Regular visitors to our site will recognise our long time friend and sometimes guest writer, Richard Maddocks of Communicum in the Netherlands. The company delivers a unique methodology for business improvement and training for individuals and teams of knowledge based employees that helps solve some of the key staff issues facing any company:

Motivation - Staff satisfaction - Retention - Flexibility of the workforce

This week in his blog, Richard targets one of the real challenges of Talent Management and Development - it is being managed by the wrong department - HR.  His contention is that it should be the business leaders stepping up to this challenge. He also offfers a roadmap to success, which embraces HR and the Line of Business heads.  Read on and feel free to comment to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or directly to Richard.

Richard's Corner:

Every Management and HR (online) magazine I have received during the last 12 months contains at least one article related to Talent Management: the importance of identifying people´s real talents, developing it, finding ways to maximising usage, and of course to retain it. It´s extremely encouraging that this has become a “hot topic” because understanding how to do this, and then making it happen, is an essential key to success for all organisations irrespective of their size or industry.

However, I find 2 things rather disconcerting about all that I read:
1. There´s a lot of talk about the need to do it but very few ideas as to how to implement successful approaches
2. The focus seems to be to drive initiatives in this area from an HR perspective.

Let me tackle the second point first:
Unleashing more potential of individuals, and thus in organisations, is not something that should be driven and championed by HR departments. Of course, they should play a major role in supporting everything related to Talent Management & Development (TMD), and constantly be investigating new ways to do this, and to measure success.

However, the ownership of TMD needs to rest fairly and squarely on the shoulders of all Business Leaders & Managers…..for it to be successful it is imperative that, from the top down, every Manager is focused on TMD in the same way that they place importance on achieving revenue, profit and productivity targets. It should be one of the major Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that all managers have in their objectives, and are assessed upon.

If organisations desire to achieve significant progress with TMD, then it should be a constant agenda item in every Board and Management Team meeting. It is essential to include it in the Business Performance dashboards that are used to steer and adjust the business strategies and tactical programs.

And now to dealing with my first point above, how to implement a successful approach:

TMD is not something that just happens because management and HR design processes and provide training programs to stimulate it. The first thing to address is to create stronger leaders at all management levels…..to develop the awareness and competencies to enable managers to truly inspire and empower their team members to identify, develop and deploy their core talents. And to create an environment that allows this to happen.

It is indeed of vital importance that all employees become more pro-active in this process…..to take the appropriate responsibility for driving “their own bus” i.e. to enhance their self-management and personal leadership, to maximise their contribution to the business through a constant focus on developing and using their talents in line with the needs of the business. But they will only do this when the leaders are setting a good example (being a great Role Model), and when they are continually encouraged and motivated to spend time and energy on their personal TMD…..and are given the time to do so.

One of the key roles for HR in this process is to provide training, frameworks, common language and (software) tools to support the individual and collective efforts…..and to be able to assess what´s working and what needs to be improved. And then to supply the necessary input to the KPI´s and business dashboards.

So my key message is this: Talent Management & Development has become recognised as an essential ingredient for success in all organisations. To achieve the desired results, it needs to be treated as a core business process and it requires investment both in time and money. But when executed as outlined above, it will deliver benefits far in excess of any investment made.

A great example of the success of this approach is detailed in the Euroclear Case Study in this newsletter.(Editor Note: Click here for the download page) It is a perfect testimony to TMD being driven from the top, by the CEO…..and to the huge business benefits that can be achieved when it is consistently “front-of-mind” for the entire organisation and all teams & individuals.

Jobs2Web is ran a webinar recently based on a case study from Novo Nordisk.

Presented by: Michael Hakeem, Manager of Talent Attraction and Staffing Operations at Novo Nordisk and Tom Steele, Product Marketing for Success Factors, the webinar is being presented on the BrightTALK webinar broadcast platform. Register here. We are looking at the platform, so thought we would try out its embed function here on RCEURO. See below for the live stream of the event.

How Novo Nordisk Transformed its Talent Acquisition Strategy
Today's world of talent acquisition looks significantly different than it did even a year ago. Recruitment 3.0 brings a new focus to passive candidates, requires building engaged, two-way, free-conversation-based, transparent communities and is anchored by components such as employer branding and marketing. Central to Recruitment 3.0 is the philosophy that everyone is a potential candidate.

During this webinar, Michael Hakeem, manager of Talent Acquisition and Operations at Novo Nordisk, will share how Novo Nordisk modernized its recruiting strategies to reflect evolving communication methods and candidate expectations. Tom Steele, manager of Product Marketing for SuccessFactors, will join him to help employers understand how they can:
• Build a predictable talent pipeline
• Create communities and map key competitors
• Use brand to lure top talent
• Drive internal stakeholders to invest in these new world methods

Enjoy the recording.

Would you like to know the answer to some of these questions about Germany?

• What are the current topics in German Corporate Recruiting?

• How proactive is the recruitment in Germany?

• How is the recruitment in Germany organized?

• Recruiting Channel: Where do employers get their applicants and hires from?
• How do job seekers and employers look for each other?

Have a look at this presentation created by Wolfgang Brickwedde, speaker at the most recent SRCONF 2011 in London and founder of the Institute of Competitive Recruiting.

If you would encounter any specific other questions or issues and would like to know more, please don't hesitate to ask Wolfgang by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it :

The Enhance Media Conference was held on at the prestigious Royal Geographical Society in central London on Thursday 27 January 2011 in London.

We covered the event live on the day, ran the Twitter stream on the RCEURO site and blogged key thoughts and higlights of all the presentations. All can be read in our RCEURO Featured Bloggers section below.

The Twitter hashtag for the event: #EMConf2011.

Consumer and Candidate behaviour is shifting rapidly as more people use digital devices and platforms intensively.

Analysis by Steve McNally, Equality Law

New McKinsey research in the US highlights a dramatic increase in the intensity with which people use digital devices and platforms. Nearly 50 percent of US online consumers are now advanced users of smartphones, social networks, and other emerging tools—up from 32 percent in 2008.

McKinsey have been tracking consumers’ digital habits through a series of surveys covering more than 100,000 respondents across North America, Europe, and Asia.¹ The 2010 US findings highlighted the growth of advanced multidigital and rich-media segments: the people most likely to be early adopters of new technologies (whom we label “digital-media junkies”), often younger men; those spending more time on social networks (“digital communicators”), often women; and those more likely to consume Internet-based video (“video digerati”). Meanwhile, there has been a decline in segments focused primarily on one kind of digital use (such as e-mail or gaming), as well as late adopters whose digital consumption is superficial.) Behind these broad category shifts are meaningful changes in how consumers use core technologies.

Social networks as communications gateways

Social networks, particularly Facebook, are emerging as the dominant digital-communications channels. For people aged 34 and under, they already are the preferred channel (by minutes of use per day), displacing e-mail, texting, and phone calls. Social-network use, growing swiftly among all segments of our survey population, has doubled among those over 55. Such networks also are becoming information portals for people seeking items such as videos, photos, and content posted by friends. In this latest survey, 33 percent of the respondents said they use social networks to navigate content on the Web, up from 13 percent in 2008. While search engines continue to be the leading way consumers and candidates access online content, the use of social networks is growing. As ‘iC’ spend more time on them, decisions about what to purchase often reflect interactions with friends and other influencers. In response, leading marketers and recruiters are adapting their strategies to reach increasingly networked consumers and placing more stress on tactics such as word-of-mouth marketing and storytelling.

Smartphone as ‘Swiss Army knife’

As the usage and processing power of smartphones increase in tandem with the rising speed of 3G and 4G data networks, mobile devices are invading the domains of single-purpose gear such as game consoles and portable media players, as well as PCs. Smartphones are also becoming the device of choice for e-mail, Web browsing, and product research. A third of smartphone owners prefer using it for Web browsing or e-mail even when they are near PCs. Over the past two years, iPhone users have spent 45 percent more time e-mailing on their smartphones and 15 percent less time e-mailing on their PCs. More than 60 percent of smartphone users would consider buying goods with it or have already done so.

As the power and functionality of devices grow, the possibilities for making money from mobile platforms will continue to improve. The survey found, for instance, that smartphone users already are more accustomed to paying for digital content and services than traditional online users are. Three-quarters of iPhone users, for example, now pay for one or more apps each month, though most remain free. As more products and services are distributed over mobile channels, greater competition will raise the importance of design, ease of use, and new mobile payment options. These findings are good news for content and service providers that wonder if mobile solutions will deliver real returns.

As digital platforms multiply, consumer video-viewing habits continue to change. Among the survey respondents, 69 percent now view videos on their PCs and 33 percent on their smartphones. Twenty-four percent view Internet content on their TVs—a percentage that has tripled over the past two years as Internet-enabled game consoles, DVD players, DVRs, and TVs have proliferated. Although these users are 1.5 times more likely than the general population to say that they intend to cancel their pay-TV service, only a quarter of them are satisfied with the experience. That should open the door to new areas of competition and innovation; pay-TV companies, for example, are starting to offer their programming across tablets and mobile devices.

Web search and video providers, meanwhile, see opportunities for services that help consumers navigate the fragmented domain of online video, a role similar to that of traditional TV-programming packagers. Advertisers must refine marketing plans so that they reflect this new video-viewing behaviour and get creative about targeting users who are time-shifting and dividing their attention among platforms. And where iConsumers go tomorrow, the iCandidate will go next week.

We have seen similar digital disruptions in other key platforms, such as gaming, e-publishing, and music. The digital revolution, still in its earliest days, will continue to upend how we interact, entertain ourselves, buy, work – and search for work.

The team at RCEURO.com wish all of our friends, colleagues customers, partners, visitors, content contributors and readers of the articles on RCEURO a healthy, happy and successful 2011. We look forward to meeting and engaging with as many of you as we can.

A special thanks to the folks at Digital Artwork for their great seasonal work.

We received a link today from a long time colleague, Richard Maddocks, who runs a training and development consultancy business in the Netherlands. Communicum provides a unique programme for individuals and teams of knowledge based employees that helps solve some of the key staff issues facing any company: Motivation - Staff satisfaction - Retention - Flexibility of the workforce.

The film is a personal look at Richard's philosophy and that of his company: the real value of happiness to a company - its people and staff and the effects on both talent and recruitment.

The film is in a series "Authenticity on Film" by Nic Askew, titled: 'Ontplooiing", a Dutch phrase that Richard explains in the film. Ontplooiing was made as a commission. A film made to capture the essence of an organisation’s work in the world. If you’re a coach or a trainer you MUST see this. If you are neither a coach, nor a trainer you MUST see this … because positive energy is positive energy, and always has been. No matter the subject matter.

Enjoy the film, smile and laugh, and even more: Think about it.

ONTPLOOIING from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

Reading the (thankfully) continuing debate about the “inclusivity or exclusivity” nature of social media recruitment, I was reminded of the famous quote by Alvin Toffler, the prophet of the digital revolution. Writing in his seminal book Future Shock in 1970, he noted that: "When dealing with the future, it is more important to be imaginative and insightful than to be 100% right."

Toffler compared the futurologist's role to that of the ancient mapmakers, approximating the danger and promise of an unknown world. And that is where we’re at: at the beginning of a journey rather than at the final destination. So it’s not perverse to argue that Social Media is both inclusive and enfranchising, as well as potentially excluding and even discriminatory (due to lack of access). The real discussion, of course, is ‘where do we go from here?’ – how truly universal will social media really become. One thing is for sure: as technology redefines and remaps our world virtually, the companies driving its development are the new mapmakers. So where are they taking us?

Companies like Face book are feverishly searching the potential of interaction on the web. So far, that has primarily meant entering text into a search box – dipping into a pool for the fish we know we want. Google, which has a 90% share of the UK search market, has already built a $197bn business on the back of advertising related to those text searches.

So far, so profitable. But the next generation of the web, so Face book wants us to believe, will be navigated through our social graph, our network of contacts and friends; it will be their recommendations that will prompt us to dip into the water. Though the social web is well established, the business model around it is not. This is the new horizon. And the volume and reach of data produced by Face book’s users – and the promise of the future of the social web – has investors so excited that they have just valued the company at $50bn. Toffler was on to something.

