Being an Exhibitionist
It’s many years since I have manned an exhibition stand at the CIPD annual exhibition. I am really looking forward to this year as I return to three exciting days of smiling at people as they walk past our stand. Perhaps I am in a minority, but love the whole exhibition thing!
The only problem I have is making sure I go to the right place… I still think of the CIPD as having their conference and exhibition in Harrogate. Must remember to set the Sat Nav for Manchester!
The work involved in pulling an exhibition like this together seems vast. But for us it is a really good opportunity to tell the world about our Hunt4Staff.com business. As well as catching up with a few contacts I have not seen for far too long. So if you are in Harrogate… Sorry – Manchester this year, then do pop along and visit us on stand C12.
But seriously, going back to being an exhibitionist. It always amazes me how many of the stands have people sitting on the stand, the other side of a table, waiting for someone to approach them. I am sure this is not the way to make you exhibition & marketing strategy work for you. But at its core, this is about getting the right people for the right job. You’d expect us to get that bit right wouldn’t you!
Hope to see you in Manchester,
All the best,
Jason
Does Money Matter?
A few days ago, I wrote my blog about online job boards and the issue of location. I thought I’d continue on this theme and look at the way in which employers use salary when advertising jobs.
Let me start with a question.
Q – Would you still do your job if your employer did not pay you?
A – errr.. not sure I have to wait for your answer on that one do I!
I think we can fairly say that most of us would not keep doing our normal job without pay. Except for a few exceptionally wealthy, or perhaps rather strange individuals! But seriously, how many of you would apply for a job that did not pay the salary you want, or perhaps need, to earn? I think we can safely conclude it will be very few. So what has all this got to do with Job Boards.
Let me tell you. When most job seekers look online for their next role, they have a number of criteria in mind. Now one of those is location, as I explained in my last blog – The Trouble with Job Boards…
Another, and arguably the big one… is Money. It’s all about the money.
Now lets just take a step back and think about how Job Boards and internet searching works. If you read your local paper, it is quite simple to simply flick through the pages, glancing over the adverts which are in your area. There are probably a couple of pages of them. It’s quite easy to mentally sift the interesting from the er…. rubbish. Even if you pick up a specialist trade publication, you only have to turn through a small number of pages to review the roles available to you.
The internet isn’t like that. In order to write this blog, I had a quick look at Jobsite a couple of minutes ago. Now I can’t tell you how many live jobs Jobsite have, because Jobsite only tell you they have in excess of 5000 live jobs. However, to give you an idea, I did a quick search to find 975 adverts were placed in the last 4 hours alone. That should give you a clue as to how many are on-line. Another search shows me that over 5000 adverts have been placed today alone. Now I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t simply glance over 5000 adverts to sift through to the few that interest me. That’s where the job searching technology gets rather clever.
So, with the very best job boards, they have rather clever search capabilities. In a few minutes, I can build a search string which will sift through every single job on Jobsite. This search will tell me the roles which meet my target requirements. Just a few moments later, I know Jobsite have 388 roles within a 30 mile radius of my home. And that is only looking at those adverts placed within the past 7 days. Just to clarify, that is just looking at those roles within my specialist skill sector, Human Resources.
Now here is my question. Do you think I will narrow down the 388 to the ones that match my salary requirements before glancing through them all? You bet I will!
So, if this is the case, why oh why would any employer advertise a role without stating a salary range. The only answer I can come up with is they don’t fully understand the new world of internet based recruitment.
There are a few key criteria which will have a direct effect on the number of applicants you will see. Salary and location are right there at the top. So please, if you are thinking about advertising your next vacancy on the internet, make your recruitment budget work for you and do include the salary.
All the best
Jason
Job Vacancy: England Football Coach
As I sit here writing this post, I ought to start of with an admission. I am probably the only man in the UK who has no interest in football – honest its true!! Even Mrs P has complained that I don’t watch the England game with her when we play a national game! She tells me I should be more patriotic.
