As one door closes… Another opens
It’s been an interesting week in my world. Just a couple of days ago we heard the result of a competitive trial against one of our major competitors. We face these frequently at hunt4staff.com and are reasonably relaxed when a client goes this route, knowing the work we have put in to make our service amongst the best in the industry.
When we heard our service was better than our competitor, we were pleased, although not that surprised. Nor were we surprised to hear our applicant tracking system was more sophisticated than our competitors product. So all in all something to be pleased with you’d think.
But no. We have handled a number of successful projects for this client and they have always been delighted with our service. Yet this week they chose to select our competitor based on their perceived brand. A brand which is largely built on the celebratory status of the dragon investor in that flat fee recruitment business.
Now I found this decision quite odd and rather disappointing. But you have to respect the decisions a client makes and move on. My challenge was how to sell the positive to my team who might be devastated to lose an account in such a way.
So this is how I explained it. If a business such as hunt4staff.com can achieve a service and product which is better than that delivered by a business with all the investment and resources a “dragon” can add then we have something to be rather pleased about. And if this one client rejected us on the basis of their brand alone, then there would be many more who would choose us simply based on the quality of service we have clearly established ourselves as excellent.
Now as a director you can seek to persuade your staff of the merits of such an argument, and they may even smile and try to agree with you. But you need a little more to make such a loss less painful.
Today, just two days later we did that. A major multinational organisation in exactly the same field has decided to place their recruitment business with us. An account which is probably ten times the size of the one we lost on Wednesday.
So as one door closes, another opens… It’s a funny old world.
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
The Trouble with Job Boards…
As we start to get busier in our flat fee recruitment business, we begin finding the challenges we will face on a regular basis. The most interesting this week was realising just how little the business world appears to know about on-line advertising. Before we can persuade them to go on-line, we need them to understand how to make it work for them.
This week, I cam across a number of scenarios where potential clients simply didn’t understand enough about the on-line job advertising market to make the jump to internet based recruitment. Some of them made misinformed judgements about how to advertise, other no doubt missed out all together on the massive savings to recruitment budgets that can be made through on-line based recruitment.
So let me try to take some of the mystery away.
It’s all about location.
One of our prospective clients in the north of England has been struggling with the decision as to whether to use a flat fee recruiter like WebRecruit or our very own Hunt4Staff.com. Each time they face the decision, they back away from the considerable saving they could make deciding to pay large recruitment fees or significant costs of advertising in the regional newspapers. This week I understood why.
Our client, had previously rejected using the major internet job boards for advertising as they did not want to attract applicants from all over the country. He simply wanted relevant local advertising coverage for his job. He concluded, albeit wrongly, that picking a national based job board was like using a national newspaper. Something most employers would rarely do.
Wrong.
When you place an advert in a newspaper, the reader simply turns through the pages, glancing at the adverts on display. They pause when they see one that catches their eye and hopefully read more thoroughly. If it seems right for them, they apply. This is the old model of advertising. Before moving to internet based advertising you need to learn the new rules of recruitment. The rules of on-line recruitment.
Your Postcode Matters
I did a quick search on TotalJobs this morning to find they have 86,389 live vacancies! How on earth would a job seeker glance over each and every one of those adverts? Answer – They don’t. If my client had simply become the 86,290th advert to glance through, he would get very very few applicants. But it doesn’t work like that.
A job seeker builds a search to show the jobs which might be of interest to them. This means they narrow the 86,389 to ones which might suit them. Now I live in a rather rural part of the East Sussex Countryside, but when I asked TotalJobs how many of their 86,389 jobs where within 10 miles of me, I could only view 223. Even I can manage that.
Before you advertise, you need to work out how to target your ideal employee from their likely search criteria. Their preferred location needs to be right at the top of this list. So please, for the sake of your recruitment budget, please don’t ever advertise a role on the internet without including a postcode location. You’d be surprised just how many employers do.
Now…. I wonder if my local paper has 223 jobs this week?
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
But who will run the office?
A couple of days ago, I came up with a crazy idea. Now initially, I thought when I suggested a 100 mile walk to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Care, someone with more sense than me might try to stop me. But alas Mrs P seems to accept I am going to do this walk. And much to my surprise has even suggested she might join me for a few days of the walk! Why oh why has no one talked me out of this daft idea!
