere else. Who knows they might be on to something!

Asking a candidate for the disclosure of the sex and age during the registration is a usual sign of not understanding the Irish Recruitment Market.

No phone number on the site, no contact email address, it certainly resembles the Google business model (or a two boys in the shed or a kitchen – starting their business).

But then the mystery revealed itself today, when I got contacted by Rahat, who is a Business Development Director at Monster Finance. Interestingly enough his LikedIN profile also reveals a Recommendation from: Brian Fairbrother, Business Development Manager, Loadzajobs – Independent Newspaper Group. It is kind a strange that the BDM of one job site is recommending the BDM of the other job site for his current position? Recommending the competition is certainly a noble thing. Here is a full recommendation for Rahat:

“A Strong Entrepreneur. A Manager who turns possibilities into realities. A professional that thinks out of the box and looks at Business Challenges as Major Opportunities. Rahat’s new business model will offer a High Value Added service to the Recruitment Sector. Watch this space…….”

And then you realise that Monster Finance is actually a recruitment agency – they hide that fact on the front page, but have it buried deep in the Terms in the small print.

Sometimes I wonder why is it a dream of every second recruitment agency to run a jobs board as well? I guess they think it’s easy…

Anyway as well as with any start-up jobs site – we wish Monster Finance all the best!

Categories
Blogs

urHired – Who is Fired?

urFired! OOPS, Sorry UR Hired.For those of you who did not notice that the majority of the news is about people being fired lately (check Jobs News), as opposed to being hired, there is a piece of news here as well: Ireland has a new jobs board! It’s called urFired. Sorry OOPS Hired. Simply done mistake. SimplyHired therefore. Well no SimplyHired but the mistake simply done. So the new job board is urhIred. Or something more or less like that.

Is there a worse timing for publishing the jobs board than in the days like these? I remember doing the same mistake with my first one RealJobs.ie! :)

We wish the urHired team all the best!

urHired! urCareer! urWay! upUpwards and urOnwards!

Categories
Blogs

CV Magnet or how NOT to advertise a job?

What do you do when you purchase too many job slots on a job board? You use them and fill with the duplicates of the jobs you need to fill or write a generic job spec for the type of the jobs you are hiring for, and publish those.

Duplicates, Duplicates, Duplicates…

The advantage in having the same job published exactly the same more than once on a job board is very low. In taking some time and changing each copy so that it has a unique title, and quite different job description will generate more applications, but will also result in a lot of duplicate applications. (you asked for it!)

Speculative Positions

If you are recruiting for a position where you require a large number of the staff with the similar skills, and they tend not to stay that long with you (students, etc), than you need to have the same job advertised al all times on the job boards.

Just a note on the job title advertised as ‘Speculative Positions’: Putting the ‘Speculative Positions’ as a title of a job advertised on a jobs board will not really do you any good. An DBA Guru is far more likely to click on a job that includes a word DBA than on a job titled ‘Speculative Positions’.

CV Magnet

If you want to get a large number of the CV’s for the job published, just write a loose Requirements. Many job seekers use the Job Requirements to ‘filter themselves out’. If you write 6 separate requirements, and one is ‘6 years industry experience’, you might lose someone how has all the other five but only 5 years experience. And that is certainly no recruiters intention.

If you remove the requirements completely, you just mark them as the ‘Desired Candidate Requirements’, or just note that the candidate should have at least 2 of 6 listed, you will increase the number of the applications, while not drastically decreasing the overall quality of the job applications.

Categories
Blogs

Counter-offer as the staff retention method

An article published by the IRC is becoming more and more relevant in the times ahead. In the tight times like today, companies are rethinking their headcount requirements and the positions that are not on the critical path of the delivery of the service or the product are in real danger. A large number of the companies are just not replacing the people that have left this year, thus decreasing the headcount. The others are simply offering a redundancy packages that we can read about every day (Jobs News).

In the same time every single company will do all in its power to keep its best people, the core team, the drivers of the business. And this is where the retention comes into play:

Faced with an increasingly tight employment market, competition for experienced staff has not just impacted hiring strategies but even more so retention strategies as companies are increasingly using counter-offers as an essential part of their retention strategy. Experienced staff are often faced with multiple offers and quite often these will include a counter-offer from their current employer.

We have seen clients increase salaries by up to 50% in order to retain key members of staff within the finance sector – the costs of replacing staff are so high and competition is so tight that companies are pulling out all the stops in the ongoing issue of staff retention.

It is a difficult decision to weigh up a new company against your existing employer when a decent counter-offer is on the table and employees should carry out their own due diligence when looking at any new opportunity. Accepting a counter offer can seem like an easy option but it can also have a long-term impact on your career. When weighing up a counteroffer against a new offer of employment we would always advise candidates to analyse the reasons that prompted them to look for a new role in the first place. Quite often a counteroffer will offer a pay increase but you will fail to really address any other issues that you may have with your existing company. Our experience has shown that once someone accepts a counteroffer they will still start looking for a new role six months later!