But seriously, as I hear the headlines about how well (or badly!!) we are doing, and what Wayne Rooney has to say about the fans, there are a few points we can think about regarding our national football coach. It seems to me whenever we play, (and lose) an international football tournament, we usually sack the England manager very shortly afterward. Now I don’t know whether Fabio Capello is any good or not – I assume he must be in order to be selected for the role in the first place. But here is the question – Why would anyone want to do that job?
Surely it has to be about attractive a job as being Labour Party Leader to replace Gordon Brown…. in the months running up to the 2010 general election? There are very good reasons why no one wanted to take over from him.
Now I am not saying those who support our national team should not expect the very best from our coach and players. But surely if we are to be the very best in this sport we need the very best candidates for important roles like our national manager. In order to do that we need to have the very best range of applicants who actually want the job. I am sure I recall prior to Capello being appointed the news headlines were full of famous football managers ruling themselves.
So what do I know about this? Well about football – absolutely nothing. About Recruitment I hope a thing or two!
We need to remember there are two parts – first Recruitment, then Selection. You can not select the right candidate from the shortlist available, if you do not first Recruit a pool of interested applicants from which to shortlist. I guess in Recruitment this is where the internet is changing everything. With the advance of job board and e-mail job alerts, the internet can make your vacancy available to the largest available pool of applicants available. Where we can’t have this wide pool of possible applicants, there is still an important reason to make the role as attractive as possible, and sell the benefits to possible applicants. And we need to make the role attractive whether we win or lose. After all, we only get the very best out of people when we provide the right environment for them to work in.
In my view, this will mean significant growth in online flat fee recruitment companies, like my own Hunt4Staff or James Caan’s Webrecruit. Will this be at the expense of traditional recruiters? I think not. I am very certain from my own experience there is always a place for a Recruitment Agency when a role is more challenging to fill. But when candidates are out there and using the web to circulate their CV’s, paying a flat fee of £595 to Hunt4Staff really ought to be more appealing than a few thousand pounds to a recruitment agency for an easy to fill role.
Does this mean I can recruit the next England Coach? I think not – that is one role which does still require a more in-depth approach. And as I write this a few hours before we play Germany, I am hoping we can still do well enough that he won’t need to be replaced quite yet!
All the best,
Jason
Sales Representative – A Job Title To Be Proud Of
There was a time when “Sales Representative” was one of the most respected job titles available, perhaps only beaten by “Sales Manager”. But something has happened. Something has changed. Why is it that we all, and I sadly include myself in this, try to hide the job role and call it a Business Development Executive, Client Relationship Manger or Account Manager. Even an old fashions desk based tele-sales role could now be re branded as an “internal client development executive.”
Well, I think I am turning into a grumpy old man and have not even reached 40! Turn the clock back I say… bring back the days when a sales man (or woman!) could be proud of their profession. After all, it is the Sales Rep who keeps the rest of us in work. No new business and we would all soon be out of work. So what has gone wrong?
Speaking as someone who was busy selling Kitchens and Double Glazing to supplement my income in my college days, I have no problem with commission based sales roles when they are done well. But we have all seen the very bad sales staff who plague us with poor telephone skills, pestering us to change our telecoms provider, or have a free trial of a water cooler. I think in essence we, the employers, have let our standards slip and put poorly trained people into roles they were not suited for then treated them badly – all in pursuit of extra sales. Too many sales employers have thought the job was unskilled and did not require training. Many have even “employed” computers or “robo-dailers” to make the inital sales calls for them. How many of us enjoy taking an automated phone call saying “press one if you would like a free quote” – I for one despair at this approach to sales and look forward to the death of this horrid development.
The result. No one wants to put themselves into this position. It’s a risk and a risk to far for many would be sales trainees, with poor conditions, poor training, poor reward and high stress. Why would you?
I say this whilst seeking two tele-sales staff. I look at the sales roles I have done over the years and think about the role. Not a challenging one, but with a basic salary and an OTE of high £20k’s to mid £30k’s – a well rewarded one for the right candidate. A role I would have been delighted to do in my early career!
Yes, it is cold calling, but what is wrong with that. Surely sitting at a desk talking to people for £30k a year ought to be appealing when you compare it to other local salary levels? Based in Hastings, with such high unemployment locally, you would think there would be a choice of applicants. But no. Having run two weeks worth of advertising for experienced applicants of this type of role – we have seen just a small handful of experienced applicants. And of those, none have yet responded to our request for interview.
