Posted by: Alan Whitford in Untagged on
23 Dec 10
Vic Okezie of Crexia and Alan Whitford of RCEuro are very pleased to present our second Social Recruiting Conference, to be held in London on 30th June 2011.
Social Recruiting Conference 2011 (#srconf) will gather leading employers and recruitment industry professionals, to passionately discuss and practically demonstrate the power of Social Recruiting. Book now and save £100 before January 31st 2011.
You can also Order the #SRCONF 2010 DVD for just £95! You can experience in full what the 120 delegates, the over 600 participants via the live streaming and the 230,000 Twitter particpants took part in on the day.
#SRCONF 2011 will continue the conversations we started in our last event, with practical and realistic case studies from a diverse set of companies. This will include engaging presentations from our speakers and panel discussions, that will highlight more Social Recruiting ROIs.
There will be a small Exhibition Area showcasing relevant recruiting tools & services. The ticket price includes reception drinks, lunch, refreshments and a handbook for the day. There will be networking drinks at the end of the day. Book Ticket Now
Posted by: Simon Lewis in Untagged on
13 Dec 10
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.
Posted by: Alan Whitford in Untagged on
09 Dec 10
Regular contributor John Kleeman of Questionmark recently sent us this quiz to try out on the site. It is a follow on to his recent blog which suggests that using a fun type quiz in recruitment could add real value to the candidate experience. Give it a try.
Posted by: Peter Linas in Untagged on
09 Dec 10
10-20% of recruiters stuck at home
SaaS results in 100% uptime for leading energy recruiter
UK recruiters using
Bullhorn®'s web-based
software suffered no recent downtime despite the widespread disruptions on the roads and public transport. The Software-as-a-Service provider surveyed its UK customers to determine how recruitment companies across the country have been affected by the adverse weather. As the global leader in on-demand recruitment software, Bullhorn enabled agencies to provide a consistent service to clients and candidates.
The Bullhorn applicant tracking and customer relationship management (CRM) software is hosted entirely in the cloud and was therefore impervious to the heavy snowfall which saw much of the UK out of action. London-based specialist energy recruiter, Spencer Ogden, reported total uptime, even though 16% of its workforce was unable to make it into the office.
Donna Hewett, Head of Operations at Spencer Ogden, explained: "As soon as the weather reports came through in the morning, we knew staff would be stuck at home. Using a cloud-based system allows us to continue running a seamless operation, continuing business as usual and filling roles from home."
Peter Linas, Bullhorn's UK Managing Director, commented: "Our poll suggests that 10 to 20 percent of recruiters were working from home. Without a web-based CRM and ATS platform, a 50-strong recruitment agency with a fifth of its staff stuck at home could have lost around 75 hours per day. This amounts to a significant risk to the business. As with the ash cloud incident earlier this year, Software-as-a-Service has proved to be the solution of choice for agencies that see the value of seamless business continuity."
Posted by: John Kleeman in Untagged on
07 Dec 10
It's interesting to see the reports of the recent Social Recruiting Conference , which show that many companies are having success recruiting via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and via other social media.
In my view, one fruitful area to engage candidates, particularly when they are looking at a job site but not sure whether to engage further is to offer quizzes as part of the recruitment offering. It's very conventional to offer skills tests as part of the recruitment process, and these are great for measuring KSA (Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes).
But lower stakes or fun quizzes also have their place to engage candidates and also to give a flavour of what it's like to work at your company. Especially as quizzes can now be placed inside web pages, in the same way as videos, see for example the quiz on the history of assessment at http://blog.questionmark.com/short-quiz-on-the-history-of-assessment.
If you do use a quiz as part of recruitment and it's not been psychometrically designed, be sure to make clear that it's not part of the formal recruitment process.
I hope this might help some of you make your recruiting more exciting and successful.
Posted by: Philip McMullan in Untagged on
25 Nov 10
One third of recruiters have not heard of cloud computing according to research from staffing IT outsourcing specialists, Kamanchi.
The news comes despite calls from some of the world’s biggest companies for hardware and software developers to develop common standards to speed up the spread of cloud computing.
The cloud is a web-based system where shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, like the electricity grid.
