Tag: Recruitment Ireland

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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.

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Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Advertised jobs numbers comparison

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

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

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

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

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

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Blogs Career CV Jobs Recruitment

Less jobs and far less candidates in 2009

The recruitment in Ireland is changing, and changing a lot in this recession. We all know there are far less jobs advertised. All the metrics point to it like the Irish Employment Monitor by Premier. The Unemployment is growing as companies are reducing their staff levels or closing and leaving Ireland due to its un-competitiveness. The problem is that the skillset of the people being made redundant, in most cases does not fit the jobs advertised. The jobs advertised therefore cannot be filled by the unemployed people.

Passive Candidate is Cautious

Who will fill the jobs then? What about people that have jobs already? Are they interested in the career move? Well most of them again, in this market, would still prefer to stay with the existing employer. At least they will collect a redundancy package if they get fired. Leaving a job for a better one with the new employer is not on the cards of most people in the current market.

Tough Recruitment

This shortage of jobs combined with the current un-predictive economy actually created a shortage of the qualified candidates. Employers are hoping of hiring the top skilled staff for less then what they had to pay for a year ago. In most industries, that is just not happening to them. To make the things worse there is a whole lot of CV’s to browse trough for every job advertised, and it takes time…

Recruitment is tough today

Then again there are jobs that can be filled today that could not be filled 12 months ago at all. There are also cool new skills emerging, and new jobs demanding those skills. Who was hiring Search Engine Optimization Consultants, and Pay Per Click Specialists 12 months ago? Not to mention Bloggers, Social Networking Professionals, Online Branding Managers and whatever you will need in the coming months?

Required skills are changing. Jobs are changing. The same workforce should fill those places and do those jobs. That is one of the core problems in the recruitment for the current jobs advertised in Ireland.

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Blogs Internet Jobs LinkedIN Microsoft Recruitment

Tuesday Club – Irish Recruiters on LinkedIN

Social Networking finally started happening on a proper scale in the recruitment industry in Ireland! What accelerated is that one of the largest US multinationals present here in Ireland made the best person to stimulate the social networking available. Declan Fitzgerald is today the best known blogger on the recruitment topics among Irish employers. Declan did not stop there, but organised the social networking via the LinkedIN Group – Irish Recruiters. The group today has 840 members, and is still growing quickly. The next step Declan decided is to bring the social networking from the web to the real life, so we got:

irish-recruiters-logo Tuesday Club – Irish Recruiters on LinkedIN

How to sign up? Join the Irish Recruiters group in LinkedIN first, and see the Group info for more!

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Blogs

National Recruitment Federation (NRF) Annual Conference 2009

*** PRESS RELEASE ***

National Recruitment Federation Launches Annual Conference 2009 with the good news of 400 jobs filled last week

1st April 2009

The National Recruitment Federation today announced the line-up for its Annual Conference 2009 entitled Facing the Future With Ease – Education, Enterprise & Enthusiasm, which will take place on Thursday, 23rd April 2009 at Citywest Hotel, Saggart, Co Dublin. The Federation which represents recruitment agencies in Ireland, also heralded a more positive outlook in the jobs market with an estimated 400 jobs filled by its member agencies last week.

Flying in the face of today’s all-consuming mood of pessimism, depression and fear, the NRF is calling for a revival of the spirit, energy and gutsy innovation for which this country has been praised. For the first year, the Federation is opening the event to anybody in the recruitment profession. For further information call Ph: 01-8161754 or log on to www.nrf.ie

While recognising the need to address the key issues of concern to the industry today, the NRF made a conscious decision not to dwell on the negatives for the entire session. Instead they have decided to incite the steely resolve and indefatigable passion needed to get the industry back on its feet again. Indeed due to the kind support of the conference sponsors and exhibitors (listed below) there is no charge for attending the event for NRF member agencies with just a nominal charge for non-members.

Chaired by career management expert Rowan Manahan (Fortify Services), the conference will be officially launched with an opening address from Minister for Labour Affairs, Mr Billy Kelleher, TD followed by an overview of the industry “today & tomorrow” from NRF President, Frank Collins. (Most notably Frank will be introducing the federation’s education strategy on the day). Alan Haugh of the National Employment Rights Association will look at the state body’s progress to date in fostering a culture of compliance and improving the standards of employment, while Annmarie Muntz of the world employers body EuroCIETT, will give us an insight into the crucial role of our industry internationally.