Where is Face book heading? For now its priority is to keep growing its nascent advertising revenues ($2bn last year, by one estimate) and its user numbers, currently put at 733 million monthly users globally, according to comScore. But it’s also laying the foundations for some powerful ways of extending the site. Last August it introduced Places, which allows users to share their location with friends, and in December announced that photo uploads would soon be scanned with facial recognition technology.

Already, one-third of Face book’s traffic is generated by mobile, and as these devices become ubiquitous we will become less reliant on a fixed screen. Often described as the next generation of the web, mobile's real breakthrough has been the success of apps in the past two-and-a-half-years. Not only are these devices always on and always with us, but they offer more forms of interaction than desktop computers, including movement sensitivity, camera and a web connection.

From an Inclusivity perspective, there’s clearly an issue here: if you don’t have a mobile, you’re being excluded (obviously). However, the trade off is that these location features provide the platform and possibility of a world that, not so long ago would have belonged in an ambitious work of science fiction. Augmented reality (AR) is a technique of overlaying information on an image of the real world, usually through our phone's camera. Despite the current clunky incarnations, augmented reality may well become the principal way that the digital world is presented to us. Freed from screens, information will float, contextually, accompanying the user and imparting – probably via a pair of augmented reality glasses – the time of the next bus, messages from a friend in a nearby pub, or a local match from your dating site. Everything you do now at your desktop will be superimposed in real time in the world around you.

Whether this creates a more inclusive world remains to be seen – but we’re looking at an incredible world, that’s for sure.

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it is Director of Communications for Equality Law, the Equality & Inclusivity consultancy. He has won 34 CIPD and RAD Awards during more than 20 years of creating engaging and inclusive employment and workplace communications.

BizPlaza.eu and HRMinfo.net have commissioned the market research firm ProFacts to conduct an international online survey on the critical factors for success and managing employer branding.

Participants who take part in the survey will receive the results by mid-October, if they so wish and provide their (professional) email address. Completing the questionnaire takes between 8 and 16 minutes, depending on your answers and whether you choose (halfway) the long or shorter version.

Those participants who complete the long version of the questionnaire and provide their email address stand the chance of winning one of five copies of the book by Simon Barrow and Richard Mosley on employer branding (value 47 euros).

To take part: www.HRMinfo.net/survey

The most important results of this survey will be presented and discussed at the Employer Branding Summit (from 13/10/2011 in Brussels).

A quite staggering fifth of headteachers have been bullied by pupils or parents on Facebook and other social networking sites, according to a recent poll.

In fact, Britain's biggest headteachers' union – the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) – last week warned that schoolsare increasingly having to call the police to deal with violent threats posted online. It appears that schools now waste hours each week monitoring websites for abusive comments, according to the union.

One in five heads told the union they had been hounded on social networking sites by pupils, ex-pupils and parents, while two-thirds claimed parents' behaviour has got worse over the last few years. Some 1,362 heads responded to the poll (which makes it quite an authoritative study of a senior class of career professionals).

In one case, a teaching assistant discovered that pupils or parents had created a profile of him on Facebook and had posted a litany of abusive comments on it. It took him two months to get the web page taken down.

In another case, parents started a campaign to get rid of a headteacher after her pupils were shown a slaughtered pig as part of a biology lesson. The head resigned. Later, the parents decided that they had made a mistake and asked her to come back.

In other cases, schools have had to call the police to deal with vicious online threats to their headteachers. Speaking at the NAHT's annual conference in Brighton, Russell Hobby, the union's general secretary, said cyber-abuse would soon be more of a worry for a school's reputation than Ofsted, the school inspectorate. Indeed, Headteachers have already voted on whether the union's national executive should lobby ministers to develop "robust national guidance" on cyberbullying. At the moment, unions issue their own advice on this.

Where will this lead in terms of employees being victimised and harassed in their workplace – and could it become a wider phenomenon outside the teaching sector?

Hobby said online bullying could be trivial or nasty. "It can be just a matter of pupils and parents posting that they don't like what a headteacher wears or it can be a campaign to get rid of a head. There is anonymity for those who post online and they often seem to think that what they are writing isn't really real because it's on a website."

Sue Street, the director of e-learning at Harrow High School in north London, said schools were having to waste time monitoring sites such as Wikipedia. "Schools now need someone to check new media and the amount of time this takes is disproportionate. We are having to have long conversations [with website owners] in the US to have things taken down."

She said there was a "growing trend" for pupils to record their classmates and teachers in lessons. "This is also about what happens to that footage," she said.

This blurring of the lines between an employee providing a service and end users effectively harassing that employee is a worrying phenomena – and potentially dangerous if it becomes a wider trend. A survey by the NAHT revealed that one in 10 heads had been assaulted by a parent on school grounds. If social media becomes the portal that fuels such abuse, this could have major implications on its use as both a recruitment tool and an engagement vehicle.

Article contributed by Steve McNally, the Director of Communications for Equality Law and The Equality Group. He has won 34 CIPD and RAD Awards during more than 20 years of creating engaging and inclusive employment and workplace communications.

As we come up to Christmas 2010, we thought we might take a tongue in cheek look at the hiring challenges facing a temporary business, based in an unpopular location with little transportation infrastructure or connectivity to the outside world, other than a brief 24 hour window. Working conditions are 24x7 leading up to the annual close of the business when all staff are made redundant until the following season; other than management staff, who are able to take a long summer vacation.

How would Santa Claus actually go about recruiting his manufacturing design staff?

• Update his corporate Career Site on Santaclausjobs.com
• Post a job on northpolejobs.com
• Use generic job boards
• Run a Twitter posting
• Explore his LinkedIn group (Santa's Little Elves)
• Create a Facebook Fan Page (Working for St. Nick)

Perhaps his Job Post would look a bit like this:

Fulfilling Childhood Dreams - Delivering Joy and Happiness
Global Toy Manufacturer and Distribution Business is seeking energetic and dedicated workers to join this thriving business which specialises in delivering Holiday Cheer to millions of children around the world. Manufacturing toys and presents in our state-of-the-art workshop at the North Pole, we offer a dynamic work environment that has been evolving for over 400 years.

Specialists in distribution management, we utilise our 'Naughty or Nice' CRM system to ensure that we identify our target customers effectively for a 24 hour delivery window.

We depend on our unique and purpose built delivery vehicle, with the transportation team comprised of a team of 8 locally hired reindeer.

Apply Now:
If you are interested in working in this life changing business on a seasonal basis, visit our career page or contact our Hiring Manager, Mrs S. Claus by email, text or twitter, enclosing your CV or links to your LinkedIn or Facebook profile. Initial interviews will be conducted by Video conference call.

All of us at RCEURO wish you a happy and peaceful holiday season.

Jobsite Live Streaming

TruLondon. Energetic track leaders and the informal exchange of ideas make TRU events virtual hot spots for knowledge sharing across the industry. Jobsite is proud to support the vitality of TRU in the UK.

Hosted by DeeDee Doke, the editor of Recruiter Magazine, the market-leading title for recruitment professionals. Well-known for her passion for creative and dynamic HR, DeeDee will be moderating the livestream panel discussions throughout the two-day #TruLondon event. The player should also enable you to view interviews from the spring TruLondon, hosted by Alan Whitford.

Heather Kinzie writes frequently for noted US publication, ERE,net. Heather provides business leaders, HR professionals and management staff practical, relevant, and valuable HR consultation. Heather offers a variety of engaging facilitation services to include workforce planning, strategic planning, team-building, and process analysis and redesign.

Her post today struck a real chord. After a long time, she finally got a client to understand the real value of mapping a company's culture to its recruiting cycle - with tangible resutls. In the article, she highlights the Six Parts of Recruiting For Culture.

Heather states: "Corporate culture can be described as the “norms” shared by employees in an organization that control the way they interact with each other, with other stakeholders and with customers. Corporate cutlure is made up of the following:"

• Vision and Mission
• Organizational Values
• Work Environment
• Leadership Style
• Organizational Structure
• Personal Qualities of Workforce

Take some time and read the full article here.

Thanks Heather for a well thought out approach.

Catherine Gutsell, Digital Marketing Executive at the CK Group , takes a look at the impact of social networks and the benefits they might bring to a business for retaining your top talent.

Social networking sites such as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter are all the rage – there’s no escaping them, they’re everywhere – even in the workplace, and whether you like it or not, they’re not going away.

The CK Group is passionate about social media and the benefits it can bring to your business. We are strong believers that social media can be an invaluable tool in not only attracting and recruiting staff but also in retaining them. From our experience, when it comes to social media, staff retention is often an area which is overlooked and under utilised. In fact, a survey conducted by Melcrum, found that of 2,600 respondents, only 11% said they had used social media to the benefit of their HR Department (Personnel Today, 2010)

We think HR departments are missing a trick here, so in a bid to gauge the use of social media in HR employee retention schemes, between October 2010 and February 2011, the CK Group surveyed 87 HR professionals and 60 employees. We wanted to find out if and how social media is being integrated into employee retention schemes nationwide.

So let’s start with the basics. We all know that critical to organisational success is keeping your best employees, plain and simple. But in today’s market the harsh reality is that top talent is hard to come by, and holding on to them is definitely not as easy as it used to be.

Why not use every tool available to help ensure this happens? This is where social media can play a starring role in your employee retention strategy. After all, with so many of our employees engaging in social networking during work hours, 81.6% according to our survey, why is it that only an abysmal 10.7% of respondents stated that they use social media as part of their employee retention strategy– surely this is a missed opportunity?

Perhaps you don’t know where to start or you feel overwhelmed by the prospect of venturing into the realms of social networking? Well here are seven practical tips to help you get started.

1. Don't assume the worst

It is so important that as employers we understand why and how our staff use social media whilst at work. Do not automatically presume they are using it to chat away to friends or to bad-mouth your company. Have you ever considered that they might actually be using it to perform more productively in their jobs? For example, they might be blogging about your products, trying to reach elusive customers or exchanging information with industry experts.

So whatever you do, don’t assume the worst and don’t ban social networking sites all together. By banning every site, you’re ultimately telling your employees that you have no trust in them and nothing will push your employees further away from your organisation than this.

2. Encourage your employees to establish and actively maintain their social networks:

Actively encourage your employees to establish, maintain and build their social networks – you want them to communicate a personal brand that is a reflection of their role within your organisation but also them as an individual.

The key here is to avoid implementing pointless rules:

· Don’t insist that employees have separate personal and professional networking accounts – this is simply impractical.

- Do allow employees to state their job title and company information on their Facebook profiles, after all it is part of their identity and will automatically feel more connected and loyal to their organisation by broadcasting this information.

By giving your staff this freedom, you will directly enhance the pride they take in their work, and thus the loyalty they feel towards the organisation.

3. Communication should come from the top:

Social media and internal blogging is a great way for Executives to communicate their vision and aspirations for the company – sharing their passions will help to motivate and retain your talented employees.

Communicating from the top using social media may also help to erase those hierarchical differences that undoubtedly exist and help to bring everyone to the same level. It will also make employees feel that they are being heard and valued.

Why not try using podcasts or micro blogging platforms such as Yammer to help broadcast communication from the top?

4. Create alumni networks:

The concept of employee alumni networks isn’t a new fad – they’ve been around for donkey’s years and can be an extremely valuable retention resource for your company. After all, just because employees may have left your organisation, it doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t still loyal.

All too often, it is employees or ex-employees that are driving this effort and not the company, this is a fundamental mistake. If you as a company haven’t already set them up, you’re missing a trick. It’s easy enough to do – just take a look at AstraZeneca’s Alumni Network on Linkedin.

5. Ideas sharing:

It’s a fact that actively involving your staff in decision making will increase your chances of holding onto your top talent.

Using social media is a great way to do this – it will get your staff talking, and most importantly sharing ideas with one another. The information nature of social networking platforms mean that employees may feel more free to openly brainstorm ideas without feeling that they are being watched or scrutinized.

An example of a company that have got this down to a tee is Kraft Foods. In 2009 Kraft decided their company needed a little facelift. As with any company, Kraft were aware that their employees are the people that knew their brand best. Therefore, in a bid to generate ideas, the company implemented an internal social networking tool in order for employees to submit their ideas.

In order to cultivate ideas sharing and ultimately increase your employee retention, you need to stop meticulously controlling your employees use of social media and start concentrating on how you can set up online ideas forums, or maybe start a conversation via Twitter.