The Open Data Alliance Centre, whose members include blue-chip companies like BMW, Shell and Marriott Hotels, is pushing for unified standards for technology in order to cope with the predicted explosion of people who will want to access online services using mobile devices. “The old way just won’t work anymore. We want to pay for what we need, when we need it,” said a spokesman.
“Two thirds of recruiters still operate a traditional PC and server IT system,” says Raymond Pennie, Commercial Director of Kamanchi. “These businesses risk losing competitive advantage from their systems in the medium term. With clients and candidates moving to the cloud, recruitment firms need to make sure they are not left behind.”
Posted by: Jon Richardson in Untagged on
23 Nov 10
By introducing a tiered proposition, SignatureSense can now cater for a wider spectrum of business needs; from the local recruiter with less frequent contracting requirements, to the nationally known brands who exchange agreements with candidates and clients daily. Our plans are still just as flexible as they always were, so they can grow and evolve with your business needs.
Click here for further details of our new price plans
As video interviews become more commonplace they are beginning to solidify their space in the hiring process. Previously used more towards the later stages of the process, video interviews are increasingly being used to replace the telephone screening stage . Along with providing a greater depth of information, here's 5 reasons why we'll see 'automated video interviewing' applications in particular begin to replace telephone interviews:
- No scheduling- this means no back and forth emails between candidate and employer. If you're recruiting internationally, you don't have to stay up until the early hours to see a sleepy picture of someone on the other side of the world.
- Consistent responses- it's been scientifically proven in 7 papers over the past 30 years* that asking every candidate the same questions and not being biased by follow-ups, provides a much more accurate predictor of aptitude.
- Candidate comparison- even the most resilient of phone interviewers will admit they begin to get fatigued after 7 or 8 interviews and this can bias the way they evaluate candidates. Having candidates record their responses, means you don't have to ask the same questions over and over again and you can evaluate the candidates side-by-side.
- Time saving- not having to perform the interviews manually saves a lot of time, rather than 30 minutes, you can evaluate a candidate in 10. You can skip to the responses to your killer questions and see whether the candidates trip up.
- Sharing with colleagues- recorded responses allow you to get the opinions of colleagues without them having to be there, this can give you a much more rounded opinion of a candidate while avoiding the difficulty of getting everyone in the same room.
With most people now having a reliable internet connection and access to a webcam, the convenience and relative low cost of video interviewing make sense on both sides. With the introduction of front-facing cameras on most smart-phones and the everyone becoming more accustomed to communicating through webcam platforms like Skype, it's only a matter of time before more organisations beginning using video interviews for candidate screening.
Posted by: John Kleeman in Untagged on
18 Nov 10
I attended an HR-XML community event last week in London, and would like to share my experience with HR-XML and highlight how it could be interesting to the wider recruitment community.
HR-XML (www.hr-xml.org) is an independent organization which creates HR interoperability standards. It defines XML standards which allow HR software to easily communicate and interoperate.
Just like the computer wireless standards allow any laptop or mobile device to connect to any wireless network, HR-XML standards allow you pass information between different HR software packages and give standard data formats for HR data.
HR-XML has made good traction in adoption - with 64 companies being members and 74 companies having certified software against the standard.
I'm Chairman of Questionmark (www.questionmark.com) and we provide software for assessment - providing an assessment management system that lets you easily create and deliver quizzes, tests, exams and surveys. We've supported exporting assessment results in HR-XML format since 2005, so you can take results from assessments delivered on our platform and bring them into other systems. We've found HR-XML to be an effective organization to work with and get certified against.
Posted by: Alan Whitford in Untagged on
17 Nov 10
What are the questions most often asked of any recruiter (or recruitment guru) who espouses the benefits of using social media in recruitment:
- Does it actually work?
- Can I actually hire somebody by using Social Media?
- Where does direct sourcing fit into this mix?
- Is it really an integrated approach or just another series of 'latest greatest' attempts to change the recruitment continuum?