The conference will then turn its attention to learning from experience as Lucy Gaffney, Chairperson of Communicorps (which has 44 radio stations in 9 different countries) and formerly Director and COO of Esat Telecomm, shares her tales of tackling the ups and downs of the economy over the years and most importantly coming through it in one piece. Inviting us to taking an introspective look at ourselves and how personality types have a strong bearing on how we manage stress, Tempy Cummins of Vision 2 Reality, will provide tips and advice on psyching ourselves up to meet the challenges ahead. Tempy will also give a very important nod to the fact that both owners and managers suffer deeply at these times and could do with a helping hand in motivating themselves before trying to motivate their staff.

Although the economy is on a slowdown, the pace of technological advance is hurtling along at break-neck speed with networking, advice, business deals etc all taking place at a phenomenal rate online. The savvy entrepreneur knows that the future is on the net but many a savvy entrepreneur is also up to their neck in trying to manage their day-to-day business and simply do not have time to find out what’s new and how to do it. Coming to the rescue will be internet communications expert Keith Bohanna (co-founder of dbTwang.com), who will address in particular the area of Blog Marketing with a live demonstration on exactly how to make the sites such as LinkedIn and BlogSpot work for you.

To keep recruiters in touch with their target audiences, chair person Rowan Manahan will present us with some feedback from both employers and jobseekers on what they need from recruitment agencies today therefore helping them to adapt their services to ever-changing demands. And finally, delegates will leave with a strategy in hand for igniting the engines of enterprise once again as consultant Bill Boorman famed for his “Tin Hat Strategy” will present a 13 Point Plan for Business Growth.

Said NRF President, Frank Collins, “The last year and in particular the last 6 months have thrown the industry into an unprecedented freefall. We have of course seen slowdowns before but as the saying goes, the higher you climb the further you fall. Ireland has had it good for so long and are now in the midst of conflicting arguments as to where to turn. The NRF has put much thought into how it can help to provide some answers to questions but most importantly how to inject a little energy back into our hearts so that we can help to drive the economy forward again. I’m confident we’ve created a schedule that will help do just that and I look forward seeing the results.”

The National Recruitment Federation is a voluntary organisation set up to establish and maintain standards and codes of practice for the recruitment industry. Representing approx 120 companies throughout Ireland the NRF focuses it’s attentions on providing these members with the best possible service in terms of communication, support, advice sharing and problem solving.

ENDS

Frank Collins is available at any time for comment or interview. Speakers may also be contacted for interview upon request.

For further information contact:

Elaine Roddy, Director, NRF. Or Frank Collins, President, NRF.
Ph: 01-8161754 or 086-8582085 Ph: 01-8161763 or 087-2840804

Categories
Blogs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Brightwater: Are we as a nation too hard on ourselves?

Irish recruitment agency Brightwaters online poll for January 2009 was:

Are we as a nation too hard on ourselves?

online-poll-feb-results

David Bloch, CEO of the Brightwater Group comments:

Until now I have gone with the “ask the audience” answer, but not this time. I think the Irish are too hard on themselves!

I am speaking as a person who has worked in Ireland for 11 years, but was born in the States, and lived in 6 different countries. I love Ireland, but recognise that while the Irish are wonderfully proud and patriotic, they are also the first to be hard on themselves. Self-deprecating humour and an almost disbelief that they really are as wonderful as so much of the rest of the world believes them to be. Even during the Celtic Tiger years, while certainly there were Irish people who believed their own hype, there were so many that believed Ireland’s success was too good to be true. Now that the bubble has burst, there seems to be the belief that it really was just an illusion and Ireland will sink back into the mire. The UK, the US and most of the rest of the world exhibit more self confidence!

Confidence is a fundamental emotion and cannot easily be switched on and off. Ireland must believe in themselves and believe they are worthy of being at the top table, to remain at the top table.

Self belief springs from many things, but starts with honesty and trust in the country and the system. I am therefore adamant that wrong-doers (there are question marks hanging over several government, banking and other officials) should be dealt with quickly and severely! The worldwide view of Ireland Inc is at stake. Is Ireland a country of law? A country we should invest in? More still, the self confidence of the country is at stake. Are we still a nation of corrupt politicians and businessmen (you scratch my back & I’ll scratch yours), or are we a nation of integrity and strength who will not tolerate corruption? It’s time Ireland stopped putting themselves down and stand up proud and strong. We will not accept being treated like that, we deserve better!

Only by overcoming obstacles can you prove to yourself what you’re really made of. The recession is a challenge and an opportunity. As President Obama says: Believe!

