Check out www.jobsinpods.com
It is an uber cool jobsite that is essentially a job board, but using audio rather than text to share a message and advertise work at a firm, and the firm itself.
Another fine example of web 2.0 and how interactive recruiting is becoming. Matching technology and video are the most exciting areas of innovation for me at present in online recruitment, but this site deserves a mention. If used properly, recruitment advertising and web 2.0 should generate much stronger employment brands, as well as leading to better candidates.
I believe video is best used in the same format for erecruitment (ie employer driven content, not video resumes) and expect to help clients get to grips with implementing this in 2007. Basically what jobsinpods are doing is interviewing a recruiter about a position, recording the interview, and posting the audio file to their website, and even copying it onto the clients career site also if required.
I expect corporate recruiters to start asking line managers to describe their requisitions (on camera) and then embedding the video/audio into the actual job descriptions. So your jobseekers will be checking out a job on your website, and they'll see a little button saying "listen to our CEO describe our graduate fast-track program".
If anybody wants to beta this approach, get in touch and we can set it up for you and see what results are like. I'm sure that candidates will respond well and I hope we'll see leading recruiters experimenting with these tools shortly.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
Newspaper Recruitment Advertising and t'Internet
The buzz in online recruitment, well at least the jobsite side of things, seems to be a resurgence in newspaper job ads.
This isn't all too surprising given the number of traditional publishing houses that have acquired jobsites. Basically what I've seen coming down the pipe is a scenario whereby if you buy an online advert with a jobsite, they'll throw in a free copy of the advert in the newspaper.
What was you first thought? Mine was, "good value for money". The Sunday Times in South Africa have just launched such a program in conjunction with http://www.careerjunction.co.za/ which is SA's leading jobsite. Not sure what a posting costs, but let's assume $250, and they'll throw in a paper advert that costs triple that. Now I'm thinking great value!?
This demonstrates a few things, not least of which the ways in which traditional business models in recruitment are still learning how to adapt to the digital recruitment era, and also how complementary the two era's can actually be.
Guessing that the newspaper claims a higher quality of responses, and clearly has seen a decline in sales. I also imagine that they can't afford to run this promotion for very long as its designed to increase people using the site and to draw them back to the newspaper - but I also see this will have to bring the newspaper ad costs down a little bit in time. That has to be a great trend for recruiters.
I remember launching the online jobs section of the company website for a large search firm when there were only one or two job sites in the UK. Here we were a few hundred exec search consultants handling a thousand assignment across the globe, and not using the Internet. 75% of the staff probably didn't know how to use the Internet to be honest. This is only 11 years back so it's funny thinking about it now. Anyhow, back to when we decided it would be a good idea to put each of our assignments onto the company website.
There was much debate about whether clients paying $50,000 fees for exec search would be a little unhappy with us putting these jobs on the website; which previously had office telephone numbers, a client list, and little else. Luckily the CEO was 30-something so we got away with it. Clients didn't care of course, so long as we delivered, but they wouldn't elect for it to happen, or request it, as of course they didn't understand the Internet thingy either at this stage. So what we did was made the decision for them. We stopped asking permission, put every brief online, and added 100 pounds sterling to every retainer invoice that went out of the door.
The revenue increase wasn't huge, but it was a healthy and profitable move, it was innovative at the time, and it helped us find a few candidates along the way.
I think it's great to see what has changed in a decade and how the Internet continues to change how we operate. In the mid-late 90's we discretely popped a copy of an advert onto our website which was a service client would pay $50 grand for, and added 100 pounds for the privilege. By they way if the brief was to be put into a newspaper, they'd get charged another $15,000 for that plus 12.5%.
Fast-forward 10 years and jobsites are starting to be used to push packages including a freebie newspaper classifieds ad.
The pace of change is also gaining speed, and I think we'll see in only a year or 2 down the line, that jobsites will have to be bundling recruiter video services for hiring managers to be able to visually sell an opportunity. This along with an online job posting, a virtual way of allowing candidates to search for a job and then really determine if the company is for them before they apply - has to be the way forward.
I'll write more about video recruitment in my next post.
In a related little soundbite a read that Harvey Nash have just launched an online 'newspaper' (their name not mine) for executive jobs. A slight variance on a jobsite, they're really trying to find a new way to get senior execs online to search for jobs, without having to go to a job board. Actually its what I was doing with my old search firm a decade ago - but that wasn't my point, rather that people are still trying to merge the old and the new. They're scared of fully utilising the Internet and having to reduce their fees, but also appreciate that execs are now online but perhaps need to be served the job content in a VIP format.
