Tag: Job Seeker

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Career Job Site Jobs Recruitment

Careers Service: ‘DIT Style’

I got an email from the Dublin Institute of Technology to check their new Careers Site called “JobScene”.
This is the exact text that welcomed me there:

To access jobscene and view our current opportunities you must register first.

I must register to see jobs? I am guessing there is a reason for it? Perhaps it is a closed service just for DIT Students? Well, the second sentence reads:

To register: Enter your name, email address and date of birth. It is not compulsory to enter a student number.

So, I do not have to be a DIT Student to see the jobs? You just need my age? Why?

The fact that one cannot see the jobs without revealing his/her age is something I really do not understand. Not only it might be a slight problem that Google will not reveal it’s age, hence the website SEO is dead before it started, but why do you need my age, and email, name and whatever else you need to reveal the job openings just baffles me. The DIT Careers people obviously know something you and I don’t!

As a job seeker – one would never sign up to it.

There is also a great service for Employers. Here is what the DIT Careers Service site reads:

Employers: To pledge a job click on Hireland.ie.
What is Hireland.ie ? Hireland is an initiative brought to you not by the government or any lobby group, but by ordinary people who realise we all need to do things for ourselves. We need to Kickstart Ireland. So Hireland is asking Irish Businesses to think differently – and to pledge a short or long term job now.
WHAT HAPPENS WITH MY PLEDGE?
Your company will appear on our Pledgers wall and becomes a positive ripple effect for all to see. Your pledge will be counted and become part of Hireland’s Growth index and form part of a powerful voice that Ireland is open for business.

So as an employer I can’t advertise my jobs on the DIT Careers Service web site, but am sent to some other web site? And there I actually cannot advertise jobs but get listed on “Pledgers wall and becomes a positive ripple effect for all to see.”
Eek? I don’t need a ripple effect? I need staff?

Unbelievable? Yes, I agree. But here is a screenshot of the page.

Categories
Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Search Engine Social Networks Social Recruitment

Simply Hired releases their first-ever UK Today’s Job Seeker Report

SimplyHired.co.uk has released it’s first annual Today’s Job Seeker report for the UK market. Based on the results of more than 60 user polls conducted on the site since October 2009, the report provides the industry’s most comprehensive picture of job seekers and their interests, behaviours and motivations. To download the full report visit http://scr.bi/ukjobseekerreport.

Highlights of the report include:
• Today’s job seekers say the most important consideration when looking for a job is work-life balance (36%)
• 69% of job seekers are willing to take a pay cut to avoid redundancy
• More than half of job seekers use social media sites in their job search, including Facebook (18%) and Linkedin (31%)

Gautam Godhwani, co-founder and chief executive officer, Simply Hired, said: “The current recession has created a new group of candidates, distinctive in their job search methods and what they want from their career. Today’s job seeker is part of a selective, independent and passionate group actively searching for work through social networking and personalised online job sites. We are pleased to share this data through our first UK Today’s Job Seeker Report.”

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Career CV Database Internet Job Site LinkedIN Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

LinkedIn 2010

The following series of articles I will write about the long list of changes LinkedIn have brought in lately, and how does it all reflect the recruitment process in Ireland. The main topics are:
• Free Job Advertising by LinkedIn
• Paid Job Seeker Account on LinkedIn
• Why Would I Pay LinkedIn?
• LinkedIn Future – Advertising Platform

If there is any topic in relation to LinkedIn you think I missed – please let me know in the comments from below, and I will do my best to include it.

Categories
Internet Job Site LinkedIN Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

LinkedIn Future – Advertising Platform

I have spent most of the last week with Facebook and Google in their fancy Dublin offices. One word I have been hearing over and over: Maximize. They used the word Maximize in every second sentence. It is absolutely unbelievable on how many places you can put that word and almost not lose the meaning of what you are talking about. It reminded me of the Supersize Me a bit, and sometimes I just had to apologize because I started laughing laud (lol).

If you think about the top companies that are ‘in’ lately, we are talking about the (Google) search engine turned into the advertising platform. Social Networking Web Site (Facebook) turning into the advertising platform. Computer company (Apple) turning into mobile phone (iPhone) company turning into the advertising platform (App Store).

The common denominator is the Advertising Platform. Hence the more time you can say Maximize in describing your products and services the better chance of success in the modern economy.