So for my part, I now need to invent a new title for my sales role which in non offensive to those who are simply too nervous to apply for a “sales” role. I need to gently persuade them this is a telephone market research role with high bonus payments. Alas, we see how the once respected title of Sales Rep has disappeared.
I am now recruiting for a telephone market research and data cleansing administrator!
A sad day for the best profession in the world.
All the best,
Jason
Fit for work?
I sit here with my notebook editing my blog, ensuring my inhaler is within close reach, and I have my warm lemsip and honey on my coffee table. As Mrs P comes home she will ask me again whether I will go to see the doctor tomorrow.
Well, as I thought about this I am almost tempted do go and see how the new “fit notes” might change corporate sick leave. I have now been breathless for over two weeks, with really bad asthma because of an allergic reaction to my mother in law. Actually that is unfair, and I will get into trouble for that…. so let me correct myself. I am allergic to the two golden retrievers she brought with her when she visited a couple of weeks ago. But seriously, our world is so very busy at the moment I don’t have time to be ill! So, I go to work come what may.
Now the reality is I go to work when rather unwell because I want to. I might argue I need to, but I am sure in reality they would cope. It is because I feel I should. Because there are things I can usefully do and they need doing.
So, why am I writing all this today. Well it occurred to me the new “Fit Note” has arrived. Apparently my doctor, or yours for that matter, will no longer sign you off as sick with a two week sick note. Instead he will assess what sort of work you are capable of, and write a note for your employer informing them what you can do.
It will be interesting over the coming weeks and months to see if this change from “sick notes” to “fit notes” will change the culture of our doctors taking sympathy on us and signing us off work, just because we ask them to. I have to admin a certain amount of cynicism on this one I am afraid!
I am almost fascinated enough to go and ask be signed off with my chronic asthma.
However, I have just been reminded me of the new drugs I was prescribed on Friday. Rather than a new inhaler, I was given a “turbohaler”! Clearly with my new “Turbohaler” I am in for a speedy recovery and wont need a fit note after all.
Vote Perry… well almost
A few months ago we were asked to submit a proposal for a contract to the Department of Work & Pensions. I usually like to be critical of our Labour Government… but on this occasion James Purnell came up with a great idea just before he resigned from Gordon Brown’s cabinet.
He recognised that the Job Centre Plus network was not best placed to help newly unemployed professionals. His conclusion was that whilst many day-to-day roles would be readily understood by the Job Centre Staff, more senior ones would not. This was so well described by a friend of mine – a Management Accountant who had the misfortune to lose his job. I recall well the day Graham had an argument with his local job centre trying to explain the difference between a “sales” account manager, and a “financial” accounts manager. Despite this his local Job Centre still tried to send a qualified management accountant for two or three sales jobs!
Anyway, I digress. The end result is I submitted ASL Recruitment’s bid for the contract as an online offering, partnering up the project with a very good friend and business associate, Richard Alberg. Branded as MyWorkSearch.co.uk we started delivering the DWP contract in October 2009.
In our first month we handled about 80 referrals from JobCentrePlus offices up and down the country. Just four months later in January 2010, we are handling hundreds of new referrals every single week. And here is the bit where I ask for your help. We have done so very well with this project, that we decided to enter MyWorkSearch.co.uk into the LinkedIn European Business Awards. And we have made it to the finals!
So here is where I cross my political canvassing experience with my business… Please vote for us! Simply click here and vote Alberg.
All the best
Jason
You can Read Richard’s blog at http://blog.alberg.co.uk/
Tweetcruitment
Many of my more regular followers will now about my interest in technology, and how this has contributed to our new venture, Hunt4Staff.com. Every so often I find something in the technology world which really excites me. So, I thought I’d tell you about one of the latest.
In my line of work, you regularly get approached by the major job boards. I don’t think a week goes by without one of the major job boards attempting to sell us their latest offering. And it is not everyday you find something that appears to be really different and an exciting step forward in the market.