Categories
Blogs

SnazzyJobs

I guess some people will say I like writing about the Irish Jobs boards. The funny thing is that there is so many popping out, it is almost every week you hear about a new one. This is just in the last month or so:
TheJobs.ie, JobisJob.ie, Jobs2do.ie aka Spamers, Monster Finance, urHired

So here goes an interesting one. The Irish .ie domain seemed a bit too expensive so it is called SnazzyJobs.com. At least it is Hosted in Cork, so Google.ie might actually not ban it completely, if Google Webmaster Tools is to be believed.

Here are the first impressions:
1. Logo resembles any other stock logo sample, not really inspiring (as was the case with a number of the recruiters logos earlier this year).
2. Legal Stuff – company registration number and the registered address nowhere to be seen on the site.
3. Why publish so many pages to have only Coming Soon text on them?
4. The site is actually designed in some ’90-ies style. It is really hard to read the font in the menu. Green font with the green shadow on the green background? Here are some Design ideas: Jobs Board.
5. The code is not as messy as most of the jobs sites are actually, but a bit too much of that Java code all over. It is an interesting choice to have the jobs board in php, while all the leading job boards are the powered by the Microsoft .NET. Another interesting choice is
6. StatCounter as opposed to Google Analytics? Interesting choice. I would still use both, since the speed the Google Analytics is being developed at the moment, with stuff like Data Visualisation (Google Analytics Motion Chart), will overshadow most of the aspects of otherwise very useful StatCounter.

You need to be brave to show your price list online where there is nothing really anyone can buy for less than a thousand euro. It could actually be used as a company slogan:

Snazzy Jobs
Where prices start at thousand Euro

Or maybe not?

There seems to be some 250 jobs advertised. Considering the time of the year and the (econ)comic situation in the country it is not bad really. There is also 2 jobs advertised in the last 7 days, so the site is not dead!

But honestly it will not be much more if some serious effort is not applied. The designers have decided to ignore a few important facts. SEO and Usability. The URL’s look like this:
snazzyjobs.com/jobsearch.php?ok=1&v000=&v001=1&v010=0&v011=&v101=&v111=....

To find the job search you need to click on some well hidden green button on the green background. And that button is one the single page on the site? Perhaps this is a part of the screening process: If you manage to apply – you must be a smart person, so we will look at your CV!

And,… you also need to create and account with Snazzy Jobs to be able to apply for the job. That last hurdle in the application process will definitely go well with the applicant. If banks and governments are losing the personal data, should I be leaving it on the web site that even does not confirm the company registration number required by the CRO?

Snazy Jobs we honestly wish you the best!!!

Categories
Blogs Jobs Microsoft

Microsoft International Tech Jobs Blog

As Gretchen correctly pointed out in the comments of the Microsoft Jobs Blog – The Winner of The Best Recruitment Blog in Ireland Award 2008 the Microsoft Jobs in Ireland are actually covered on the Microsoft International Tech Jobs Blog as opposed to the US one.

The Microsoft International Tech Jobs Blog is actually on a Live Space platform that has its own advantages and disadvantages as a blogging platform. Live Spaces is great for networking since it is integrated with both Hotmail and Instant Messenger, and you can have your Profile and Photo albums there as well. So kind of a well rounded service offering a nice integration of all various social networking activities. The drawback for a blog itself is that if the blog is the only thing you want to promote, your interface is extremely cluttered with all this MSN stuff all over the page. There isn’t a 1000 WordPress Skins to choose from to apply to match you taste and needs. You are just stuck with all this advertisements for Windows Live Something. OneCare. WhoCares?

Declan Fitzgerald’s blog is in the Irish environment simply revolutionary. Two things stand out:

  • 1. RSS Feeds of Microsoft jobs in each EMEA Centre
  • 2. Video representation of each Microsoft EMEA Centre

Oh, and BTW all the Microsoft Jobs in Ireland posted as blog posts.

Declan has got it right. It is extremely simple to check and subscribe to the RSS of fresh Jobs in Ireland for example, and there is an inviting video where Declan will walk you through what they do, and what they are looking for. Those are the two main messages a recruitment blog should have. It needs to say what are we looking for in the skills list, and show what positions are currently open. The RSS Feed is actually above the expectation here. Since this is the first Irish Employers Recruitment Blog, it has set a high standards for the followers.

Again, well done Declan, and well done Microsoft in Ireland!