6. Give your employees the freedom to express their creativity:

Encouraging creativity is key to employee retention. It sounds obvious, but your employees really need to enjoy their jobs in order for them to stay loyal to your organisation. So stifling creativity in the workplace is a big no no.

A great way to get those creative juices flowing and really create a buzz in the workplace is to use Youtube.

A great example of this in action is the Deloitte Film Festival. The organisers asked employees to create short videos in response to the question, ‘What’s your Deloitte?’ Employees were allowed to work in teams of 1 to 7 people to make videos reflecting their experiences of working for Deliotte. An impressive 400 submissions were received with 2,000 people taking part. The channel has had over 400,000 views and 33% of staff reported they felt more loyalty to the company as a result. So why not give it a go?

7. Give your company culture some oomph!

You can use social media to do this. A great illustration of this is the clothing retailer Zappos’ innovative use of Twitter. 300 of their employees are active users of Twitter, and the company are passionate that it helps employees get to know each other in a different way than they would within the workplace, therefore creating a more positive friendly culture. After all, friendship and camaraderie between employees is one thing that will definitely keep them sticking around for longer. They even hold Twitter classes to help their employees get started.

Whichever way you look at it, social media is revolutionising the ways in which businesses are run and how we communicate. So like it or lump it, we all need to learn to love it. Fact. Using social media to retain your best talent may seem like an uphill struggle – but, as with any other tool, when it comes to social media – you really do get out what you put in.

Sean Conrad, a senior product analyist at Halogen Software, takes a look at the role leadership must play to have an engaged and productive worforce.

Leadership entails aiding and supporting others in the accomplishments of common tasks. It’s about creating ways for people to contribute and display their talent to achieve a common goal, and a way for those in the leadership position to pass on their knowledge and experience to help them do so. Managing a team of individuals to make a business run smoothly requires good leadership to ensure that all employees are given an equal opportunity to showcase their talent and that they are well respected in the workplace. The creation of a positive work environment helps keep up employee satisfaction and motivation.

Numerous articles and studies lately are reporting a crisis in employee engagement and predicting a mass exodus of employees during the economic recovery. Employee engagement levels are registering at record lows, and it’s said that the majority of those with jobs are actively looking for new opportunities, or plan to do so as the job market improves.

The consequences of this are significant. Low employee engagement typically translates to poorer performance and productivity. And high turnover can mean a critical loss of skills, experience and corporate memory. Both of these can significantly impact an organization's ability to survive. While much is written about the manager’s role in employee engagement, and it’s true they can be a vital contributor, leaders need to acknowledge their own important role and take action to address the problems of employee engagement and retention.

Here are some fairly simple, tangible steps leaders can take to improve engagement and retention.

Start by Setting Goals at the Top
Organizational goals need to be set and communicated before the employee goal-setting process begins. In addition, these goals need to be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). Vague or evangelical goals like “Be Number One” aren’t useful. Be specific, spell it out, and hold the organization to the same level of accountability for its goals as you do your employees. Be sure to regularly communicate progress and/or any changes in direction.

Doing so gives employees visibility into how their work directly contributes to the organization's success. It gives them a sense of contribution and importance. Ever hear the story about a visitor to NASA headquarters who came across a janitor sweeping the floor. When he asked the janitor what he was doing, the janitor replied: "I'm helping to put a man on the moon." Now there’s an employee who understands the importance and context of his work!

Define and Develop Organizational Competencies
I know this is harder than it sounds, but it’s important for leaders to identify the competencies that set the organization apart from its competition. We tend to do this with product, services or technology, but sometimes forget to do it with competencies, which, when you think about it are the “how” we do things differently. What competencies are your competitive differentiators? These core competencies need to be something everyone in the organization develops and exhibits, but most especially your leaders.

Foster Employee Development
This means investing in your employees. Make sure there’s sufficient budget for every employee to receive some training that expands their skills and experience. But also encourage less formal learning, like: job shadowing, mentoring, lunch and learn sessions, volunteer work, cross-functional team work, on-the-job training, reference books, wiki sites, internal social networking tools, etc. These are all terrific ways to foster employee development. Research tells us that employees who are given development opportunities feel more valued and cared for by their organizations; they are more highly engaged and more likely to stay. Leaders play a critical role in creating this kind of environment and culture.

Practice Good Employee Performance Management
Often employee performance management is something that is done for employees at lower levels in the organization, but not for leaders. We forget that leaders are employees too, who need feedback on their performance, who need SMART goals, who need development plans to expand their skills and address skill gaps, who need coaching. Leaders need to lead by example and engage in the performance management process so they can maximize their own performance and effectively lead others. How can you expect your employees to engage with the process and take it seriously if you don’t?

All of these things help better connect leaders to their employees and bridge the hierarchical gap that often exists. Doing this can have a direct and tangible impact on employee engagement and retention. You lead by your presence and example as much as by your directions and words.

For the past 15 years Sean has focused on enabling organizations to successfully implement software solutions. An accredited Human Capital Strategist, Sean has worked with hundreds of HR professionals on defining their talent management strategy and execution.

Two and half years in the making, Lander Associates have now completed designing this brand new recruitment specific Leadership Training Programme for our next generation of recuitment leaders, to help them meet many of the challenges they face. Now that growth is back on the agenda, many of those recruiters who survived the recession have become ‘accidental managers’. These team leaders/managers didn’t really choose the management route but are given the responsibility as the most experienced members of the team. In one of our recent trials refining these new leadership courses, 85% of delegates said they had not actively chosen management as a career path. Others though, are proactively looking for a career path in leadership as part of their future aspirations. Either way, they all deserve recognition for undertaking, what is arguably, one of the hardest roles in recruitment.

These courses have been formally accredited by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). After much trialling in 2010, Fiona Lander is proud to officially launch this internationally recognised certificated programme under the Lander Leadership banner at an event in London on 5 May. The first course, Dynamic Team Leadership, (see below) will be held during the day, followed by a launch party in the evening with short presentations from the CMI, participating clients, course delegates, APSCo and OrangeGenie, the party sponsor.

Navigating Change as a First Line Manager

As the fragile economy begins to mend, recruitment companies need to adapt to new business realities. This means embracing constant change in order to build new capabilities that are more effective and innovative - and deliver higher performance. Our world is highly competitive – never more so – it's technology is constantly evolving, customers, internal and external, are constantly changing their expectations and attracting and retaining the best talent is ever more competitive.

This puts an enormous pressure on front line managers and leaders – in other words billing managers. Not only do they have to translate the organisation's vision of growth into reality, develop and engage their people, contribute to their peer group as a member of the management team but also interact with clients and candidates exceeding, not just meeting, their dynamic expectations.

One of the risks is, there's so much change taking place within our businesses that we don’t have a chance to properly imbed it, in other words it doesn’t have time to 'freeze'. Layers upon layers of 'unfrozen' change create slush. The responsibility to make sense of this chaos falls into the hands of front line managers. This can be like trying to successfully navigate through high volume sets of white water rapids, while keeping up team spirit and camaraderie, in the face of unfamiliar and unpredictable challenges. Definitely enough to keep your heart pumping!

Are they equipped for the job?

"Change management is a structured approach to shifting/transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It is an organizational process aimed at empowering employees to accept and embrace changes in their current business environment." Wikipedia free encyclopaedia

Many team leaders and managers are not 'change ready' – in fact neither are their organisations! - which means they are unable to lead their teams successfully through required, rapid growth. Dynamic leaders must prepare individuals and teams to respond positively to change and manage the change cycle. Frequent resistance needs to be anticipated and planned for, to help others adapt to new ways.

To achieve all this, managers and team leaders must acquire the critical skills for leading and managing change, so they can avoid the common pitfalls and take the key steps that will not only keep people engaged but invite ideas and innovation. This means they will drive change through the business rather than constantly react to change imposed on them.

And as we know, change is not a one off but rather a constant in our busy recruitment environment. Therefore, they must develop an ongoing strategy for creating and maintaining a 'change ready' culture within their teams.

You can't expect first line managers to cope with the change in their roles and the demands and expectations put upon them, without giving them the right tools in their leadership toolkit to become the dynamic team leaders and managers they need to be.

Now and again we like to feature our blogging contributors with a front page presence. Today, I am happy to feature the recent blog posting from Adam Lewis, the COO of Innovate CV. Adam has led the expansion of Innovate CV to the US, so has firsthand knowledge about the challenges of working abroad. Today, he covers off a worrying trend in the UK, that of 2nd language skills (or more precisely, the lack thereof).

We would welcome some conversation and debate on this issue. And thanks to Adam for allowing us to republish his blog.

International Recruitment: Why Our Language is Letting Us Down

Getting your job found by the best candidates

Mark Lennox and Simon Lewis, co-founders of award-winning niche job board, Only Marketing Jobs, disclose proven methods of increasing jobseeker applications.

For many recruiters job boards are an integral part of the talent-attraction strategy. Understanding how to turn views into more relevant applications will improve your ROI. The first thing to understand is that successful job advertising is split into 2 very separate parts:

1. Getting your job found

2. Converting the job view into an application

Here are 7 tips to ensure your job gets found online:

1. Job title consideration

Use a job title that’s likely to be searched – and make it generic. Forget what the hiring manager wants to call the job, identify what the job really is. For example, a Marcomms Exec should be a Marketing & Communications Executive; the latter title being more readily searched.

Titles are important to jobseekers so make ensuring you hit their sense of relevance will increase views.

2. Use keywords but don’t spam

Virtually every job site will place weight on the job title, category information, uppermost main description text and the incept. It’s best to use keywords in these places BUT any excessive/unnecessary use is unlikely to make a huge difference and could easily put the jobseeker off by cheapening the look of the job.

3. Categorize correctly

Resist the urge to spam the categories by ticking every given box. If it’s quality you’re after be more specific; select the top 1 or 2 categories that are directly related to your job.

Any tenuously ticked category terms are likely yield irrelevant applications, resulting in your time being spent sending rejection messages and fielding unnecessary calls.

4. Don’t be lazy, complete the job

Pressures to get your new job up quickly can result in missed opportunities. Far too many recruiters press ‘save’ before maximising fields designed to position your job correctly. Apathy is a recruiter’s biggest enemy.

Ironically, to save your time, most job boards don’t make every category or search field mandatory – but this should not mean shortcuts for you. What’s the biggest waste of time: a few seconds updating some field boxes or sifting through a bunch of irrelevant applications? Perhaps worse still, incomplete fields can result in no applications at all.

The most commonly missed field is ‘location’. It is a misconception that once the mandatory ‘location’ field is complete this automatically populates the preview area. It doesn’t. If you are given an opportunity to define the location, use it. Even if you repeat the mandatory field.

5. Make your job stand out

Upgrading your job to appear at the top of the searches or carry a little extra branding doesn’t need to cost the earth. If you approach your advertiser you’ll often be surprised at how little extra it costs to gain the additional exposure, which in most cases will x3 the number of candidate applications.

6. Advertise at the right time

In truth, there’s no best time to advertise although the most applications are made between Monday afternoon and Wednesday morning.

7. Do your own marketing

Grab the link to your advertised job and update your social media status. Opening up a free www.ping.fm account will enable you to multi-post to your channels, which should include LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

You can also advertise your job in the jobs area of LinkedIn groups for free.

Now you’ve got your job found, you need to convert views into applications. Read how to make your conversion stats rocket.

Mark Lennox and Simon Lewis, co-founders of award-winning niche job board, Only Marketing Jobs, disclose proven methods of increasing jobseeker applications

For many recruiters job boards are an integral part of the talent-attraction strategy. Understanding how to turn views into more relevant applications will improve your ROI. The first thing to understand is that successful job advertising is split into 2 very separate parts:

1. Getting your job found

2. Converting the job view into an application

Here are 10 tips to ensure your conversion stats rocket!

1. Keep it concise

Concision is relative to the information you have to start with but there is never a need to post the full job description. Finding a balance between necessary information and intrigue can be tricky but any job advertisement should be light and compelling, highlighting the most exciting parts of the role.

2. Start with a bang

Grab the attention immediately with an impacting opening paragraph. Include the best bits about the company, job and career scope. This is the ‘pitch’. Put yourself in the jobseeker’s shoes: what drives them to read further?

Above or within the introduction make reference to the job title, location and salary. This will reaffirm to the reader that this could be a role for them.

