Tag: Recruiters

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Blogs Internet LinkedIN Recruitment Recruitment Agency Social Recruitment Twitter

What is The Recruitment Unconference?

What is a recruitment conference? We all know the answer to that. It is a large meeting where a number of people (one by one) speak to the group. There are short breaks in between speakers, for the people get a coffee and network.

Who comes to the conference?

Speakers – are people presenting. Salespeople presenting how their solutions, products or services changed the industry for the better.

Delegates – people who sit, listen, take notes and have coffee in the breaks. Delegates are quite often people who are looking for a new job. They look around what else is there. Some attendees are there because they are sent there by their employers. They have to attend one or two of those a year. You can see them leaving quickly after the last presentation, to catch some time off for an afternoon shopping or something alike.

What is Recruitment Unconference?

Recruitment Unconference is a gathering of recruiters with the social media rules applied. There are no speakers. There are no delegates. Just recruiters who can behave as they do in the social media: lead conversations, contribute, listen, move to another room/topic, network or just have a coffee. Yes, there is a coffee here as well!

It is list Facebook or Twitter really. Everyone can talk about anything they want to really. Everyone can listen (follow/connect) whoever they choose. Anyone can comment, contribute and even ‘take over’ the conversation. Anyone can change the topic. Anyone can. And everyone is invited to do exactly that! Everyone is asked to contribute. Everyone’s opinion is asked for in a discussion on every topic he is physically present at.

Now that we know what the Recruitment Unconference is, let’s check on how the most popular one actually functions in the recruitment industry. This brings us to its founder @BillBoorman and his unconference events taking place around the globe. They are called TRU for The Recruitment Unconference. After the three characters, there is a name of the city or country the event is in. So you have TRULondon, TRUDublin and similar. If an event is held multiple times in the same city the name also gets a number Like TruDublin4. This is to form a hashtag for Twiter. Why is Twitter important? Well, the usual ways of communication like email and phone are one to one or one to many (mailing lists). The Unconference is different because everyone is welcomed to contribute. So social media is a place to look for any info (or post any info!) about the recruitment unconference.

Since the recruiters who attend the unconference are (in most cases) the natural users of the social media, they post their thoughts especially on the Twitter, as it is the fastest channel, in real-time during the unconference. They all use the hashtag so it is really simple to follow what anyone is tweeting about. That usually is a reflection on what is spoken about. You can usually follow multiple discussions from the same conference at the same time. What is the best about it is that anyone on Twitter can contribute to those discussions by using the same unconference hashtag. This makes the discussions leave the room and go out to social media. There the discussions get the life of their own.

The format that Bill has made for this TRU events is the following. There is a quick opening. The bigger the conference the quicker it is, since the larger the crowd is the harder it is to keep them quiet. Remember those are not your Delegates. These people are here to participate.

Tracks

Bill usually announces the tracks (topics) that will be discussed in different rooms. He also announces who is the track leader for each topic. That is usually an expert in that field. Or a recruiter who wants to share the recent experience with some new tool used for the recruitment, and ask for feedback. Depending on the size of the unconference there are usually 3 tracks running in parallel. They are held in separate rooms. Anyone can choose any track and even move to another track whenever they choose. Bill himself would for example move quite often from a track to track, hopping from a conversation to another and contributing to each one he hops in. Sometimes he would also bring the relevant points being made in another track that is happening in parallel.

As social media is not for everyone, the recruitment unconference is not for everyone as well. Some people prefer to be delegates rather than to participate. Social is not for everyone. The anti-social or traditional conference is not for everyone as well. People discovered they can apply the social media rules to the conference and that some types of conferences the social conference or the unconference is a much better format. Hence the recruitment unconference TRU that @BillBoorman started 5 years ago in London has spread to a long list of counties on different continents. Recruiters themselves found the unconference format to work better than the speaker-delegate format. Not all of the recruiters that is. But the recruiters that understood the social media and found the way how to use it for recruitment.

The #TRU in the City near YOU!