On top of this, I have had offers from Phillip Venn of Liquid Friday and Paul Dewick from First Growth. I think Phillip might even try the entire 100 miles! I think a few of our own staff at ASL Recruitment are going to take on at least a stage or so… so far this idea looks like it is developing fast!
We have also had positive signs from many other recruiters within TEAM that they will become involved in my hairbrain idea to walk 100 miles for charity. If anymore volunteer… who will be left to run the great TEAM Recruitment Businesses in the South East?
Now comes the worrying bit. I think it is only fair I declare to all those who are keen to join in this “expedition” that I know nothing about walking/hiking etc. I think the last time I got involved in any thing like this would have been when I was a scout about aged 13…. and I have to say that was a very very long time ago. If anyone involved has more knowledge than me in this area, please please do offer your help!
Now to my plan. My idea is to tackle the 100 miles of the South Downs Way in two stints. The first to be a Friday to Monday (so as to only dent two work days!) in early August, and second long weekend a few weeks later. This might seem a little lightweight to some dedicated walkers but to those like me who only usually walk to the car I think this is sensible. Now in preparation, I have taken the dog for a five mile walk this morning…. she spent the rest of the day recovering!
I have no idea yet whether it is sensible to try to camp along the route with a very light weight tent, or attempt to return to the comfort of my own bed each night so I am fully refreshed for each new day of walking. I have today ordered a guide-book to the South Downs Way and am hoping I might feel slightly more informed when I have read it! If any one has experience of such treks and can offer some input I would be delighted to hear from you.
Finally, lets not forget this is about charity. We are hoping to raise a lot of money for Macmillan Cancer Care. Now I thought I would liven this up a little. As Regional Director for TEAM, I thought I would offer an incentive. To the recruiter from my Region who raises the most sponsorship, I thought I would donate a bottle of champagne! I should warn you… I am quite partial to the stuff myself so you will have to work hard to raise more sponsorship than me to win the bottle!
I am really looking forward to this event coming together, and welcome hearing from those (please!!) with more experience than me in such walking expeditions.
All the best,
Jason
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.
Wave if you can see me!
Over the past week, I have been hearing from so many people about the new product from Google – Wave. I am told it will revolutionise the way we in Recruitment work. I have yet to see how it will change things here at ASL Recruitment, but I have to say first glimpse does look very positive.
About four weeks ago a very good friend of mine sent an e-mail. Very simply he said “I have invited you to join google wave.” Now normally I am quite a technophile and keep up to date with this stuff. But I have to admit, I had no idea what he was talking about. I even sent him a message back asking if it was like a mexican wave…. but online!
So, each day I eagerly awaited my invite. Sadly each day I was disappointed. Eventually I even posted an article on Google’s wave support site, only to be told that some wave invites were taking over three weeks to arrive! Anyway this week the waiting was over and the waving began…. or so I hoped.
I should add I spent last week at the TEAM national executive. As Regional Director for TEAM I attend these each quarter and we discuss to big issues in recruitment. No surprise that a number of people were asking each other over drinks in the bar what they knew about Wave. If only my invite arrived a week earlier.
Anyway, my invite arrived and I now have my google wave account. If anyone wants to wave to me, I am perryjasond@googlewave.com. But what does it do? Well I have to admit I am not totally sure and here is why. Google tell us they are limiting the number of users on Wave until the platform is stable. This essentially means I can not yet invite others to join wave, which in turn means I can only “wave” to the one person who invited me! Not really an opportunity to have a fair trial!
That being said, what I have seen looks very powerful. It is an advanced collaboration and information sharing tool. I can start a new “wave” which people I “wave” to can see, edit and update. I can embed documents, videos and files. The potential of this in recruitment could be huge. Could we e-mail, or wave, video interviews? Perhaps send candidate document or client documents which can be amended by all parties?
The simple answer is it is too early to tell without more users, but what I have seen so far looks very good and quite exciting. I am told I will get a few wave invites in the near future. If any of you are desperate to “wave” to me, then let me know here and I will send you an invite. Till then, I am afraid I will have to put my hand out the window and wave the old-fashioned way.
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,
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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