The opening paragraph can also be used for the excerpt (intro piece), often visible in the job results preview.

3. Give it structure

A big block of text is useless. Aside from being hard to read it lacks impact and looks lazy – two traits you do want associated with your brand.

Split the job brief into 4 easy-to-find sections:

1. The opening paragraph, which should include enticing notes about the company
2. Responsibilities
3. Skills & background required
4. Salary & benefits (include career prospects, training etc)

Resist the urge to put a footer about how great your company is and all the other roles they should apply for as it will only serve as a distraction.

4. Use bullets

It’s a fact that bullet-points help draw attention and help to both define and digest information. Punctuated details are easy to read and look good. Use them.

5. Be inspiring

Far too many recruiters copy and paste their client’s job spec. Often this information is for the benefit of internal employees, so there will be superfluous detail not required for your purpose. You cannot hope to attract the right applicants if the copy you’re publishing is dull and lifeless. Write with passion.

If your client provides you with insufficient relevant information go back and ask for it.

6. Stay positive

We all have mundane parts to our job but we rarely broadcast them. Concentrate on the great aspects of the role. For example, jobseekers looking for marketing jobs don’t need to know about standard admin duties. Highlight the fun stuff.

7. Think career not job

Most people don’t want a job, they want a career, a position with prospects and satisfaction, in addition to the cash. Highlight where this career opportunity will take them tomorrow, as well today.

For example, can personal development be achieved through company training? Can stress be relieved via company gym membership? The salary is one thing, but what about the benefits? These days there is increasing value being placed on a career ‘package’.

8. Be clear, don’t waffle

If it doesn’t need to be there, remove it.

(As a footnote to this point, mentioning a keyword 97 times in the job copy does not correlate directly to its position in jobseeker search results!)

9. Exclude your contact details

Never add your contact details to the body of job copy. Here’s why:

1. Robot email ‘scrapers’ will pick up your email address, resulting in an inbox of spam for you
2. Intelligent job boards, such as Only Marketing Jobs, are designed to channel jobseekers into applying for similar roles. If they are directed to apply via an email or external link, chances are they will not return, meaning you will miss out
3. If the applicant applies via an external route the job board stats will not show this, which will reflect negatively when considering your advertising ROI

10. Make a template and always follow these guidelines

Regardless of the job opportunity, these helpful points will apply to all job adverts. You needn’t start from scratch every time!

Check out this example job copy template:

Recruitment Society – Panel Debate & Networking Forum – Manchester, 20th January

Last chance to register

Never has the famous old saying “The only constant is change”* seemed more real to many of us as we enter the uncertain Recruitment landscape of 2011. Consequently, the Recruitment Society’s North West region is pleased to present the latest in its popular national series of “Question Time” style Panel Debates.

Indeed, what types of change will we all be presented with next? The return of disintermediation? The death knell for employment agencies? Social Resourcing rules OK? An “everyone connected to everyone else” world of work where 100% of hires are by referral? Automated and reduced CPH services but less room for quality human interface? More legal pitfalls in employment to come as a result of the abolition of the DRA and implementation of the AWD?

The expert Panel will include:

Geoff Newman, a successful early dotcom entrepreneur and founder of the international group of online job boards, Recruitment Media Network Ltd. His current low fixed cost recruitment model, Recruitment Genius Ltd, challenges the Recruitment models of the past, and Geoff has won many plaudits for his presentations on how the world of direct Resourcing is changing.

Wendy Trehy is a Partner with Davies Arnold Cooper and advises on all aspects of employment law, acting for a wide range of employers in many sectors, ranging from new ventures and SMEs to major international Plcs. She is a contributor to the Employment Law Journal, a member of the Employment Lawyers Association, and a member of the ELA Working Party engaged in consultation with the Government regarding its proposal to phase out the UK's default retirement age. Wendy is known for providing practical, commercial advice on new legal developments and regularly speaks at internal and external seminars.

As the Founder of RCEURO.com and Managing Partner of the Abtech Partnership, Alan Whitford will need little introduction to most Recruiters in the UK. He has over 20 years experience in the start-up and expansion of high technology businesses in Europe. RCEURO.com was founded to partner and stimulate debate, best practices and knowledge sharing within the EMEA Recruitment community. Abtech provides strategic and practical insights to the automation and web-enablement of Human Resource and Recruitment Process activities throughout Europe. Alan is a frequent chairman and participant in European conference programmes and has numerous on-line and off-line media credits covering technical and strategic HR and Recruitment issues.

Date: Thursday 20th January 2011
Venue: TMP Manchester, 2nd Floor, 56 Princess Street, Manchester, M1 6HS
Map: http://tiny.cc/divp5

Timings:
12.00 noon Registration – tea, coffee and eats
12.30pm Welcome and Introduction - The Recruitment Society
12.35pm Panel Debate followed by Q&A
1.30pm Informal Networking
2pm Event close

As the opening 2011 event in the North West region, this Debate & Networking lunch is free to attend both for Society Members and non-members, but all attendees are asked, when booking, to make a £5 donation to Henshaws Society for Blind People.

Society events can regularly be over-subscribed, so please book in advance if you plan to attend. As ever bookings can be made via our website or you can reserve your place by emailing This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it : . Space is limited and as this will be a popular event pre-booking is strongly advised.

*the quote attributed originally to the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, around 500BC, so it has been relevant for some time!

RCEuro is continuing its series of conversations with Recruitment Thought Leaders. This series will be comprised of 10 minute video (or sometimes audio only) conversations between RCEuro founder Alan Whitford and the interview subject. We have a few 'in the can', with more scheduled.

We met David Rivel, the co-founder of PathMotion at our Social Recruiting Conference 2010 in London. In this conversation, David explains his vision for helping graduates map out their potential careers.

PathMotion is a next-generation career planning website that helps you make inspired career decisions. By analysing your career goals and the experience of people like you, PathMotion helps you discover: (i) your work preferences, (ii) what others like you have done, (iii) careers suited to your background and (iv) job vacancies you will like. We work with recruiters looking for the best talent in the UK.

Mike Taylor is running his annual conference in London today. Check out the programme and follow the event on Twitter: #SMIR

08:45 – REGISTRATION, TEA & COFFEE

09:30 Conference Chairman and Organiser – Mike Taylor – Managing Director – Web Based Recruitment

09:40 – KEYNOTE: Social Media – Past, Present and Future

Keynote Speaker: Steven Ehrlich – Global VP, Client Development, aia worldwide

10:40 – MORNING TEA & COFFEE BREAK

11:10 – How to put Social Media campaigns together covering different countries, languages and cultures

Julia Levy – International Recruitment Advertising & Social Media & Employer Branding at Terra Firma Associates

11:40 – How job seekers use Social Media when job hunting and what they expect to see from employers

Vasco Castro – Head of Research and Consulting – Potentialpark

12:10 – How Success Appointments successfully introduced Social Media into their business after the April 2011 Conference

Stephen Selby, Managing Director of Success Appointments Plc

12:40 – BUFFET LUNCH

13:40 - Integrating Social Media into your Careers Website Strategy

Adam Templeman – Head of Resourcing – RWE npower

14:10 - How Social Media can make your company stand out from the crowd and become irresistible!

Katrina Collier – Founder & Director of Winning Impression

14:40 - Smart use of Social Media tools

Gareth Jones – Chief Inmate of BrubakerHR

15:20 – AFTERNOON TEA & COFFEE BREAK

15:50 – Social Media is also Mobile – What you need to do to make sure your jobs and information are “mobile friendly”

James Dalton – Managing Director – Fonemedia

16:20 – Social Media Discussion Panel

16:50 – Conference Summary & Close

Conference Chairman and Organiser – Mike Taylor – Managing Director – Web Based Recruitment

16:50 to 18:30 – Networking & Drinks Reception

GUEST BLOGGER FOR THE WEEK - ANGEL CRIPPS, LANDER ASSOCIATES

I spoke recently at the Recruiment Society Northwest meeting in Manchester with Paul Sharpe of Adecco and Angela Cripps of Lander Associates. We covered a wide range of candidate and employee centric topics, including the impact of social as a channel for communications as well as sourcing. It was a great session, with kudos to the Society for bringing together so many interested - and interesting - recruiters at lunchtime.

Angela has been writing a series of blogs and her most recent entry neatly pulls together some of those themes. Here is her blog:

Resourcing – How can social media enhance the process?

This is the 12^th blog in a series of 13 and considering I’ve trained a Resourcer 101 course this week and delivered a speech on utilising Social Media in attracting and retaining Gen Y candidates, it seemed like a logical progression to use this info.

I am amazed at the amount of resourcers and recruitment consultants that are not taking advantage of sites such as LinkedIn. As a recruiter, as well as being a fountain of knowledge on candidates, clients, competitors, industry sectors, specialisms and companies alike it is also fantastic for generating leads of companies recruiting for specific positions in your chosen location. It’s like all of your research is being handed to you on a plate – or at the click of a button! And this is all free. If you want to upgrade, then there’s even more available to you.

Tip 1 – Utilise what’s available - Spend some time on these sites and plan it into your working day to spend at least 15 minutes reviewing information and making key comments and sharing useful information as well as profiling yourself in a positive light. This is a major part of your job, so if you’re not doing this everyday, then you’re missing out.

Tip 2 – Focus on positive PR - When adding information to these sites, make sure that what you are sharing is going to be of interest to your connections. You can join groups relevant to your sector, but I see so many recruiters just posting job after job onto these groups. That’s not what they’re there for. The groups are for interesting discussions and to share information. Keep the jobs to the job area and make a positive impact on these groups and forums, instead of annoying them!

The second major point here is to cultivate recommendations. It doesn’t matter if you’ve only been in recruitment for 3 months, if you already have 10 people saying how good you were. Also, of course, you can get previous customers to write some comments about your service.

Tip 3 – Have a strategy - 95% of businesses see the benefit of Social Media tools, but only 13% actually have a actual strategy on how it should be used. So don’t wait for your company to make the decision for you. Decide for yourself how you want to use it and set yourself some goals – even if it’s a simple and targeting 10 new connections / followers per week.

Tip 4 – Ask your customers - Firstly, ask your candidates what sites, forums, blogs, media tools that they use or visit. If your candidates are going there, then it’s likely that other suitable candidates will be there too! Then ask them what they are most interested in seeing or reading when they do visit. It’s a simple step to inform you of the type of information that you should be sharing.

Tip 5 – Protect your connections - Ok, so on Twitter the whole world can see who’s following you, but on LinkedIn it’s not necessary to make it easy for your competitors. Change your settings so that only you can see the people you are linked to.

RIDE meet-up Wed 22/2/2012 at TRU London. Starts 8 PM.

The @BillBoorman show kicked off on Wednesday with the flagship event, #TruLondon. Number 5 in the London series, Bill has pulled together another outstanding lineup of track leaders and delegates who will mingle, discuss, argue and generally try and find ways to continue improving everything recruitment. With 50 tracks and 48 track leaders, it is packed end to end with great conversations, from the first track at 10.00 Wednesday morning, through to 5.00 on Thursday evening.

Some of the other highlights of the two day event (from Bill's blog post):

Aside from the conversation, there’s plenty more going on during the event. Wednesday 22nd will feature a full day of livestream broadcasting from the Jobsite studio, with interviews and panel chats from many of the track leaders and participants on a whole range of issues. You can follow the livestream, twitter feed, flikkr feed and all other content on the #TruLondon5 site, brought to you by our friends and sponsors Jobsite. You can find the dedicated site HERE.

New for this year we have added a livelab, which is going to be a bit of a hack to build a model career site over the 2 days of the event. The idea is that each hour will feature a different planning topic which anyone can contribute to, followed by builds by trying to turn the concepts in to a working model. At the end of the event we hope to have a model site which will be available for anyone to see and benchmark their own site against. It’s quite a challenge, but I’m sure we can do it.

Event sponsor Jobsite ran its all day live streaming video studio on Wednesday, ably hosted by industry media leader and editor of Recruiter Magazine, DeeDee Doke. The sessions can be viewed here, including a number of the interviews from past TruLondon events.

You can view and download your own copy of the schedule HERE

The 10th anniversary conference – “Online Recruitment 2012: The Year Ahead” is on today, 26 January 2012 in London, The event will cover online recruitment strategy, candidate attraction, mobile, online law and global social media. You’ll hear from other industry leading speakers as well as network with 500 professionals at the industry's largest event.