The recruitment unconference, the #TRU will come to the city near you if it didn’t already. You will not find a flyer in your post with a list of fabulous speakers. There is not even a list of delegates. To be honest not even flashing your own business card is a welcome gesture. Connection on LinkedIn and Facebook or Follow on Twitter is on the other hand. If you are a delegate type, trust me, it’s not for you. Where you will find about #TRU is in the social media channels, and there only. On Bill’s Blog as well. And from there to hashtags on Twitter. While I am writing this the #TruHelsinki is on right now. Guess what it is all on social media in real-time as well. You can follow it here: https://twitter.com/#!/search/?q=%23TruHelsinki&src=hash.

If you like what you see there we will see you soon at #TRU. If not, that’s OK too.

Categories
Internet Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine SEO

Recruitment SEO: Alexa traffic ranking

After ranking the Irish recruitment agency web sites based on the Google PageRank and less known SEOmoz rank here is the one most marketers are familiar with: Alexa. What Alexa does exactly and how does it do it was a topic of a debate from the day Alexa have started publishing the traffic ranking scores. Some people like it, and some don’t. As with most of the ranking algorithms, it is usually the people featured on top that agree with Alexa’s results, and the ones ranked towards the bottom would have a different opinion. But that is the nature of every semi obscure ranking system. And in the world of SEO, nothing is really that straight forward!

What does Alexa web site ranking number mean?

What does Alexa say about their ranking number? They say that the Alexa number associated with each web site is its ranking in the overall global web traffic. So a site with the Alexa’s No. 1 is the web site with the most visitors, and as the ranking number grows the lower you are on the list of the sites based on the number of visitors. So the smaller the Alexa ranking score, the more traffic your web site has (according to Alexa).

So here is the same list of the 29 Irish recruitment agencies and the www.JobsBlog.ie within them so you can use it as a benchmark. There are some results that are just “screaming out” in this Alexa web site traffic ranking list. I’ll let you be the judge of it yourself:

URL

Alexa Rank
http://www.cpl.ie

291100
http://www.morganmckinley.ie

336866
http://www.hays.ie

803824
http://www.brightwater.ie

874987
http://www.peoplegroup.ie

1274311
http://www.Vantage.ie

1441180
http://www.eolas.ie

1769945
http://www.jobsblog.ie

1817137
http://www.icds.ie

1854172
http://www.frsrecruitment.com

1997184
http://www.EdenRecruitment.ie

2428334
http://www.collinsmcnicholas.ie

2595232
http://www.hrm.ie

2811817
http://www.recruitmentplus.ie

3457055
http://www.careerwise.ie

4564311
http://www.Stelfox.ie

4828821
http://www.Recruiters.ie

4831059
http://www.rftgroup.ie

5312061
http://www.3qrecruitment.ie

6804532
http://www.MatrixRecruitment.ie

8119435
http://www.accountancysolutions.ie

8669731
http://www.gempool.ie

8720144
http://www.solasconsulting.ie

9507536
http://www.hudson.ie

12469855
http://www.enterprisepeople.ie

12578768
http://www.placeme.ie

17197072
http://www.qedrecruitment.ie

18446204
http://www.harmonics.ie

18661080
http://www.Sigmar.ie n/f
http://www.Brompton.ie n/f

Why are there two web sites that have no data in Alexa? I have absolutely no clue.

Now, if you compare the Alexa ranking above and the two lists we have looked at before: The Google PageRank and SEOmoz MozRank, there are some obvious similarities. It is especially obvious towards the tops of the lists. The same recruitment agency web sites feature the top spots, and there are no “Big Surprises” there. If your site is high in one listing, it is high in the other two as well.

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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 Social Recruitment

Irish Social Media Recruitment Conference


When you put one of the best speakers on the recruitment topic Peter Costgrove, into one of the best venues Science Gallery in Trinity College, you get what you got yesterday – probably the best Irish Recruitment Social Media Event so far. And as we all know there is plenty of them lately. Everyone who doesn’t have anything better to do, all of the suddenly become some kind of self proclaimed Social Media expert! Hey even I get invited to talk on such Irish Recruiters and what not conferences. The difference is – when you hear it from Peter once,… your next few events, you will leave early! Peter just raises the standard of presentations very, very high. And that is not all. He is besides being probably one of the best recruitment managers, a very nice person to talk to. So a package hard to beat actually.