Well, in my opinion the age of the job board is changing and there are some new forces in the online job advertising world. One such company is Incisive Media who have launched twitterjobsearch. We discovered this new site whilst developing our online strategy for our new venture, Hunt4Staff.com.
Now first of all I thought, so another job board…. and what is all the fuss about twitter anyway? However, I then started tweeting and began to understand the power of twitter. When you look a little closer and see the power of this new site it is very exciting for recruiters. Perhaps even a little concerning for the major job boards. Twitterjobsearch ”crawl” across your website, or any other site they wish to with job adverts. From this they post job on their site, creating a link to the original advert, whether it is on your own corporate site or perhaps even on one of the major job boards. They then “tweet” the vacancy for you on your corporate twitter account.
So, their service does not replace anything you already do. Alternatively, if you simply “tweet” a vacancy with a reference t the URL of the advert, twitterjobsearch see the tweet and include the job on their site – amazing!
This probably does not sound all that exciting, until you consider the power and growth of twitter. Simply by “tweeting” your own job adverts, or getting Incisive to do it for you, you have probably tapped into the largest source of candidates on the globe. Now that is impressive. Couple this with the twitterjobsearch map, and this has the potential to become one of the big sites in recruitment advertising within the next few years.
Well, I can tell you we will be using twitterjobsearch for both ASL and Hunt4Staff. If you are serious about your recruitment advertising then I would recommend you talk to Adrian at twitterjobsearch. alternatively, as you might expect, you can follow him on twitter @IllSimianAward.
And I should add, I’m not on commission for Adrian – just very impressed by his product and how he looks after his customers.
All washed out…
Well it has been an interesting week on the weather front. I really love the Lake District and one of my favourite holiday destinations is the village of Grasmere. Watching on the news the pictures of Cockermouth on the TV has been very distressing.
However down in Hastings, about as far as you can get from Cockermouth we have had our own difficulties. My week started with arriving in the office on Monday morning to find our office had developed a leaking roof. Despite being a five-story building and us occupying the ground floor…. we had water coming through the ceiling and running down the wall whenever the heavens opened! It is not often you feel a need to take your umbrella “in” the office… but we really had to this week!
The being rained on theme I hope only relates to the weather! Beyond this we seem to be having a great week and going from strength to strength. The big area for us at the moment is providing job search support through the JobCentrePlus network. We are offering an online solution to any unemployed professional, funded by the Department of Work & Pensions to give you all the tools and techniques to find your next role. For more information, simply click on our online site and sign up for a free trial. We then give you a letter to take to your local JobCentrePlus so they provide you with our services free of charge.
Essentially, we are providing you with assistance with your CV, interview techniques, networking skills and how to use the internet for your job search. Visit our site for more information.
If only our landlord had fixed the roof when the sun was shining we would not have the down pour in our office. Lets hope the economic recovery is in a better state.
All the best,
Jason
So where have I been? And what have I learnt?
Let’s start with an apology. When you decide to write a blog, you try very hard to ensure it is updated regularly. Over the past few weeks I am afraid I failed on this. For some months now we have been working on the launch of www.hunt4staff.com. The last few weeks before the launch of a new business can be so frantic… And I am afraid it is my blog that suffered when my time was squeezed.
But I am back! Well, almost – this is a brief entry to my blog before I take a well needed holiday!
It has finally happened. This week the day we have been waiting for has come. Our new recruitment venture has started and www.hunt4staff.com is up and running! I always enjoy a business start up. It can be so very exciting as all the things you have been working on for so many months come together in a perfectly planned and seamless way… Or so goes the theory!
The birth of this new venture lives up to my expectations. For those of you who have not yet visited the site, we are offering a flat fee recruitment advertising and candidate sifting service. Perhaps the best comparison to our new venture is James Caan’s webrecruit business. Competing with James Caan could obviously be a challenge, but I always like a challenge.
Anyway, as ever the birth of www.hunt4staff.com was a difficult one! The website was planned down to a fine detail with a target date for launch… And it overran! Not down to our web developer I should add, but some late discoveries about compatibility with different web browsers! But thanks to Malcolm at www.torrance.it for his work, and to Mary at www.mandmcreative.co.uk for the brand design.