So how can LinkedIn Maximize?
Maximize your Employer Branding – Company Page on LinkedIn
Maximize yourself as a job seeker – Paid Job Seeker Account

Somehow I do not think it is enough. LinkedIn will have to think of more places and times they can put the medical word Maximize in their lingo. To thrive they need to become an advertising platform of some sort. There is no other way up the food chain.

Categories
Career CV Database Job Site LinkedIN Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

Paid Job Seeker Account on LinkedIn

Dara O’Briain defined how wrong one can be in the eyes of the Irish low as:
1. there is all this stuff which comes under: That’s grand
2. then it moves into: Ah now don’t push it
3. … and finally it comes under: Right now you’re takin the piss, and that’s when the police come in.

LinkedIn is also placing the job seekers in three categories and offering a product for each. If you are looking for a job you should pay different fee based on how desperately you feel:
1. Basic Job Seeker
2. Job Seeker
3. Job Seeker Plus

What those get you is that you: Get noticed by recruiters with a Job Seeker Badge. And you can send some from 0 to 10 LinkedIn messages called inMails to other LinkedIn members.

Large numbers of us Irish feel a bit strange with this public display of interest in another job that you present with your profile on LinkedIn. In the US, people are in fact far more honest on the labor market. The size makes a difference, and Americans are far more mobile within the country. The way we are is we are looking for a job close to where we live. A Cork-man will hardly even contemplate to move to Limerick just because there is a better job there. Americans would move thousands of miles away easily for a better opportunity. So when social media comes into play where you publicly state your intentions (and what you feel about your current employer), we have a problem here. Everyone knows everyone, and have a cousin that knows someone, etc. So the job seekers accounts in Ireland can actually be looked in Dara’s classification as well. This time it is a classification of a job seeker – how badly do you want a (new) job? LinkedIn accounts here should be renamed as:
1. Basic Account (just paying and faking I am not looking!) – I am grand.
2. Job Seeker (coming out aren’t we?) – Don’t push it!
3. Plus- Right now you’re takin the piss, and that’s when the HR come in!

Categories
Career CV Recruitment

JOB SEEKER Workshop in CORK, NOVEMBER 10th

Following the Recruitment Workshop in Dublin, Peter Cosgrove from Hudson Recruitment is holding the same in Cork. There is a Galway Workshop planned as well. Date and location will be confirmed here closer to the date.

JOB SEEKER EVENT CORK NOVEMBER 10th

The National Recruitment Federation is hosting a free job seekers event on November 10th.

Location: Imperial Hotel, South Mall,Cork
Date & Time: November 10th at 6pm to 7.30

The talk will be presented by Peter Cosgrove of the NRF and will cover the following:

• Writing a world class CV
• Where to find the next job
• Advice on dealing with recruitment agencies
• Improving interview skills and techniques
• Networking skills
• Negotiating salaries

If you would like to have a recruiter take a look at your cv please can you bring along a copy as there will be a cv clinic afterwards.

Please email: director@nrf.ie to register your place.

Categories
Blogs Career CV Internet Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

The most powerful marketing tool for a job seeker is…

… when all the personal branding channels are combined.

In no particular order:
1. Social networks presence – descriptive public profile combined with the active participation in discussions.
2. Personal Blog
3. Presence on the Corporate Blog
4. Any online publication (indexed by Google)

The real power of all your online presence is in the ability to connect all those channels together. Ad your friends and co workers in social networks, drive them to your blog for more status updates, get them subscribed to your RSS feeds and twitter. From your RSS and tweets send them back to your questions and discussion on your blog and social networks, and increase the readership in every jump from one media to another.

Personal branding practice as above replaces the necessity to look for a job on jobs sites. The recruiters will ‘know about you’ already anyway. Just blog daily, and publish one article or a question in the social network of your choice (relevance to your target industry).

Categories
Career CV Database Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment

Monster rethinking service offering

Monster is interested in what job seekers think of their jobs web site. Here is the mail sent to job hunters today:

SATISFIED?
LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK

Dear Job Seeker,

At Monster, we are committed to creating an online experience that advances your life and your career. To help us achieve this, we would like to invite you to provide some feedback on your experience using Monster.

Our Satisfaction Survey should only take around 12 -18 minutes to complete and all responses are confidential. Start the survey by clicking the link below. Your honest thoughts and opinions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your participation.