If you compare Peter Costgrove to most of other speakers on the Social Media in Recruitment topic, Peter is the only one who will clearly say what he just doesn’t get. There is no hiding. No gray areas. Most if not all others I have heard in the last years talk about the Social Media in recruitment and sourcing process very vaguely actually. All are swimming on the surface, that make you wonder, if they actually know much about what they are talking about (ehm,… me included!). Peter just dives in. Straight to Boolean Search live example. Off to Facebook, LinkedIn specific searches… no beating around the bush. Nosedive in the sourcing for search engines and social media sites.

That sets Peter apart. Next round is in January. (you are not taking my seat!)

What is also different is that it is free. Not like the Irish Recruiters events or other Social Media gurus, who make money on you there.

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
Job Site Jobs Recruitment Social Recruitment

Jobs Site with no Jobs on?

It is funny to watch the traffic on a job site – when you remove the jobs from it!

This is a short history of the Jobs Site for Dublin Airports new Terminal 2. The site goes live with the Boom announcement on TV (11,461 visitors immediately). The next day all the national media covers the story (12,288 people on the site). Weekend – the site ‘quiets down’ with about 2,500 people a day. Next week, about 5,000 every day steadily. That all went well. Actually too well – the recruiters are simply overwhelmed by the volume of CVs (here is a Irish Jobs Site PR). So what to do next?

Remove the jobs from the Jobs site! :)

But the traditional media and by then the social media as well has done its duty. The Site is still hot! There are still a few thousand people on the site every day, so watch the change in their behaviour now – when the site has no jobs any more:

Web Site Pageviews

Drastic drop since there are no jobs to apply on a jobs site!

Pages per Visit

With no job on, there isn’t much to see on a jobs site, isn’t it?

And now my two personal gems….

Bounce Rate
BTW that figure shows the percentage of the people who come to your site, and click on no link on your site but just leave.

Well jobs site with no jobs,… ehm,… Highest bounce rate possible?

Average time spent on the site

I mean really guys? No jobs? On a jobs site?

So the job hunters answer to the Jobs Site with no jobs is: We will leave, and we will leave immediately!

Categories
CV Database Job Site Jobs Recruitment

Free Irish Jobs Sites

There is more than a ten of Irish jobs sites that advertise themselves as free Irish jobs sites. Advertising the jobs is free. Some of them would then try to charge if a recruiter or employer tries to engage with the job candidate, and most of them would just send the job applications and CVs for free to the employers as well.

There are a number of business models here – where if an employer wants’ a extra exposure on the front page, he can pay for that. Or banner advertisement are available, or in most case Google AdSense is there on the site to monetise the web site traffic.

Job Aggregators would even go a step further, where not only that the job publishing is free, but they will also take the jobs directly from your job site for you.

Then there is a few dozen Irish jobs sites that are not really advertising that the job advertising is free, but if you ask nicely, you can get your jobs advertised on them for free with no problem. Those are usually smaller and niche web sites that cannot attract enough web site traffic to be able to charge for it. They usually start with a Free Trial for job advertising for all the employers and recruiters. Then they hope the jobs advertised will build the required amount of job seekers on visiting the site that the job board owners will be able to sell that traffic later on. When that does not happen, and it doesn’t in most cases, the pay per click advertising is usually brought on in the form of Google AdWords to try to keep the job hunters visiting the jobs site. When the budget for that is gone – the job site usually turns silently in the free job board – with some sort of monetising the web site traffic like Google AdSense.

The majority of the Irish Jobs sites end up in this category of free jobs sites – simply because they cannot attract enough job hunters to be attractive enough to the job hunters.

How to find where to advertise your jobs for free?

Search for jobs in Google. When you see a web site with no physical address and just a form to fill to contact them, or a mobile phone – you just found a free jobs site. The exception might be only the site owner is still finding it hard to realise that his jobs site is not really head on with the top Irish jobs sites (as he hoped for) but silently become a free Irish Jobs site.

Categories
Recruitment Agency

NRF Awards 2009 Winners #nrf2009

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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 CV Database Job Site Jobs Recruitment Social Recruitment

Resumark: CV, Jobs, Free!!!

resumark_logoResumark brought in a nice new business model in the online recruitment industry. The concept is essentially borrowed from the Google AdWords – Google AdSense model. While Google pays the web site owners to show the Google AdSense on their sites and charges the Google AdWords clients to pay per click for those same adverts Resumark does the same with the CVs. Job hunters upload their CVs and get paid each time someone downloads the CV. Anyone can search the CV database for free, and gets a preview of the CV for free only. If you decide you would like the contact details as well – you pay to Resumark. Resumark in return pays the cut to the owner of the CV.