Live Twitter Stream: Follow the hashtag #EMCONF for continuous reporting and ation throughout the day.

Social Networking = the future of recruitment in China

Vera Xu, Digital Marketing Specialist at Antal China, produced a video for Antal on Weibo (the biggest microblogging website in China The video attracted more than 1,000 followers in a very short time. Enjoy the Video and the music.

We started this idea last year and have decided that we will continue with the article as our Annual look at seasonal hiring challenges, updating it along the way. Enjoy the Holidays.

Recruiting Temporary Staff to Work in Unforgiving Conditions and a Remote Locality

As we come up to Christmas 2011, we thought we might take a tongue in cheek look at the hiring challenges facing a temporary business, based in an unpopular location with little transportation infrastructure or connectivity to the outside world, other than a brief 24 hour window. Working conditions are 24x7 leading up to the annual close of the business when all staff are made redundant until the following season; other than management staff, who are able to take a long summer vacation.

How would Santa Claus actually go about recruiting his manufacturing design staff?

• Update his corporate Career Site on Santaclausjobs.net
• Post a job on northpolejobs.net
• Use generic job boards
• Run a Twitter posting campaign (@santaclausjobs)
• Explore his LinkedIn group (Santa's Little Elves)
• Create a Facebook Fan Page (Working for St. Nick)
• Get cracking with Google+

Perhaps his Job Post would look a bit like this:

Fulfilling Childhood Dreams - Delivering Joy and Happiness
Global Toy Manufacturer and Distribution Business is seeking energetic and dedicated workers to join this thriving business which specialises in delivering Holiday Cheer to millions of children around the world. Manufacturing toys and presents in our state-of-the-art workshop at the North Pole, we offer a dynamic work environment that has been evolving for over 400 years.

Specialists in distribution management, we utilise our 'Naughty or Nice' CRM system to ensure that we identify our target customers effectively for a 24 hour delivery window.

We depend on our unique and purpose built delivery vehicle, with the transportation team comprised of a team of 8 locally hired reindeer. At times of inclement weather, we bring in a specialist team leader with his 'Shiny Red Nose' to help keep deliverys on time.

Apply Now:
If you are interested in working in this life changing business on a seasonal basis, visit our career page or contact our Hiring Manager, Mrs S. Claus by email, text or twitter, enclosing your CV or links to your LinkedIn or Facebook profile. Initial interviews will be conducted by Video conference call.

All of us at RCEURO wish you a happy and peaceful holiday season.

LAST FEW TICKETS REMAINING

Emhance Media announced this week that over 450 delegates have now sighed up. Get your tickets now while you can still qualify for your RCEURO discount.

Europe's largest annual online recruitment conference returns to central London on 26th January 2012. As usual, our founder Alan Whitford will be reporting and tweeting live on the day from the Royal Geographic Society just down the road from the Royal Albert Hall. As a Media Sponsor, we have an exclusive discount for RCEURO readers! RCEURO readers can get a 10% discount on tickets! To find out more about the conference click here and when booking use the promotion code RCEURO10 to secure your discount.

The 10th anniversary conference – “Online Recruitment 2012: The Year Ahead” will cover online recruitment strategy, candidate attraction, mobile, online law and global social media. You’ll hear from other industry leading speakers as well as network with 500 professionals at the industry's largest event.

Who will you engage with at the event? Choose from a tasty menu of industry leading companies and their real life stories.

• Google are presenting on Google+ and mobile within recruitment 

• ITV are talking about how they have successfully implemented a new careers website and social media strategy
• The FIRM are talking about 3,000 FIRM employer recruitment strategies
• Boots are back talking about the market a year on and how they successfully used Facebook for social hiring

• There’s a social media recruitment legal and compliance masterclass - Essential for any company trying to navigate the Socical Media recruiment landscape
• Monster are talking about how BeKnown could change the recruitment world forever via Facebook
• LinkedIn are discussing their vision of the future of online recruitment in 2012
• Plus Enhance Media – the conference organisers – giving insight from the world’s largest piece of online recruitment research, the NORAS annual survey

We will see you on the 26th January!

UK Recrutier and the Recruiiters Network are hosting the first annual End of Year Conference, a recruiting event for everyone involved in the recruitment industry, including recruitment agencies, employers, publishers and job boards. It will expand your knowledge, offer tremendous networking opportunities, benefit your business and/or personal development, and represents a fantastic opportunity to meet with the best minds in our industry today.

The conference runs on 2nd November from 10.30am to 6pm and you can choose which presentations you attend on the day. Subjects include topics such as: how agencies can find new revenue streams, candidate attraction and employment branding, capitalising on current trends, mobile recruitment, agencies & inhouse working together, executive research, job boards, and government and industry lobbying. There will be some small group sessions running throughout the day on AWR and social media tools and techniques.

The fabulous line up of speakers includes:

• Steve Huxham, The Recruitment Society
• Ann Swain of APSCo
• Matt Dawson of the REC
• Alan Whitford, Abtech Partnership and RCEURO.com
• Emilie Dixon, Autodesk
• Mike Taylor, founder of WebBased Recruitment and conference organiser
• Bill Boorman, aka @billborman and #TruBill
• Gareth Jones, Brubaker HR and ConnectingHR
• Gary Franklin and Emma Mirrington of the FIRM (Forum of Inhouse Recruitment Managers)
• Matt Alder, Metashift
• Andy Headworth, Sirona Consulting
• Matt Dawson & Gillian Econopouly, Institute of Recruitment Professionals

The End of the Year Recruiting Conference will be held at the Grand Connaught Rooms (directly upstairs from Sway Bar, location of the 11th annual National Online Recruitment Awards ceremony that night ). Tickets are limited, but only £40 for the day.

GET YOUR DISCOUNTED TICKETS WHILE THEY LAST

The first 20 RCEURO.com readers and/or followers of Alan Whitford who register qualify for tickets at half price by using the code: RCEURO. The ticket page is here.

The event is run by Louise Triance’s UK Recruiter in conjunction with CV-Library and sponsors idibu , epc and Changeboard .

TMP (UK) Ltd known as TMP Worldwide, a UK resourcing and communications business, has agreed the purchase of the advertising and e-solutions business from Tribal Resourcing, part of Tribal Group plc.

TMP Worldwide is a key player in the UK resourcing sector and sees the purchase of Tribal Resourcing’s advertising and e-solutions business as a fantastic opportunity to reinforce its position as a leading recruitment organisation both in the private and in the public sector. Not only does the acquired business complement TMP Worldwide’s current services in the public sector, it also brings business efficiencies and great strategic partnerships.

Andrew Wilkinson, CEO at TMP Worldwide, says: “This opportunity supports our strategy and determination to grow our resourcing partnerships with clients in both the private and public sector by delivering employer brand led, media and digital based solutions.

“The recruitment markets have been challenging during the recession but as we emerge we are investing in our business. This deal strengthens our resources and broadens our client base as we enter 2011."

Tribal Resourcing is one of the largest recruitment solutions providers to the UK public sector. Its services are based around the attraction, selection, development and retention of staff across its public sector client base.

Tribal will retain the executive search and selection, assessment and interim resourcing business and will work in partnership with TMP Worldwide to continue to provide integrated resourcing solutions to clients.

Julie Towers, Chief Executive of Tribal Resourcing, comments: “Tribal Resourcing has been a hugely successful business and has earned its place as the public sector recruitment market leader. I am really proud of what we’ve achieved but this sale is rightly supportive of the change of strategic direction for Tribal Group announced last year."

“Our remaining executive resourcing and re-organisation work will continue to support Tribal’s businesses in education, health and government and we look forward to working in partnership with TMP Worldwide to provide end to end resourcing services to the public sector.”

Following a fantastic awards night in London we are delighted to announce the winners of the inaugural Marketing Recruitment Awards

On 2nd December more than 180 recruiters and industry protagonists battled the inclement weather to accentuate the belief that the marketing sector is set for a resurgence. Galvanised by more than one common cause, Awards finalists and other industry professionals participated in the first recruitment awards for the marketing sector, which was headlined by the staffing industry’s most celebrated entrepreneur, James Caan.

The black-tie occasion at the prestigious Jumeirah Carlton Hotel commenced with a champagne-reception, before attendees moved through to the bespangled Ballroom, where tables were dressed with wine and more champagne, supplied courtesy of recruitment advisory and consultancy service, HB RIDA and digital marketing agency, Cloudspotting.

A fantastic 3-course dinner was attended by Mr Caan, who arrived ahead of schedule to join colleagues from Hamilton Bradshaw.

Headlining with recruitment guru

Following the dinner and in the absence of APSCO CEO, Ann Swain, the scheduled compère for evening, Simon Lewis, editor and co-founder of event hosts*, Only Marketing Jobs, took to the stage to introduce Mr Caan as headline speaker. Under the title of ‘Looking to the Upturn’, Mr Caan eulogised about the marketing recruitment industry and predicted a prosperous year ahead. Commenting that his private equity company was “open for business”, the Dragon’s Den star hinted that his next investment would likely be in a marketing recruitment agency.

The affable recruitment mogul concluded an inspiring and insightful speech with an impromptu Q&A session, which touched on subjects ranging from the best piece of recruitment advice he’d ever received to industry-related products witnessed in the Den.

Participant praise

At 21:30 it was time for the main event - the Awards presentation. Category sponsors were invited to reveal finalist nominations before announcing the respective category winner. In what was a hotly contested process, all finalists were commended for their commitment to the first ever MARAs, as the 1,000s of votes received were accompanied by some fantastic supporting evidence. The buzz surrounding this part of the evening was electric.

Once the applause had stopped and the Prodigy’s ‘Omen’ sting reduced to a beat in the eardrums it was time to party. And with stand-in DJ, ‘Retro Russ’, banging out some classics, the dance-floor erupted with a variety of curious moves long into the intoxicating night…

The marketing recruitment industry is well and truly alive!

Here are the MARA 2010 winners. Congratulations to them all:

Best Newcomer – Nakama London - Sponsored by HB RIDA

Best Niche Agency - Carrot Pharma - Sponsored by first choice software

Best Social Media Strategy - Major Players - Sponsored by MetaShift

Best Small Agency - Dynamic New Alliances - Sponsored by Social Media In Recruitment Conference 2011

Best Candidate Experience - Stopgap - Sponsored by Liquid Friday

Best Client Experience - Hays Marketing - Sponsored by ECOM DIGITAL

Recruitment Innovation - Stopgap - Sponsored by AllTheTopBananas.com

Most Effective Marketing Strategy - Major Players - Sponsored by 4MAT

Best Regional Agency - Adam Recruitment - Sponsored by Leumi Invoice Finance

Agency of the Year - Major Players - Sponsored by Arithon

Recruiter Magazine is celebrating outstanding achievements in recruitment over the last 12 months with the Recruiter Awards for Excellence. For the second year running, the Awards recognise the accomplishments for in-house recruitment, recruitment agencies, recruitment ad campaigns, job boards and RPOs at one event. Held at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Wednesday 11 May on London’s Park Lane, the awards ceremony is a black tie affair, with this year’s host noted comedian Dara O’Briain. Headline sponsor this year is Innovate CV.


The full 2011 Shortlist can be seen here.