Lennart Sloof, a keynote speaker at Social Recruiting Conference 2010 in London on 30 November, is going to share not only the strategy and tactics that he delivers as Manager Online Employer Marketing (formerly known as ‘e-Recruitment team’) at Deloitte in The Netherlands, but will discuss what they have spent in all channels: job boards, headhunting, contingency agencies and social media and, most importantly, how they measure the Return on Investment (ROI) of the success of each channel. Today his team is working on a daily basis on content management for the career site and all social media platforms. Everything is being monitored by Google Analytics, which results in optimization as a never ending process. Lennart and his team are preparing the Deloitte recruitment team to adopt these new online recruitment sources and make it part of their daily routines. You can listen to his philosophy and session preview in the video below or on RCEURO.COM at http://bit.ly/aiezh5.
This is exactly why Vic Okezie and Alan Whitford have created Social Recruiting Conference 2010, bringing 10 Corporate HR/Recruitment leaders together to share their journeys in creating and implementing social recruiting and direct sourcing strategies. Our audience is coming from across Europe, representing FTSE and Global 250 companies and mid-size employers. Lennart's speaker colleagues will showcase innovative developments in direct sourcing, how to get the best out of LinkedIn and Facebook and share their own journeys, including the bumps in the road as well as the successes.
We believe that delegates will leave at the end of the day with the answer to the question: Does Social Recruiting actually deliver? YES.
What do you think? What are your experiences? Join us on 30 November by registering at Social Recruiting Conference 2010, watch the live video stream hosted on RCEURO.COM and start contributing to the Twitter debate now on the event hashtag: #SRCONF.
Posted by: David Martin in Untagged on
17 Nov 10
Broadbean Mobilises Talent Acquisition
Broadbean Technology, the global provider of job distribution and candidate response analysis technology, recognised the new trend of rapid Mobile Internet growth which is driving evolution in online recruitment. It is well documented that Mobile Internet usage will overtake desktop Internet usage within 3 years and is tightly aligned with Social Networking.
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Broadbean is dedicated to ensuring its clients are at the forefront of online recruitment technology and it sees going mobile as one of the biggest challenges facing recruiters and employers. The company is therefore pleased to announce a partnership with the global leading mobile recruiting provider Allthetopbananas.com. This strategic alliance enables Broadbean’s launch of a world class mobile recruiting product that will enable clients to mobilise their recruitment brand, attract new pools of talent and capitilise on this evolutionary shift in job seeker behavior.
David Martin, Managing Director at Allthetopbananas.com commented “As Mobile Internet grows the recruitment industry must adapt to the behavioral changes of candidates towards online consumption. Mobile provides immediacy and privacy, which is a powerful combination for those looking for work. Broadbean’s existing services and their dedication to staying at the forefront of technology, make the company a perfect partner for our Mobile Recruiting solutions. We look forward to further developing Mobile services with Broadbean, and helping the recruitment industry take full advantage of this rapidly growing channel.”
Broadbean’s new service provides dedicated apps starting with iPhone, iPad and Google Android. The offering includes a range of job search options (such as location, salary & job title) for candidates, as well as the unique ability to apply from the mobile device itself.
With these new applications, Broadbean’s clients will have opportunity to increase their reach far beyond their own career site, maximizing the reach of Apple and Google.
According to Dan Martin, Managing Director, Broadbean Technology, “Broadbean has always prided itself on staying at the forefront of evolving candidate sourcing technology and we see mobile as one of the biggest changes in online recruitment in the last 10 years. As the leader in the provision of sourcing technology to the recruitment industry we see this as a key value added service to our clients. The choice of Allthetopbananas.com as our partner was an obvious one given its pedigree in providing easy to use and cost effective mobile recruitment solutions.”
Posted by: Philip McMullan in Untagged on
17 Nov 10
It’s that time of year again when perfectly sensible people men grow outlandish facial hair to help raise money for The Prostate Cancer Charity – yes Movember is upon us once more.
This year recruitment IT guru Raymond Pennie, who is Commercial Director of Kamanchi, is going for a funky Mexican number, and aims to raise vital funds from his generous colleagues in the recruitment sector.
“My Dad had prostate cancer last Christmas and he pulled through after treatment at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary so this is a cause close to my heart,” says Raymond. “But on a serious note please donate what you can or else I’m not going to shave it off until 2012.”
The increased development in technology in recent years has resulted in employees being able to work anywhere and anytime – from home, the airport, on holiday and so on. More and more people work from home permanently and some work from home on set days per week allowing their work and home life to co-exist.