Click here for the satisfaction survey »

Best wishes,

Jesse Harriot
Vice President of Research

2009 Monster – All Rights Reserved
Hillview House, 15D Gilford Road, Sandymount, Dublin 4, Ireland

How about a iPhone raffle or something similar to get people to participate? Or is Monster not really interested in what people really think. Or not that much to give them the incentive to fill up the questionnaire?

Or Monster Marketing just didn’t think of it at all? :)

Categories
Blogs Career CV LinkedIN Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment Twitter

Does your CV and LinkedIN Profile Match?

Your LinkedIN Profile is most likely a copy of your CV. If a recruiter does a ‘Background Check’ to verify your CV the same data will be on your LinkedIN ‘Published’ online Profile, and that is great. Your CV is all true. The issue with the CV and the LinkedIN Profile being the same is a missed opportunity for a job seeker.

Your LinkedIN Profile should tell far more than your CV does to a recruiter.

What to include in your LinkedIN Profile?

Link to your Blog. On your blog you can show all different qualities a recruiter is searching for:
Expertise in a subject
Communication skills
Writing skills
Presentation skills
Team Building skills
And much more!

Links to your Twitter account where your conversations with the other influencers in the market and subject matter expert are published and visible are the next essential part of your LinkedIN Profile. Your network of known people and especially their recommendations are what sets you apart from the thousands of other applicants for the same job.

The CV opens the door. It invites the recruiter to start the research about you. Make sure your social media and social networking presence is the extension of your CV. If your LinkedIN Profile is a copy of your CV, it doesn’t really have a great value. It is also an opportunity missed.

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Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Free Jobs (freejobs.ie)

Who says there is no such thing as a free lunch?

free-jobsI call from a client today about their jobs being published to FreeJobs.ie made me thinking. Their jobs published on the Free Jobs web site are about 3 years old. They got an application for a job advertised there yesterday. Since my client is using the multiple job posting service eRecruit, as a part of our Recruitment Marketing Manager product, they assumed that eRecruit is supplying the jobs to the Free Jobs web site, as it does to all the Irish Jobs sites (and news sites, and blogs, and niche web sites, etc…). Well in this case this was not the case. We in eRecruit have actually never even heard about a site called Free Jobs before.

So jobs published on Free Jobs web site are taken from somewhere. And published on the Free Jobs web site, without the owner of the content – the advertiser, in this case a recruitment agency knowing about that fact. Three years after that, the advertiser receives the job application. And un unpleasant situation really – how to explain to the poor job hunter that the recruiter quoted on the Free Jobs web site does not work anymore in that recruitment agency? How to explain that the company that was actually hiring does not even exist anymore? How to explain why is the job advertised, and invites the job seeker to reveal quite a lot of his private data (in the CV) for something that is not there? Quite unpleasant, isn’t it?

Well, that is the problem with the things that are free. No one is really responsible for the maintenance or the quality of their service. Sometimes it seems one would be better of paying 1 Euro, or some minimal fee, and receive a guarantee of a quality of service. This provides some revenue to the service provider as well, that helps funding the project. In the same time it gives the user of the service a level of guarantee that the service provided will work well.

I like free things. We all do. But unfortunately there are inherited problems with free services. Free Jobs web site is not the alone in the scenario where a free service of advertising jobs simply failed because of the unsustainable business model.

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Blogs

SEO for job advertisment?

Is Search Engine Optimization important for advertising your jobs on the job boards? Should you optimize every single job post? Isn’t optimization of job post on a job board actually only ‘Keyword Stuffing’, since you do not control any other page element?

Short answer:

Yes SEO is extremely important when publishing a job on a job board. Yes, you can only play with text, s0 make sure you do it well!

Why SEO-in a individual job post?

It will attract searches composed of number of words (‘Long Tail Search’) that describe the desired position. In general a job seeker that searches for ‘Jobs’ is on average of less ‘Quality Applicant’ than someone searching for ‘IT Project Manager Dublin South’.

By optimising the job specification for the search engines – the quality of the applicants raise dramatically. I have done tests with a number of my clients in publishing the two versions of the same role. One the way they would ‘Normally’ write it and the other highly optimised for the most used search words combined in search phrases constructed from:

  • Job location
  • Job title or role name
  • Job Location
  • Skills required or technologies used
  • Qualifications required or desired

The result is that the majority of candidates interviewed came from a version of the job advertised that was optimised for the search engines. The majority of the applications would tend to come from a day to 3 – 4 days after the publishing of the role. The overall quality of the applications would tend to go down as times goes by after that.