Some of the highlights:

Recruitment Personality of the Year
Greg Allen, Nokia
Susan Bor, Royal Bank of Scotland
Louise McCarthy-Teague, Meridian 

Sir Alec Reed, Reed 

Tara Ricks, Randstad Financial & Professional

Best Candidate Experience
Harrods
KPMG

Kwik Fit Insurance
Pizza Hut (UK)

Most Effective Employer Brand Development
Alliance Medical (Jupiter Advertising)
Gala Coral Group
PizzaExpress (Pink Squid)

Royal Bank of Scotland

Most Effective Recruitment Strategy
Boots UK
Harrods 

RS Components
Barclays Capital (Stafford Long)

Stephen O'Donnell is extremely proud to be able to announce the Finalists for the tenth annual National Online Recruitment Awards. Winners will be revealed at the awards event in London on Thursday, the 4th of November

The Finalists for the National Online Recruitment Awards 2010 are:

Best Generalist Job Board
Jobsite
Monster
Reed
Totaljobs
Fish4Jobs

Best Specialist (Niche) Job Board
British Medical Jobs
Only Marketing Jobs
Retail Choice
Secs in the City
eFinancial Careers
Totally Legal
Executive on the Web
Nurses

Best Regional Job Board
Graduates Yorkshire
NI Job Finder
Key 103 Jobs
Jobs in Wales
S1Jobs

Best National Recruitment Agency
Reed
Advanced Resource Managers
Pulse
Progressive Recruitment
Michael Page

Best Small Recruitment Agency Website
Orchard
Chase Zander
Maxim Recruitment
McCarthy Recruitment
Inspiring Interns
Ambitions Personel
Idex Recruitment
PFJ

Best Major Employer Website
Claire’s Accessories
Army Jobs
LV
Yorkshire Building Society
T-Mobile

Best Small Employer Website
Jagex
Advance Resource Managers
Air Tanker
Chase Zander
Innocent Drinks

Best Online Recruitment by a Consumer Publication
The Scotsman
Express and Star
The Guardian
The Telegraph
The Herald

Best Online Recruitment by a Trade Publication
Retail Week
Brand Republic
PR Week
Times Educational Supplement
Electronics Weekly

Best Employment Advice Website
My Work Search
Monster
DWP Employment Index
Career Player
Guardian Careers

Best Newcomer in Online Recruitment
CV See Me
Ambitions Personnel
CK Clinical
Food Industry Careers
Inspiring Interns

Best Innovation in Online Recruitment
OVIA
CVSeeMe
Gatszu
TGI Friday FriDOiDS Blog
Gala Coral Careers

Recruitment Website of the Decade
Jobsite
Reed
MOD/Army Jobs
Totaljobs
S1 Jobs
Monster
CV Library
Jobserve

GenY - we have written about the potential impact of this generation on the 'state of work', ways and means of attracting GenY to your company, how do you handle the different generations with the workplace and whether there is even one GenY profile. What would have more impact on the state of work than the leadership of the UK over the next 5 years? Isn't this where GenY may make the most impact?

Christoper Lomas of Naked Generations shared with us their blog and slides about the potential impact of GenY on the UK election.

The State of UK PolitYcs

Debates, Bigot-gate, Clegg-mania, and ‘last week I met…’ are some of the exciting, embarrassing and hilarious anecdotes of the 2010 general election, which has taken the UK by storm. Not since the 1997 election has the public been so engaged in British politics, so anxious to find out who will be the next leader of our country.

In particular, this is the first election in which Generation Y has taken a real interest. In 2001, the first election in which many Gen Ys could vote, 46% took to the polls. But in 2005, this dropped to 37%. Youth voter apathy was at its highest for decades.

The 2010 election is different. Two key factors that have engaged this generation are the leaders’ debates and social media. The debates have helped people connect with the leaders and get a feel for what they would be like as PM. The popularity of the debates was reflected on Twitter, as over 154,000 tweets were dedicated to the subject. And on Facebook, tens of thousands of users became fans of the leaders, most notably Nick Clegg and David Cameron.

The Electoral Commission reported there has been a surge in registrations by young people, with 40% of visitors to the website falling into the 18-24 age-bracket. Generation Y, it seems, is looking to make a stand.

But will UK Gen Y swing the vote, as their peers did in the US? I guess we’ll find out on Friday...

The Recruiter Awards for Excellence 2010, sponsored by Innovate CV, were held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane on Wednesday 14 April.

Nominated by RCEuro founder Alan Whitford, Matthew Jeffery, Director of Talent Brand for the world's Number 1 publisher and developer of computer games, Electronic Arts, scooped the inaugural award for Recruitment Personality of the Year. An example of Matthew's work in developing and extending the EA brand across a range of social media can be seen here.




Three Double Winners
Network Rail picked up the award for best candidate experience and most effective recruitment strategy, while Joslin Rowe were recognised in both the best CSR strategy and the best professional services agency categories. CBSbutler won in the best technical recruitment agency category and came away winning agency of the year.

2010 Winners
Best Newcomer Agency
Sponsored by Back Office Support Servies

Winner: Availl

Best Candidate Experience

Winner: Network Rail

Best Candidate Care
Sponsored by Innovate CV

Winner: Career Teachers

Best Client Service
Winner: Parkside Recruitment

Best Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy

Winner: Joslin Rowe

Best Diversity Recruitment Strategy
Winner: Guinness Northern Counties

Innovation in Recruitment

Sponsored by Mayday Healthcare

Winner: The Learning Trust

Most Effective Recruitment Campaign

Winner: Wm Morrisons Supermarkets with Jupiter Advertising

Most Effective Recruitment Strategy

Sponsored by Itris Recruitment Software

Winner: Network Rail

Most Effective Use of Technology / Online

Winner: Barclays Capital with Stafford Long & Partners

Most Effective Use of Technology / Online
Winner: British Heart Foundation

Best Interim Recruitment Agency
Winner: Russam GMS

Best Industrial Recruitment Agency

Winner: The Transline-Resource Group

Best Public Sector Recruitment Agency

Sponsored by Liquid Friday
Winner
Winner: Morgan Hunt

Best International Recruitment Agency

Winner: Robert Walters

Best Commercial Recruitment Agency 

Winner: Tate

Best Professional Services Recruitment Agency
Winner: Joslin Rowe

Best Technical Recruitment Agency

Winner: CBSbutler

Best Job Board

Winner: Season Workers

Best Embedded Recruiting Team

Winner: Capita Resourcing at Sellafield

Most Effective Employer Brand Development 

Sponsored by HRS Pro
Developed by Cordis
Winner: East Sussex County Council

Best Recruitment Agency to Work For

Sponsored by Jobs.co.uk

Winner: The Stopgap Group

Recruitment Personality of the Year

Winner: Matthew Jeffery, Electronic Arts

Outstanding Outsourced Recruitment Organisation

Winner: Omni Resource Management Solutions

Agency of the Year
Sponsored by Excellium Umbrella
Winner: CBSbutler

Best Recruitment Team

Sponsored by Innovate CV
Winner: Atkins

Friday 10th September, marked the last day of nominations for this year’s National Online Recruitment Awards. Nominations closed at 5:00pm with over 776 nominations received on the last day alone. As ever, the response from the public has been outstanding.

A new method of nominating your favourite recruitment websites was introduced for the 10th annual awards, where NORA asked for extra feedback, giving the reasons for your nominations. From this feedback, along with some basic demographic profiling, it is hoped that judges wil have a clearer picture of what candidates are looking for in a recruitment website.

NORA now begins the process of reducing the huge volume of nominations to the Finalists in each award category. To do this, an outstanding panel of experts will assess all nominated sites from a candidate’s perspective. For the first time, each site's offering to candidates on mobile platforms, such as smartphones, whether it be iPhone and Android Apps or a site tailored for use on a small screen, will be taken into account.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the NORAs, the Recruitment Website of the Decade Award will be presented to the site judged to have made the greatest contribution to the sector during the past ten years. Finalists for this award will be selected from the 201 websites who have been NORA Finalists and Winners in this period, as well as those shortlisted this year.

Finalists for the tenth annual NORAs will be announced on Tuesday 28th September at 12 noon. The Winners of the NORAs 2010 will be revealed at the awards event, in London, on Thursday 4th November. You can reserve your ticket here.

Set for central London on 29 April, the Jobsite Jobseekers Unconference is organised with one simple objective: To help candidates to be successful in your quest for employment or your next move. Twitterers can follow developments on the Hashtag: #JobsiteJU

Jobsite are constantly looking for new ways to offer the best experience when you entrust us with your next career move. Whilst there are plenty of resources and networking opportunities on-line, the best networking and learning happens face to face. There are no presentations and no PowerPoint, just good conversation, shared experiences, support and the opportunity to focus the discussion and ask questions in the areas YOU need most help.

An unconference is like no other event you will have attended before. For a start, it's not a conference. There are no presentations or PowerPoint and the focus is on conversation, where the attendees dictate the agenda. The topics are divided in to "tracks" or small groups, where the discussion is lead by "track leaders."

The track leaders are chosen because of their experience and expertise in the topics. Their role is to start the conversation, input where needed, answer questions and give expert advice where needed. The agenda for the track, the questions and the content is dictated by you, and most of the talking comes from the attendees. The track leaders are available throughout the day if you want a one - to - one conversation.

We positively encourage you to drop in and out of tracks, when you have the help you want move to the next one. You don't have to wait for the finish out of politeness. At the same time, if you want to have a conversation away from the tracks, or to start your own,

The location in central London will be announced soon. Registration Information can be found here

The 2010 onrec Awards - the Online Recruitment Industry’s most prestigious Awards Ceremony - took place in London on 31st March 2010.



Celebrating the success, growth, innovation talent and achievements within the Online Recruitment Industry, the Awards are now in their fifth year. Attended by over 200 guests, the Awards followed on from the annual 2010 Onrec Trade Conference held at the same venue in the afternoon.

The Award Winners:

Innovative Online Marketing Award
Niche: CWJobs.co.uk
Generalist: Redfgoldfish Jobs
Supplier: s•com

Innovative Offline Marketing Award
Niche: IEEE
Generalist: Jobsite

The Best Use of Online Recruitment by A Recruitment Agency Award
Hays

The Best Corporate Use of Online Recruitment Award
John Lewis

onrec Education Award
Enhance Media Ltd

The Best Technical Innovation Award
Niche: eteach
Generalist: Monster.co.uk
Supplier: 02 Rewards

The Best Corporate Graduate Site
BAE Systems

The Best Public Sector Recruitment Site
The London Borough of Barnet

The Candidate Service Award
Jobsite

The Niche Job Board Award
Rate My Placement

Newcomer of the Year Award
STV Jobs

Personality of the Year 2010
Lee Biggins of CV Library

The Recruiting Unconference, organised by Bill Boorman and held at Barclays Bank Tower in Canary Wharf on Thursday 19 November will close with a one hour online radio broadcast from the venue, carried on Blog Talk Radio.

RCEuro founder Alan Whiford will host the show, with radio expert Bill also at the helm. Bill moderates three regular shows on Mondays in his Ready for LIft Off and Down Under Recruiting series.

Guests will include Session Track leaders from the UK and North America, delegates from the Unconference and callers from around the world.

RCEuro RECRUITMENT LEADERS SHOW DETAILS

• Show Time: Thursday 19 Nov, 17:00 GMT
• Listeners/participants can join the show via the web link Show Address
• By dialing in to a US number via telephone, Skype or other VOIP methods
• Listener dial-in number: +1 347 857-1109
• Or by clicking on the Blog Talk Radio player below

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Monster®, the leading global online career and recruitment resource and flagship brand of Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW), today unveiled its new global seeker experience. Launched in 24 countries, the new site offers job seekers an innovative, intuitive, and personal experience designed to deliver a fulfilling career management resource.

“Monster has made a significant investment in product and technology in an effort to design and develop new tools and applications that help job seekers manage their career,” said Sal Iannuzzi, chairman, president and CEO of Monster Worldwide. “The result is an entirely new site experience which allows job seekers a more engaging and dynamic way to find the career that best matches their talent, background, aspirations and professional goals. We set out 18 months ago to deliver the best seeker experience possible. Given what is going on today with the global economic crisis and its effect on employment, we are even more gratified to be able to provide these valuable tools to seekers.”

The new site will allow seekers to more efficiently register with Monster, upload and maintain their resumes, conduct job searches, and apply to jobs. In fact, it is now over 70 percent easier to upload a resume to Monster, and registered seekers can apply for a job in as few as two clicks. This improved functionality will roll out in 24 countries immediately. In addition, unique new career management applications have been designed to not only attract, but engage and appeal to both the active and passive seeker. Available initially in the U.S and rolling out to other countries in the coming months, these include:

* Monster Career Mapping – patent-pending career exploration tool that leads people to explore their careers via many possible and interconnecting paths. This tool will provide an unrivaled ability for seekers to explore career paths taken by people similar to them in skills and experience, enabling them to set reality-based immediate and future career goals, and understand the steps to get there. Monster leveraged the depth of its resume database to analyze work histories to provide empirical evidence about the most commonly chosen career paths people take.

* Monster Career Snapshots – a tool that allows users to access thousands of occupational profiles describing various roles, the skills required, the compensation and work/life balance associated with them. This tool will also provide the ability for users to share their similar careers and experience to provide a dynamic and deeper understanding for seekers.