This isn't all too surprising given the number of traditional publishing houses that have acquired jobsites. Basically what I've seen coming down the pipe is a scenario whereby if you buy an online advert with a jobsite, they'll throw in a free copy of the advert in the newspaper.
What was you first thought? Mine was, "good value for money". The Sunday Times in South Africa have just launched such a program in conjunction with http://www.careerjunction.co.za/ which is SA's leading jobsite. Not sure what a posting costs, but let's assume $250, and they'll throw in a paper advert that costs triple that. Now I'm thinking great value!?
This demonstrates a few things, not least of which the ways in which traditional business models in recruitment are still learning how to adapt to the digital recruitment era, and also how complementary the two era's can actually be.
Guessing that the newspaper claims a higher quality of responses, and clearly has seen a decline in sales. I also imagine that they can't afford to run this promotion for very long as its designed to increase people using the site and to draw them back to the newspaper - but I also see this will have to bring the newspaper ad costs down a little bit in time. That has to be a great trend for recruiters.
I remember launching the online jobs section of the company website for a large search firm when there were only one or two job sites in the UK. Here we were a few hundred exec search consultants handling a thousand assignment across the globe, and not using the Internet. 75% of the staff probably didn't know how to use the Internet to be honest. This is only 11 years back so it's funny thinking about it now. Anyhow, back to when we decided it would be a good idea to put each of our assignments onto the company website.
There was much debate about whether clients paying $50,000 fees for exec search would be a little unhappy with us putting these jobs on the website; which previously had office telephone numbers, a client list, and little else. Luckily the CEO was 30-something so we got away with it. Clients didn't care of course, so long as we delivered, but they wouldn't elect for it to happen, or request it, as of course they didn't understand the Internet thingy either at this stage. So what we did was made the decision for them. We stopped asking permission, put every brief online, and added 100 pounds sterling to every retainer invoice that went out of the door.
The revenue increase wasn't huge, but it was a healthy and profitable move, it was innovative at the time, and it helped us find a few candidates along the way.
I think it's great to see what has changed in a decade and how the Internet continues to change how we operate. In the mid-late 90's we discretely popped a copy of an advert onto our website which was a service client would pay $50 grand for, and added 100 pounds for the privilege. By they way if the brief was to be put into a newspaper, they'd get charged another $15,000 for that plus 12.5%.
Fast-forward 10 years and jobsites are starting to be used to push packages including a freebie newspaper classifieds ad.
The pace of change is also gaining speed, and I think we'll see in only a year or 2 down the line, that jobsites will have to be bundling recruiter video services for hiring managers to be able to visually sell an opportunity. This along with an online job posting, a virtual way of allowing candidates to search for a job and then really determine if the company is for them before they apply - has to be the way forward.
I'll write more about video recruitment in my next post.
In a related little soundbite a read that Harvey Nash have just launched an online 'newspaper' (their name not mine) for executive jobs. A slight variance on a jobsite, they're really trying to find a new way to get senior execs online to search for jobs, without having to go to a job board. Actually its what I was doing with my old search firm a decade ago - but that wasn't my point, rather that people are still trying to merge the old and the new. They're scared of fully utilising the Internet and having to reduce their fees, but also appreciate that execs are now online but perhaps need to be served the job content in a VIP format.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Nation's capabilities tied to Manpower - the 8pm rule
I was in Kuwait a fair bit in the last two months, and was quite encouraged to see a lot of activity from the government sector relating to employment and labour.
The Arab Times on Sunday April 22nd reported on Kuwait hosting a regional forum to discuss ways to limit the negative impact of imported labour. Much of the talk from a previous forum on foreign manpower was on bringing the law further in line with the International Labour Organisation, and how to boost Kuwait's cooperation with GCC manpower.
All sounding good so far then.
Saleh Al-Shaikh form the Labour Affairs Ministry of Kuwait went on to detail that some of the discussion points were related to studies into nationalising the workforce, understanding unemployment, and working out ways to keep foreign workers money in the country. Slightly concerning last point, however that is a key role of governments to fuel their own economies, so fair enough.
"Nation's capabilities tied to Manpower" was the lofty title of another piece in the Kuwaiti press, where two Ministers said that the country's capabilities relied on its qualified and trained people, and that the Ministry had great interest in training.