I came across an article recently in Grapevine magazine discussing this issue and it revealed that one in five workers are in fact not allowed to do so. This got me thinking about whether or not this should be the case –should companies be offering this to all and is it a good idea?
The article explains that research by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) found that 4.5 million workers wish to work from home on some days a week but are not given the option to do so. We all know that some work simply could not be done from home, but for those jobs that can be there appears to be great benefits.
The TUC argue that allowing employees to work from home will result in “Better staff recruitment and retention; improved motivation and productivity; improving the quality and reputation of the service; reduction of sickness absence and travel costs; and infrastructure cost savings”.
So is this true? We don’t believe that all companies should suddenly allow their team to work from home on a permanent basis – interaction with your co-workers is key. However we do relate to what the TUC are saying and believe that a large part of the issue surrounding working from home is trust.
Posted by: Simon Lewis in Untagged on
28 Oct 10
Poor applicant response rates are the result of ineffective job briefs
Instead of lamenting the quality of applicant response, recruiters should take more care when advertising their vacancies
Recruiters who advertise ineffective job content deserve a poor applicant return. There, I said it.
Whether you have an existing Job Board, or you are looking to set up a new platform, Job Board Software is a term you will have heard or seen many times before, but often people are confused with the options available and what is best for them.
Which option is best for my company?
Which approach suits you will come down to a series of questions:
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Do you want to launch a job board quickly?
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Do you want to reduce the element of risk?
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Do you want a solution which is tried and tested?
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Are you happy to use a more standard design?
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Do you want an upgrade path?
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Are you on a budget or looking for an affordable payment plan?
To read the full article and find out what the pro's and con's for each option are please click here:
'Job Board Solutions - Bespoke v Software '
Posted by: Alan Whitford in Untagged on
21 Oct 10
60-70 people have descended on South London at The Spring community centre in Vauxhal, to discuss social media in HR, 
organised by Gareth Jones and Jon Ingham under the ConnectingHR Unconference brand.
Five streams take people off into discussion groups every hour or so. Each track has been defined by the participants and cover such topics as trust in HR, management value, restrictions on the use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter on company equipment and on company time, who 'owns' the social media policy and more. There are a number of Twitterers active all day, which can be followed on the Twitter hashtag; #CHRU. Charlie Elise is blogging live for HRZone.
I took part in a stream on Diversity - can social media impact a company's hiring and employee diversity? led by Klothilde Ganzer, Human Resources Consultant , Goodwille Limited Twitter handle: @kganzer
Some of our questions and thoughts:
- Your social media sphere can really only reflect your actual community of contacts and will not cross over diversity barriers in and of itself
- Is social media take-up driven or limited by economic factors, i.e access to broadband and PCs, or the high cost of smartphones?
- Can you cross over the barriers by focussing on topics or tasks, that would bypass the community barriers?
- How does a company reflect the diversity of its customer base in its hiring and employee values and processes?
Other topics covered so far
After the two morning sessions, we gathered together to talk about some of the hot topics.
- How can Social Media show an ROI for the business?
- Companies need to have a culture of trust before they can begin to embrace social media
- This trust goes down to individual employees - if you do 'talk' about your employer via social media, be responsible and informed about your employer.
- Most company management is about control, whereas social media is about letting go of control and being completely open and transparent.
- Can social media ever be 'controlled'?
- The transparency of social media challenges management and HR ethos of privacy.
- Employees will now engage via social media with each other - the 'water cooler' has gone global.
- Companies can no longer control the means of communication (telephone, email) with the growth of smartphones - employees can communicate anywhere, anytime, all the time.
Social Influencers in HR
Jon announced an Unconference activity to try and identify Social Influencers in HR - an adhoc campaign with contributions of the delegates. This could be more relevant than most 'top 100 influencers' lists, which may be only a reflection of online reach, tweets and posts. These should be people who are representative of who we think are top influencers of social and HR policy. After everyone gets their thoughts up on the wall, we will all vote at end of day for our top 10 - which should be of interest.
Posted by: Jim Lynch in Untagged on
19 Oct 10
Earlier this year, I travelled to London to visit Bullhorn’s UK Managing Director, Peter Linas, and his growing team at our UK headquarters. During my trip, I had a number of in-depth discussions with Bullhorn clients, prospects and Bullhorn Marketplace partners.