* Monster Career Benchmarking – assessment tool that helps candidates measure themselves against other individuals or jobs in their industry so they can compete more effectively for the positions they desire.

“The new Monster is a dynamic, interactive, intuitive destination experience – not a static, one-way job board,” said Darko Dejanovic, executive vice president, global chief information officer and head of product, Monster. “Ultimately, these changes create a platform that will enable us to continue to introduce new and exciting functionality in the future. Similarly – and equally important – employers will benefit from increased candidate engagement and activity, and improved reach and presentation of their jobs to the right seekers.”

In addition to Monster’s new seeker capabilities yielding more qualified candidates, Monster’s new Audience Sponsorship product leverages the new seeker experience by providing employers with increased exposure through expanded media solutions. The product allows employers to target desired seekers by advertising where relevant seekers are searching and navigating the site. Also benefitting employers, Monster has begun rolling out a new employer site experience designed to improve the overall recruitment process. New enhanced resume search, job and candidate management, job posting wizard and online resource center tools are designed to help employers increase productivity and maximize their recruitment return on investment.

“Today's ‘new’ Monster not only provides the resources to help people find a job now, it also helps people begin to identify and plot out career aspirations over time,” said Iannuzzi. “We’re delivering on our promise to make Monster a personal, relevant and exciting place to search for the perfect job. Simply put, there has never been a better time to visit Monster.com.”

Creating a completely integrated candidate experience:
The project involved creating an Employer Brand, a campaign of nine recruitment advertisements, an Employee Referral Programme, a recruitment microsite and a menu of various candidate communications and templates - all of them ‘joined-up’ to the original employment branded proposition.

The solution was crucial in enabling United Biscuits to embark upon a new era of sourcing candidates directly and reducing its reliance on 3rd party recruiters. The campaign was cited by HR Magazine, January 2008, as an example of best practice in branded recruitment communications.

“The work Entity produced was superb and the results exceeded my expectations. Entity’s team of Planning, Digital, Brand and Technology professionals offer a very powerful service. I could not ever imagine being involved in any client project that had recruitment communications issues, without speaking to the team at Entity.”

Heather Buglass
HR Business Partner, United Biscuits.

Marussia F1 Team Partners with Monster.com to recruit the best talent from around the world

NEW YORK, Feb 07, 2012 – The Marussia F1 Team is partnering with Monster.com®, the worldwide leader in connecting people to job opportunities and the flagship brand of Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW), to recruit for a variety of permanent roles that will influence the technical and commercial success of the team. Four of these roles will be specialized opportunities, advertised as 'Cool Jobs,' and will use Monster's global job seeker reach to help ensure the Marussia F1 Team receives the most qualified applicants from all over the world. As part of the partnership, the Marussia F1 Team will also leverage Monster's Talent Management Suite to optimize efficiency throughout the recruitment lifecycle, and to help the organization quickly hone in on top talent.

The first of the four global 'Cool Jobs' is now available as the team is looking for an aerodynamicist to play a vital role in the development of Marussia's next generation F1 race car. The jobs will be based in the Marussia F1 Team's new technology centre located in Banbury, England, but the team will consider qualified candidates from all over the world. With an expected job start date of mid-April, interested seekers should apply immediately at www.monstercooljobs.com/marussiaf1team . In addition to the globally advertised 'Cool Jobs,' up to 40 other permanent opportunities will be available in the coming months to job seekers throughout the EU.

Andy Webb, CEO, Marussia F1 Team, stated: "Monster is an exciting and much-welcome addition to our portfolio of Marussia F1 Team Official Partners. Formula One is a technology-driven sport, but you need the right people with the right talents to drive these processes. At this time, when we are looking to augment our expertise in key areas of the team, this partnership will enable us to reach a much wider scope of qualified candidates, leveraging Monster's global reach and its precision search matching technology."

Katie Allen, Head of HR, Marussia F1 Team, added: "The partnership with Monster will enable us to significantly increase our talent reach quickly and cost-effectively – which is vital in the F1 recruitment arena. As a small F1 team, we also look forward to using the Talent Management Suite to help us manage our recruitment and resourcing plans in the most professional and efficient way, whilst ensuring that more of our HR focus can be directed at development activities for the business and our people ."

Ted Gilvar, Executive Vice President, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Monster, noted "We're thrilled to be working the Marussia F1 Team. We're confident that our global reach, combined with our unparalleled job matching technology will help the team find the unique talent they need to succeed."

Marussia F1 Team Social Media Driver Contest

Monster and Marussia F1 Team will also offer fans from select countries the opportunity to win the chance to shadow the Marussia F1 Team blogger for a key race and experience all of the action first-hand. Winning entrants will help report back on all of the excitement – both trackside and behind the scenes. More details will be available soon.

About Marussia F1 Team

The Marussia F1 Team is a young and ambitious Anglo-Russian challenger competing in the FIA Formula One World Championship.

Headquartered at the new Marussia Technical Centre in Banbury, UK, the team is majority-owned by the Russian supercar marque, Marussia, based in Moscow.

With just two seasons of F1 competition under its belt, the team has enjoyed an extraordinary journey. It was founded in 2009, under the Resource Restriction Agreement that has redefined the sport's commercial landscape, paving the way for exciting new entrants to challenge tradition and expectation. The Marussia F1 Team has been in the vanguard of a new era of Formula One, harnessing the commercial firepower of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin group of companies, one of its founding partners, to establish an innovative racing team concept for the future.

Technically, the team has experienced the rollercoaster ride that one might expect from the initiation of a young new team into such a tough and highly competitive sport. In only its second season however, with ambitious targets for the future firmly in its sights, the team entered into a long-term technical partnership with McLaren Applied Technologies, which enables the Marussia F1 Team to benefit from access to advanced facilities which are already helping the team produce a competitive racing car for the 2012 season.

As for the team's longer term ambitions, 2014 will see the introduction of a Russian Grand Prix to the race calendar. It goes without saying that success on home asphalt in the Black Sea resort of Sochi is the end-game for the next exciting phase of the Marussia F1 Team journey.

About Monster Worldwide

Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW - News), parent company of Monster, the premier global online employment solution for more than a decade, strives to inspire people to improve their lives. With a local presence in key markets in North America, Europe, and Asia, Monster works for everyone by connecting employers with quality job seekers at all levels and by providing personalized career advice to consumers globally. Through online media sites and services, Monster delivers vast, highly targeted audiences to advertisers. To learn more about Monster's industry-leading products and services, visit www.monster.com. More information about Monster Worldwide is available at http://about-monster.com.

Industry leader Stephen O'Donnell has announced today the finalists for the eleventh annual National Online Recruitment Awards. The winners will be revealed at the awards event in London on Wednesday, the 2nd of November. The illustrious shortlisting panel and Steven have pared down the list from hundreds of entries. The Judging panel now begins its evaluation of the shorlisted finalists to determine the winners.

The event will be held in conjunction with UKRecruiter (following on from their all day conference), and will also involve extensive networking opportunities. Please visit http://nora.eventbrite.com/ to order your tickets.

Finalists can Click Here for further information and instructions.

Stephen O'Donnell, chairman of the NORAs, led the 11tth annual awards ceremony in London last night. Great night with some surprising new winners and confirmation of some classic companies improving year on year.

The winners:

Best generalist job board

Monster

Best specialist/niche job board

Only Marketing Jobs

Best regional job board

STV Jobs

Best national recruitment agency

Spencer Ogden

Best small recruitment agency website

Dylan

Best major employer website

Army Jobs

Best small employer website

Innocent Drinks

Best online recruitment by a consumer publication

Guardian Jobs

Best online recruitment by a trade publication

Times Educational Supplement

Best employer advice website

CareerPlayer.com

Best newcomer to online recruitment

G4S

Best innovation to online recruitment

G4S

Adds Leading Talent Management Cloud Offering to the Oracle Public Cloud

DUBLIN, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 02/09/12 -- Oracle today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Taleo Corporation(NASDAQ: TLEO), a leading provider of cloud-based talent management for $46.00 per share or approximately $1.9 billion, net of Taleo'scash and debt. Taleo's Talent Management Cloud helps organizations attract, develop, motivate and retain human capital to improve performance and drive growth.

Together, Oracle and Taleo expect to create a comprehensive cloud offering for organizations to manage their Human Resource operations and employee careers. The combination is expected to empower employees and managers to effectively manage careers throughout their entire employment, enable organizations to retain talent and optimize costs, and improve the employee experience through faster on boarding and better collaboration with team members via social media.

The Board of Directors of Taleo has unanimously approved the transaction. The transaction is expected to close mid-year 2012, subject toTaleo stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

"Human capital management has become a strategic initiative for organizations," said Thomas Kurian, Executive Vice President, Oracle Development. "Taleo's industry leading talent management cloud is an important addition to the Oracle Public Cloud."

"Taleo's integrated cloud-based talent management solutions optimize how organizations hire, manage, develop and reward their employees and gives companies the intelligence needed to capitalize on their most critical asset -- their people," said Michael Gregoire, Chairman and CEO, Taleo. "Joining forces with Oracle gives us the opportunity to better serve our customers."

RCEURO RECRUITMENT THOUGHT LEADER CONVERSATION

We speak today with Matthew Brown, Director of Business Development at Work4 Labs, who details the progress that the Work 4 Us application has made with ‘Work for Us,’ Facebook’s #1 recruiting application and the new development which will support Employee Referral Programmes. Come and vist their stand at Social Recruiting Conference 2011 in London.

HR Tech Euorpe 2011 has a wide range of sessions going on. One of the most interesting (to me anyway) has been the sesion led by the founder of one of the most successful ATS companies, MrTed, Jerome Ternynck. Originally from France, Jerome runs his latest venture, SmartRecruiters in San Francisco, California.

Subtitled Death of Applicant Tracking, Jerome has taken an irreverent look at what we have come to take as the SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) for candidate systems - tracking and managing data, not filling jobs. We only have to look at the evolution of the industry from ATS to Candidate Management System to Talent Management System to....... Yet, as I discussed with someone later in the day, what has really changed in how companies use the technology? Not much - and this really is Jerome's thread.

We all have Mark Zuckerberg to thank for more than FB. According to Jerome, the larger picture of the Social Web is a 'recruiter's dream' on two levels:

1 Easy access to masses of data, quickly and seamlessly.

2 The communications tools to interact with anyone and everyone, anywhere at any time, as we all can have a complete online identiy. Everything we do, act, say (and even think) can be found and filtered through the Social Web.

So, what does this mean for recruitment in 2012. Jerome's 8 stages for you as a Corporate Recruiter:

1 Recruitment is not Tracking, it is Sourcing
Stop the emhasis on only tracking actions and statuses and get back to sourcing and engaging with the candidate.

2 Think MoCal
The New Age Californian in Jerome coming out. Mobile and Local. 95% of candidates live within 25 miles of your office and every mobile stat you see indicates that the internet will increasingly be accessed primarly by smart phones, surpassing PC based access in 2012/3 at the latest.

3 Kill The Form
A real favourite. 50% of candidates don't complete the forms on the career site. If you were a Sales/marketing person who lost 50% of your leads every month, you would not be in employment very long.

4 Make It Easy
Or, as my Dad always said, follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) Principle
While technology continues to expand and encourages us to do more, inherently we make things more complicated and difficult. We must simplify. Candidates and Employees live in a 140 character world and their tolerance for complication is decreasing.

5 Collaboration vs Automation
Recruiting is a social encounter. It is not a process to be automated. Move to open collaboration and communication between recruiters and candidates.

6 Dump Your Database (of candidates)
Your CV database is dead and buried, filled with candidates whose data is way out of date. This is not your talent pool. The real talent ocean is the social world - LinkedIn, Facebook and more. Your talent pool is the 10 million you can reach via LinkedIn, for example.

7 Leverage Data
Check out the Big Data conversation going on in the US today. Compare the data in your employee and candidate database with what is going on in the marketplace.

8. Embrace Social
Get over the fear factor. We have anonymised data and information about candidates to avoid discrimination, but this leads to a very disjointed process. The social and conversational element of recruiting is gone - we can’t have the normal conversations that get candidates to come for interview. Candidate data is standardised and moved into a process instead.