So much hope, and Kuwait has so much potential to deliver on some of these ambitions, but then last week they announced that women can't work beyond 8pm. Well I guess they did say Man-power, nobody said anything about Womenpower. How this is going to affect the hospitality/retail/healthcare etc sectors I don't think anybody really knows yet. What about crew working for Kuwait Airways - or is it okay so long as you're off the ground or in the airport, or in a taxi on the way to the airport. What about nurses, do we have to be sick before 7:30 - or only have babies before sundown?
Lot's to explore here, but it doesn't seem as though this law may have to be revised ever so slightly.
The Arab Times on Sunday April 22nd reported on Kuwait hosting a regional forum to discuss ways to limit the negative impact of imported labour. Much of the talk from a previous forum on foreign manpower was on bringing the law further in line with the International Labour Organisation, and how to boost Kuwait's cooperation with GCC manpower.
All sounding good so far then.
Saleh Al-Shaikh form the Labour Affairs Ministry of Kuwait went on to detail that some of the discussion points were related to studies into nationalising the workforce, understanding unemployment, and working out ways to keep foreign workers money in the country. Slightly concerning last point, however that is a key role of governments to fuel their own economies, so fair enough.
"Nation's capabilities tied to Manpower" was the lofty title of another piece in the Kuwaiti press, where two Ministers said that the country's capabilities relied on its qualified and trained people, and that the Ministry had great interest in training.
So much hope, and Kuwait has so much potential to deliver on some of these ambitions, but then last week they announced that women can't work beyond 8pm. Well I guess they did say Man-power, nobody said anything about Womenpower. How this is going to affect the hospitality/retail/healthcare etc sectors I don't think anybody really knows yet. What about crew working for Kuwait Airways - or is it okay so long as you're off the ground or in the airport, or in a taxi on the way to the airport. What about nurses, do we have to be sick before 7:30 - or only have babies before sundown?
Lot's to explore here, but it doesn't seem as though this law may have to be revised ever so slightly.
Copy Cat Recruitment Systems
This kind of carries on from my recent post, so it's going to be a short one. We've noticed a trend, not a new one, but as MENA is an emerging market, it has kind of taken on a new life here recently.
When companies are investigating and buying recruitment systems, all too often the people writing the RFP's are doing so for the first time - or certainly for the firms first hiring platform. As we know it isn't easy to succinctly list a bunch of requirements, ranging from the wild to the sublime, and to do so in such a way that all vendors will give us the clearest answers. So what do you do?
Well, what some are tending to do is to use an RFP template from a vendor as it's a great time saver. Sure we've all tried to be so 'helpful' to prospects, but what companies need to be very careful of is that they don't end up selecting a product that they don't actually need or want. Even worse if it doesn't address many of the underlying issues.
Bedding in serious hiring platforms into companies with thousands of employees and hundreds of line managers takes time, and you often only get one shot at getting it right. Fair evaluation and selection is so imperative that many leading firms are outsourcing this piece to independent consulting firms, which is one of avoiding mistakes. Seems to make sense to me as it also prevents recruiters being sidetracked for a year doing the investigation, tender writing and selection. Whichever way you do it, take your time and be sure you are fairly evaluating the best options to your own requirements.
Let me know your own tender experiences, successful or otherwise?
When companies are investigating and buying recruitment systems, all too often the people writing the RFP's are doing so for the first time - or certainly for the firms first hiring platform. As we know it isn't easy to succinctly list a bunch of requirements, ranging from the wild to the sublime, and to do so in such a way that all vendors will give us the clearest answers. So what do you do?
Well, what some are tending to do is to use an RFP template from a vendor as it's a great time saver. Sure we've all tried to be so 'helpful' to prospects, but what companies need to be very careful of is that they don't end up selecting a product that they don't actually need or want. Even worse if it doesn't address many of the underlying issues.
Bedding in serious hiring platforms into companies with thousands of employees and hundreds of line managers takes time, and you often only get one shot at getting it right. Fair evaluation and selection is so imperative that many leading firms are outsourcing this piece to independent consulting firms, which is one of avoiding mistakes. Seems to make sense to me as it also prevents recruiters being sidetracked for a year doing the investigation, tender writing and selection. Whichever way you do it, take your time and be sure you are fairly evaluating the best options to your own requirements.
Let me know your own tender experiences, successful or otherwise?
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