Talent management is one of the most hotly discussed topics in the online recruitment community. Although Steven Hankin of McKinsey & Company's ‘War for Talent' was first coined back in 1997, a rising market means that effective talent management and talent attraction continues to have a direct impact on a businesses ability to maximise opportunities.
Posted by: Michelle Rea in Untagged on
12 Oct 10
What exactly is Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0?
Web 1.0 - the beginning of the web, the basics. It provided information with little interaction, visitors could not give feedback. It consisted more of broadcasting, one-way communications. The most user interactive activities were chat and instant messaging.
Web 2.0 - the web as we know it today. Social very social. User interaction is transparent. Much of the online content is produced by the average user. Blogs, blogs and more blogs. We can provide our opinion everywhere with comment and publishing tools throughout. During this time the amount of web users exploded. The mobile is quickly becoming a main device to access the web 24/7, everywhere. We can sit, drink a coffee and check email for free at Starbucks (not Wayne’s).
Web 3.0 - the personalized web. The intelligent web. The virtual web. The semantic web. We will see that when we search for something we are looking for the search engines and company websites will be more intelligent to MY interests. So maybe I go to Google and I search for sport stores. Google already knows that I like soccer since I have conducted searches or read a lot of news about soccer. So when I search for the sporting goods store, I will also get prices for soccer balls and soccer clothes. We will also see more virtual worlds. Maybe I will have the option to go into the sporting good store exactly how it looks in person and pick out and buy all the items I need immediately instead of physically going to the store. We will spend much less time searching for information and products.
So what does all this mean for HR? It means that HR will have to become even more intuitive and intelligent. Company career sites need to know more about their visitors, their potential candidates before they search or click on anything. The information provided needs to be more dynamic and interactive directly related to the person who is visiting the site. So if I am an engineer living in France and visiting Nokia’s site, I want to see engineers that maybe live in France and work for Nokia. I want to meet them in the virtual part of Nokia’s site. In Nokia’s virtual office, I can see where the engineers sit, what they wear and if they have a ping-pong table I can play on. I will only want information that is related to me as an engineer and I will want to access it via my mobile.
So what does this all mean for recruitment agencies and job boards? A lot. Job sites struggle to be more personal. Few of them have even integrated the social web. Look at job matching for example, matching the right jobs to the right person is still a challenge for most of the job boards. So how will the job boards start to transition to the point where they already know when a user visits their site what jobs they are already interested in? The job board leaders and their technologies have to dramatically change and explode here. They will have to think more like Google and Facebook search not exact word or association matching. They will have to already know what the interests are professionally and personally of the job seeker before they click on or search anything on their site. Candidates will want to virtually experience a company’s office. Oh ya and the job seekers will want full access to the site via their mobile. They will demand that exactly the right jobs pop into their pockets without even searching and they will want to apply for the job directly from their mobile.
Last but not least what does Web 3.0 mean for recruitment and HR technologies? Recruiting ATS and CRM technologies will have to make the world of recruiting and company branding easier, quicker and more productive. More about the candidate experience. They will have to integrate all the tools I have mentioned above so that recruiters can do what they do best, social human interaction via the phone and in person. The work that differentiates the best recruiters. Oh ya and did I say all HR technologies will have to make mobile transparent in everything they develop and launch?
I am excited about Web 3.0 as it will force all of us to think more about the candidate experience!
Have you already started to think Web 3.0?
Even butchers are turning to the web for work according to online recruitment specialist, HR Connexions.
Reporting an increase in the number of requests for manual jobs to be promoted online, the company has placed campaigns to find a butcher, cleaner and security guard in the last month alone.
Farmer Copleys, the Pontefract based Farm Shop, used an online advert to find a qualified butcher and was pleasantly surprised with both the calibre of applicant and ease of the selection process.
Managing Director, Heather Copley said: "We had never considered putting an advert for a butcher online but with nothing to lose we thought that we may as well give it a go. I was so surprised with how simple the process was. The applicants were all suitably qualified and the hardest decision was choosing between them."
She added: "Working with HR Connexions was easy and they took all of the hard work out of the process, which is ideal when you're trying to run a business and find new, suitably qualified employees. We will certainly use the team from HR Connexions again when we need to find candidates for other roles."