Then we started exploring our social marketing tools. Whilst we were days away from the launch, someone (who I won’t name!) found our site and thought it so impressive they shared it on facebook! Within minutes we had our first candidate registration! Far too early for us as we were not ready to unveil the site and had not completed the submission forms. But a useful lesson about the power of social networking sites! We have to master harnessing this powerful tool.
Finally we ventured into a whole new area of email marketing. I have been delighted with the creative work of our marketing partners, and hope to have a long and successful partnership with them with our www.hunt4staff.com site. However I really have learned a thing or two about buying mailing lists! And trying to ensure you are getting your targeting criteria right is enough to give you a headache! I would recommend you find a very experienced expert to work with before you attempt this minefield!
But it is born. www.hunt4staff.com is now ready for business and we are looking forward to filling a void in the market. Those who want to recruit, but not able to justify the fees for high quality recruitment consultants.
I hope to be able to tell you all about our successes in future blogs.
Now we are in business I am off for a well earned holiday. Well it is school half term week, and Tenerife is rather nice this time of year!
All the best,
How To Be A Benefits Cheat
A few weeks ago, I wrote in my blog about the problems of getting the long term unemployed back into work. In “Temporary Work is Good for the Economy”, I wrote about the “Benefit Busters” series on Channel 4 and the work done by A4e to help the long term unemployed back into work.
Well today, I thought I’d continue on this theme.
Many of you will have heard about how the government (or indeed all political parties) wish to be tough on benefits polices. Many a politician has talked about benefits being conditional on those claiming meeting minimum standards. There have been suggestions of claimants having to do courses, perhaps even being compelled to do some sort of voluntary work or community role in order to retain their benefits. I am often left wondering if such an approach could work.
Today, I was given some shocking information. I say this, but I should add it only shocked me momentarily whilst I considered this was of course the public sector and government policy we are dealing with. Then my shock turned to the usual unsurprised, but appalled at how badly wrong we have got things with benefits policy here in the UK.
Before I quote this as fact, I should point out I have not sought to verify this before writing my blog. I am only repeating what I have been told from different recruiters. I am sure if I am wrong, someone will post a comment to this blog. I do hope someone can correct me on this one!
Now, here comes the story.
Apparently, anyone claiming benefits will have their benefits stopped if they refuse a reasonable job offer.
Well, I have been told this is untrue! The simple explanation is that the job centre staff will only suspend benefits if it is a job they themselves have advertised! Yes, the job centres claim not to have enough information or evidence to take action on a benefits claimant who has applied for a job privately – either through a paper, an online websites or an agency - then refused a job offer.
I understand that benefits claimants are compelled to make a certain number of applications to retain their benefit. All they need to do is have letters from the relevant employer or agency, confirming their application to keep their benefits.
Having learned all of this, here is my advice for someone wishing to claim benefits and not work.
1. Apply for a job with an agency or direct with an employer, but never through the job centre.
2. If offered a job, simply don’t turn up.
This way, the terribly nice people at the job centre will apparently not be able to remove your benefits and you can demonstrate you have been looking for work.
Scary, but apparently true.
If however you are seriously looking for work, then do look for suitable roles at ASL Recruitment’s website. If you are a benefits cheat, please don’t bother.
About Jason Perry
I started my career within HR & Training, and became a qualified member of the CIPD and am now a Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Personnel & Development. In 1994 I started Assessment Systems – a business providing specialist consultancy in the area of Assessment Testing and Psychometrics. In 1999 we launched our second company, ASL Recruitment. We took the experience of providing assessment expertise and started trying to transform the high street recruitment market. In addition, we handled a number of senior and specialist roles. In 2009, we launched our new venture, Hunt4Staff.com delivering an online flat fee recruitment service for just £595. An active member of TEAM, The Employment Agents Movement, I sit on the National Executive of this organisation and am a Regional Director in the South East of England. I enjoy living in rural East Sussex with my wife and two daughters and take a far too enthusiastic, and perhaps even an interfering interest in politics.
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