Just in case you did not get it, here is how Resumark explains their online recruitment and CV database business model:

Get Paid to Post Your Resume!

Post Resume or create it online using our free Resume Assistant. Make $1 every time an employer downloads your resume!

Search Jobs that match your profile and join the fastest growing Job 2.0 Network!

In today’s economy even job search monsters are not enough. Invite friends and earn money together when their resumes are downloaded.

And for the recruiters and employers:

Free Resume Search & Job Postings

Search Resumes for Free using Google™ search technology. We give you full access to the entire resume database.

Pay only for the resumes that you choose to download. Compare to other services.

Post Jobs for Free and have them automatically distributed to major jobs sites and networks reaching millions of job seekers

Regardless if the business will work or not, Resumark is a step from the usual recruitment jobs sites. Time will tell if it was a step in the right direction. But what needs to be applauded here is the courage and the innovation in the online recruitment industry.

Categories
Job Site Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Recruitment Industry Awards 2009

National Recruitment Federation (NRF) is launching its Recruitment Industry Awards 2009, a gala awards ceremony on Friday, 2nd October 2009 at The Four Seasons Hotel, will once again be presented by RTE’s Pamela Flood.

Judges:
Mark Fielding, CEO ISME,
Kirsty Kirkwood, former European Head of Staffing, State Street
Sean O’Meara, Former Chief Executive, Young Advertising
Grainne Martin, Ex-MD of Computer People Ltd

The Jobseekers Choice category is where you can have your say about who is the best Recruitment Agency of the National Recruitment Federation at Survey Monkey

Here are the agencies shortlisted for the award:
Approach People
CaterAssist
Clark Recruitment
CPL Recruitment
Elan IT
Executive Connections
FRS Recruitment
Global Medics
Grafton Recruitment
Hudson
Jackie Brown Medical
Julia Ross
Logiskills
Noel Recruitment
Nuparc
Parc Aviation
Prosperity
Recruiters
RecruitmentPlus
Robert Walters
Servisource
Sigmar Recruitment
Star Recruit
Three Q Catering
Vantage Resources

Voting Rules:
Only one vote per person. Participating parties cannot vote.

The closing date for the nominations is (was) today at 5PM. So if you are reading this – sorry, you are too late for Recruitment Industry Awards 2009!

Categories
Career Internet Jobs LinkedIN Microsoft Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Irish Recruiters LinkedIn Group

After the recent success of the Irish Recruiters LinkedIn Group’s first conference – The Future of Recruitment – Part 1: The Road Ahead, Declan Fitzgerald has been planning already for Part 2, and after repeated requests to hold Part 2 before Christmas, Declan is now aiming for the 18th of November as the time to run the event and try get the Irish Recruitment industry together again to discuss what are the challenges currently facing our industry and what is the future of recruitment.

Declan is in planning phase at the moment but he has confirmed that Alexander Mann will be giving their RPO prospective on the theme as well as EMC from Cork will be discussing why they want a Cloud ATS and how they are going about implementing it. There will also be more presenters on the day but they have not been confirmed yet. To learn more please visit, Declan’s blog: the Irish CyberSleuth and also you can follow updates on Declan’s Twitter account. I’ll also keep you up to date with any other news I learn in the future about the event.

Hopefully, it will be another great event for networking, learning and debate.

Categories
Blogs Internet Interview Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Independent: Headhunters hit by the recession

independent-dublinBy Anne-Marie Walsh Industry correspondent, Monday June 15 2009

OVER a third of recruiters have lost their own jobs, due to the record hike in unemployment.

The industry dedicated to matching vacancies with workers has itself been decimated over the last 12 months with a total of 4,500 jobs lost in what was once a 12,000-strong sector.

Many employment agencies have drastically reduced their staffing levels as the numbers signing on soared by 97pc.

The group representing employment agencies, the National Recruitment Federation (NRF), saw just a handful of clients go to the wall but has recorded a massive drop in the number of employees.

NRF president Frank Collins, said he knew of one agency where staffing levels plummeted from 12 to just one person, and another where they fell from 28 to eight.

He said “green shoots’ were visible in some sectors of the economy, although employers were waiting to see if this would lead to a recovery.