Being Social brings Transparency and leads to better behaviours. Recruiting is by definition a social activity so we should ask for social profiles and engage via those routes. Embrace what social brings to both sides, Transparency.

Transparency is the worst enemy of discrimination.

CONCLUSION:

Steve Jobs Quote: "Hiring the best is your most important task."

Evenbase, a new digital recruitment group was announced today in a significant move for the global growth ambitions of the team behind Jobsite. The Evenbase portfolio contains market leading digital recruitment assets including Oilcareers, Jobsite and 10 other niche, generalist and vertical sector job boards, the leading multi-poster and unified search provider Broadbean, and technology partnerships including NHS Jobs, Northcliffe Media and Johnston Press.

Keith Potts, Evenbase Chief Executive Officer, says; “Todayʼs announcement is a significant milestone in the groupʼs maturity as a business. Potts continues; “Weʼve come a long way from a family start up as Jobsite.co.uk, to the group of market leading brands and 330 employees we have today. Itʼs not surprising that our ambitions outgrew our structure and operating model along the way. Although many of our brands are already operating on the international stage, we see a far greater potential for Evenbase given the synergies of our portfolio as a whole.”

A short video message from Keith can be viewed here.

Evenbase is the result of a restructure of wider group operations to create a central executive team and four business units. Each business unit is accountable to its own Managing Director and shares a vision to revolutionise how companies find candidates and how candidates find work across domestic and international markets.

1. Job boards: Focuses on the delivery of superior service and solutions across the portfolio's generalist, niche and vertical market job board brands

2. Business Solutions: Provides award-winning, scalable job board and recruitment software services to the Public and Private sectors

3. New ventures: Focuses on the international expansion of key group assets and roll out of new business models and initiatives

4. Recruitment software: Provides recruitment software solutions for multi-posting, CV search, candidate matching and reporting tools

Keith Potts adds, “Evenbase gives us a solid foundation for both international expansion and the fulfilling of opportunities not only for our brands but also for our clients, partners and candidates. Day to day business will continue as normal for brands within the portfolio, while the Evenbase executive team will focus on our ambition to become a truly global digital recruitment group within three years.”

The Evenbase executive team is comprised of:

• Keith Potts, Chief Executive Officer
• Damian McCallion, Chief Operating Officer
• Felix Wetzel, Strategy Development Director
• Graham Potts, Group IT Director
• Mike Wall, Managing Director – Job boards
• Heather Wozniak, Managing Director – Business solutions
• Ray Duggins, Managing Director – New ventures
• Kelly Robinson, Chief Executive – Broadbean
• Dan Martin, Managing Director - Broadbean

The Evenbase portfolio currently includes Jobsite.co.uk, Oilcareers.com, Broadbean.com, Cityjobs.com, LondonJobs.co.uk, emedcareers.com, incatering.co.uk, productionbase.co.uk, inretail.co.uk, renewablescareers.com, topconsultant.com, justengineers.net and legalprospects.co.uk, as well as technology partnerships with brands such as NHS, Northcliffe Media and Johnston Press.

We are in Amsterdam today for the first HR Tech Europe conference. #HRTECHEUROP is the hashtag to follow. This is day two of the conference, with a range of speakers and panelists from across the European and US industry. Stream moderators include Jon Ingham of #CHRU fame in the UK.

We will run a series of blog posts throughout the day.

Check out the regular stream of photos by Ducth Recruiter Extraordinaire, Oscar Mager, #oscarmager

HRTech Europe 2011 Facebook Album

Next up: two sessions:

Using Technology to Foster an Empowered Workforce

Jason Corsello will explore key Talent Management challenges and opportunities that large organisations face today, including :

What is the value of leveraging integrated solutions for the core talent management areas, such as Learning, Performance and Succession Management ?
Does the SaaS model really make a difference in deploying integrated learning & talent management across large, disparate businesses ?
Today’s talent are equipping themselves to be agile, flexible and adaptable to meet tomorrow’s needs; how can organisations deliver on their expectation for agility and flexibility ? How can organisations truly empower their workforce?

Session Leader:
Jason Corsello, VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, Cornerstone OnDemand

Panelists:

• James Iles, Head of Employee Learning, Virgin Media
• Jean-François Goulay, Manager Staff Development, Human Resource Department, IFRC
• Matthew Bedford, HR Application Owner and Functional Project Manager, Barclays
• Mike Leavy, Learning Solutions & Technology Manager, Virgin Media

Nokia: Social Media for Turbulent Times

Matthew Hanwell, Director HR & Social Media , Nokia
You may have social media tools, but what value do they bring? How can you use social media to engage your employee’s especially in turbulent times and why would you? Matthew will share how Nokia have used social media as a key channel for dialog and debate as Nokia goes through its strategic transformation. From the tools through the role of leadership, what has worked, what hasn’t and why.

• Why would you want to use social media internally?
• What tools to use for what purpose – a social media capability portfolio.
• Why less is more- when it comes to tools.
• The behaviours necessary for the tools to flourish.
• What not to do.

RCEURO RECRUITMENT THOUGHT LEADER CONVERSATION

We speak today with Matthew Brown, Director of Business Development at Work4 Labs, who details the progress that the Work 4 Us application has made and the new development which will support Employee Referral Programmes. More details about the new app will be found below the interview.

Work4 Labs, the company behind ‘Work for Us,’ Facebook’s #1 recruiting application, today publicly launched a revolutionary new version, which automatically matches a user’s Facebook friends with the best jobs. The app is the first to leverage Facebook’s wealth of profile data (education, interests, work history, etc.) and personal connections to optimise job referrals.

Since nearly 1 of 3 hires (in the USA) come from referrals (source: SourceCon1), it’s no surprise that encouraging referrals is critical to a successful recruiting strategy. Despite this, many companies struggle to design scalable referral programs.

“Facebook users share over 30 billion pieces of content per month, mostly music, news stories, and the like. Our app makes the identification and sharing of highly relevant job opportunities incredibly simple, so this valuable information can be socially distributed,” says Stéphane Le Viet, CEO and co‐founder of Work4 Labs. An RCEURO interview with Stéphane can be viewed here.

By leveraging advanced job‐matching algorithms and Facebook’s social graph, the ‘Work for Us’ app now allows users to automatically see which friends are the best matches for particular jobs. Work4 Labs developed this proprietary technology following a one‐year partnership with a computer science and statistical research lab in Paris, France. The app is very straightforward to use for both recruiters and referrers. Any company can install the ‘Work for Us’ app for free in minutes, thus creating a full social career site on their Facebook Page.

When users visit jobs posted through a company’s ‘Work for Us’ app (e.g., L’Oréal Global Recruitment), they have access to a section called “See Friends Matching this Job.” Once authorised, the app processes Facebook and LinkedIn profile data – education, work history, interests, location, and so on – to suggest the most relevant friends for the job.

Founded in 2010, Work4 Labs is an innovative social media startup with offices in San Francisco and Paris. The company was founded by two visionaries with extensive experience in tech-enabled human resources and social media. Recognising the untapped potential of the world’s largest social network, they developed a breakthrough app to leverage Facebook’s data-rich environment for both recruiters and candidates.

The .JOBS Affair – The breaking of rules we count on to build a business.

I am listening to online employment 'main man' Peter Weddle discussing the biggest threat to the job board business ever seen - the attempts by the DEA and Employ Media to hijack the .JOBS TLD from its intended use as a specific TLD for corporate careers sites, Hosted by Jobg8 USA.

Portland, Maine – April 26, 2011 – Jobg8 hosts leaders of the .JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition who will discuss the implications of the .JOBS expansion on the global employment website industry.
The proposed expansion by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) of the .JOBS top level domain creates dramatic problems for the employment website industry and individual website owners. In addition to the precedent it sets for arbitrarily changing online business rules, it has already permitted a single company to launch tens of thousands of .JOBS names (e.g., London.jobs, IT.jobs) into the marketplace. This move has global implications and will create confusion with every existing brand, threaten company trademarks and potentially undercut an online job board’s bottom line.

To fight this significant threat, a coalition has been formed by the employment website industry trade association (IAEWS) and a number of other organizations. Called the .JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition, it is working to defeat the proposed expansion through legal counsel, public relations, and the support of individual site owners and operators.

To provide further education on this issue, Jobg8 is hosting a free webinar featuring prominent leaders in the fight to protect the integrity of the global employment website industry. All interested parties are urged to join This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , Executive Director of IAEWS and This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , CEO of Boxwood Technology as they discuss aspects of the .Jobs affair, including:

• Background and history
• Current status
• Implications for individual business owners
• Live Q & A

This free online webinar was scheduled for: May 6th at 11:00 AM EDT

We will provide links to listen to the webinar when it is available - or you can join the IAEWS to receive it directly.

Jobg8 is a web-based marketplace for online job boards. Their ground-breaking platform unifies the formerly fractured online employment website industry, allowing job board websites to buy and sell job postings and candidates through a secure network.

MONSTER BRINGS JOBS AND PROFESSIONAL NETWORKING TO FACEBOOK
Launch of BeKnown addresses major worries with mixing working and social lives in social networks

Monster joins Social Recruiting Conference 2011 as a premium sponsor on 30 June 2011 in London.
A live demo of the new service will be presented at the close of the conference by David Henry. The introductory video can be seen in our video player below.

June 27, 2011 – Monster launches BeKnown, bringing the world’s leader in connecting people with jobs opportunities to the largest and most active social network . You can sign up to BeKnown now

BeKnown allows you to build a professional network on Facebook, while keeping your friends separate from your work-related contacts. By connecting directly with Monster, it also gives access to hundreds of thousands of employers and over a million live job opportunities from within the app. All of the jobs are fully searchable and shareable with your contacts.

BeKnown gives greater control of the way you run your professional and social lives online. Research* reveals that almost two-thirds (62 per cent) of workers in the UK are concerned about mixing friends and professional contacts on social networks. These concerns seem to be fully justified as two in five (41 per cent) have had, or know someone that has had, problems as a result of work colleagues seeing what’s on their social network page. The biggest issue, affecting one in five people (21 per cent), is the awkward scenario of a work colleague who wants to join your personal social network, but you don’t want them mixing with your social circle. Other common issues, affecting one in five people (19 per cent), are a friend posting a comment they didn’t want an employer to see, while one in six (17 per cent) have been tagged in a photo they didn’t want work colleagues seeing.

“We all have a friend we would never bring to a job interview or introduce to our boss, so why mix the two when you’re online? We’re bringing jobs and employers onto Facebook on your terms, making it easier than ever to keep your working life separate from your social life. You can tap millions of people on Facebook, identifying and connecting in new ways to help you find the next step in your career,” said David Henry, VP of Media & Digital Marketing EMEA at Monster.

With BeKnown, Facebook users can now:

• Solve the dilemma of mixing friends and family with professional contacts
• See who among your professional contacts is connected to a company or job opportunity you are interested in
• Build a professional network from your Facebook contacts as well as people you know on other social networks
• Give and receive professional endorsements to your contacts based on specific skills – making it easier for employers to match you with job opportunities
• Search over a million active job opportunities without needing to leave Facebook
• Soon to come – social referral program

*Research conducted by KRC Research in June 2011 amongst 4,017 adults aged 18+ in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Netherlands and including 1,015 people in the UK who are either currently employed or looking for a job

Gordon Lokenberg from The Netherlands has long been a leader in different technologies that support recruitment, from his ShakeYourJob iPhone app to his current role working with Layar, one of the leaders in Augmented Reality for mobile phones. He shared his vision of Layar working in recruitment as a track leader at the recent TruLondon III Unconference.

RCEuro is continuing its series of conversations with Recruitment Thought Leaders. This series will be comprised of 10 minute video (or sometimes audio only) conversations between RCEuro founder Alan Whitford and the interview subject.

We catch up with Dave Beaver, Director of Alliances & Business Development to discuss trends in the industry and the Bullhorn Marketplace - a unique approach to provide a single spot for its customers to source new and innovative applications that extend and integrate with the Bullhorn Platform.

The Bullhorn Marketplace is the source for new and innovative applications that extend and integrate with the Bullhorn Platform. It includes applications and services from our partners that are designed to give your staffing and recruiting business a competitive advantage, and lets recruiting and staffing firms choose from an a la carte menu of options that suit their unique business needs.