What we will see more in the remaining in the 2008 is that people who stay with their current employer – DO NOT leave their employer that easy after receiving the hefty salary upscale. Interest rates are going up, house prices are going down. People will want to feel some security that they will be able to pay the raising mortgages.

Unless you are the CEO of Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, or Unilife CEO Alan Shortall, or someone on their level, it is quite unlikely you will be changing your employer for a higher salary, and be starting from the scratch with a new employer in the last quarter of 2008.

Categories
Blogs

Downturn in economy? What downturn in economy?

Some recruiters complain while other celebrate (see post: A recession is the best time to be in the recruiting business!) the times like these where not much is certain from the business perspective. Your major clients my go under tomorrow, but co can you major competitors! Those who get trough those tough times with their head above the water will come out stronger and positioned great for growth in the future recruitemnt and jobs market..


Downturn in economy? What downturn? Look at the like of the companies hiring:
http://www.jobs-ireland.ie/blog/recruiters-in-ireland/.

Categories
Blogs

Jobs Blog > Web 2.0?

Well I guess I owe it to you my dear readers (especially ‘The Regulars’), a bit of the visual upgrade to the JobsBlog.ie. When I first started blogging, I was not sure how will it work. My first few blog posts were just a bit… insecure. :)

Then I got to the first 100 visitors a day, that I have put myself as a target originally when started. And from there onwards and upwards…

Anyway, I just realised I concentrated on the quality of the content 100%. What I forgot is the ‘looks’! So, to get all my ramblings into some more readable and nicer framework I decided to start working on the visual improvement of this Jobs Blog. A properly designed logo is what I will work on first, and then the layout and the rest. Here are some samples of the fancy looking web 2.0 logos. Let me know what ones you like?


jobsblog-web2.0-logos

Categories
Career Recruitment

Career Opportunities for People With Terrible Grammar

From Jobs Ireland Blog:

Career Opportunities for People With Terrible Grammar

Categories
Google Internet

Golden Spider Awards 2008

Newbridge Silverware have won the 2007 Golden Spider Award for \"Best e-Business Website\"It is 50% more expensive to be in the Golden Spiders this year…

If there is anything an entrepreneur cannot stand it’s the PR stunts for the ‘Big Boys’. When you are starting your average ‘Two Boys in the Shed’ (or kitchen, bedroom or even attic if you are lucky!) company, with absolutely no investment other than your old PC, the worst thing that can happen to you is to get ‘An Invitation’ for the Awards ceremony that you cannot pay the entrance fee for. An invitation to pay the entrance fee… Imagine if you get a invitation to see the show in the cinema, that starts with you paying for the ticket first.

Basically it is the invitation to empty your wallet in our bag, please? Thank You!

Golden Spider Awards seems like a respectable event. The usual carvery menu, a bit of wine, and a table decorated by the flower. Black Tie recommended – required to get published later on, on the photographs.

What does it to enter the Golden Spider Awards? I get a call every year now, and remember the last years cost of €100. This year it is €150. Right. That makes it 50% more expensive than last year.

Categories
Recruitment Recruitment Agency

A recession is the best time to be in the recruiting business!

As companies tighten their budgets, the recruitment freezes become more and more widespread. When it comes at the end of the year, you will hear a large number of recruitment managers mentioning the recruitment freeze as early as October. What does it mean for the recruiters? Almost no new business for the last two months of the year.

A lot of recruiters will look for another job this winter.

Especially the ones providing the ‘Volume Recruitment Services’, lower in the food chain. If nothing drastically changes in the industry until the next year, those that are still around in January 2009 will cash it big in the February. Long hiring freezes always generate a large wave of the new heads required short afterwards.

How to get to 2008? Watch for the competition bailing out, and grab their contracts. Expanding your client base in the following months in 2008, will make a huge impact in the Q1 of 2009!

Categories
Blogs Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Is Jobs Blog still alive?

Is Jobs Blog still alive?

That is the question I got a lot last few weeks. It is funny how your constant readers almost expect you to publish regularly, and note the absence of the new blog posts. My summer was a strange mixture of (tele)work, holidays, sailing, diving, travelling, business, networking, socialising and visiting people and places. The result was devastating for my blog. The only posts I did post was being stuck on the airports with flights cancelled or delayed, or such weird situations.

It is September! And September is a Special Month in the Recruitment in Ireland. Majority of the advertising contracts are renewed in September. January is the second most popular month for such an activity. Sales people are very busy. If you did not book your business (Let’s do Lunch!) meeting or a dinner, you will find hard to get a face to face meeting with a salesman of the recruitment advertising! Fully booked in advance!

New start up recruitment agencies pup up like mushrooms after the rain in September. Considering the amount of rain in August…

Jobs Blog is Alive!!!

The question is how is the recruitment alive in those turbulent economic times…