Managing director of recruitment website employireland.ie, Ivan Stojanovic, said his business survived purely because it was not heavily dependent on placement adverts.

“Recruiters have been the hardest hit of any sector,” he said. “As time goes by, it’s getting worse and worse. I believe the figure of those who have lost their jobs in recruitment could be around two out of three.

“If there are no signs of the unemployment rate dropping, we are facing the current Spanish rate of 18pc.”

However, Mr Collins was more optimistic about the prospects for recruiters following a pickup in ads in the past few months.

“January and February were the worst months, but since then it has picked up,” he said. “Recruiters had to cut their cloth to suit their revenue.

“Without placements, there is no revenue.”

Anne-Marie Walsh Industry correspondent

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Blogs Career Internet Jobs LinkedIN Microsoft Recruitment Recruitment Agency Twitter

Recruitment Conference

irish-recruitment-conference-2009

Irish Recruiters LinkedIN Group got together in the a form of a Recruitment Conference.

It was great to see so many friends together, thank you all for coming!

We all need to say a BIG: Thank You to Declan Fitzgerald who organised it all again so well!

Pictures? Well this time around I decided I will mail you the pictures – and only the ones you are on! Just put the comment below and I’ll mail you all the photos you are on. I emailed some nice photographs to your mailboxes already, so check there first. This is just out of a respect for all of you who joined us for a pint afterwards. Please no funny faces to the camera anymore! :)

When the world’s largest professional social network is at the same table with the country’s largest jobs site and the largest recruitment agency, all organised by the world’s largest (richest) IT company… it has to be interesting. Even in the extremely sad times like these. 3 out of 2 recruiters have been made redundant in the last 9 months. I guess the room would be fuller if the conference took place a year ago.

What I took from the conference is that the social networks definitely ARE the most important recruitment tools. LinkedIN is the most important although having so slow penetration in Ireland. Less than 150 000 registered, and only a small percentage of that with a useful profile (from the recruitment perspective).

Job Boards still dominating the market but quickly losing their prior historical dominance. Recruitment advertising fees are dropping, and also disappearing with RecruitIreland.com leading that avenue.

Recruitment agencies are changing their offerings and repositioning themselves in the recruitment process. From all we have heard on the recruitment conference and especially on the ‘After Party’ – if you know how to use Twitter to source the candidates, there is a great future for you in recruitment!

Categories
Blogs

Irish Internet Association: Internet Entrepreneur of 2009 Andrew Molony GreenJobs

Life must be good in the Recruitment sector in Ireland!

Irish Internet Association have chosen the best Internet Entrepreneur of 2009: Andrew Molony – GreenJobs Ltd
andrew-molony-greenjobs-iia-net-entrepreneur
GreenJobs is a jobs site with companies that want to brand themselves as green companies. Jobs boards are easy to do. You just need to:
make a fairly simple site where recruiters can publish jobs and job hunters can apply for jobs
get recruiters to publish jobs
get lots of job applicants to apply for those jobs
send your monthly invoices to the employers!

Alexa.com might not be the best way of measuring the traffic on a web site, but it is still the only one. Here is a small comparison to show you where the GreenJobs site is today compared to this blog for example:

GreenJobs.ie Traffic Rank 2,001,799
JobsBlog.ie Traffic Rank 496,356

Now how to read those numbers? Simple! Alexa.com gives the numbers from 1 to the most popular site on the web (Google.com). The bigger the number the lower the site is on the Traffic Rank list. That tells you that advertising your job on even this blog will have a far greater reach than advertising on GreenJobs web site.

I am really interested who sits on the panel of judges for the Irish Internet Association – Internet Entrepreneur Award?

Here is an Alexa ranking comparison the other new web site Worky.com that is online for a few weeks only:

Worky.com Traffic Rank 420,296

Worky.com is already more popular than JobsBlog.ie! And has more jobs. And is a really nice looking web site. And is backed up by Ray Nolan, who KNOWS what he is doing!

Here are the questions I cannot answer myself:

  • So why has Irish Internet Association decided GreenJobs better than Worky?
  • In the year where two thirds of recruiters have lost their jobs IIA decides that the best Irish Internet Entrepreneur is a Jobs Board owner? In a year that recruitment as such almost did not exist (compared to any other year in modern Irish history)? Was there no one else?