What I refer to as talent scraping, or a squeeze, is becoming very noticeable today in Dubai and other leading GCC economies.
If you look in the job papers around the region you'll notice a couple of things. Firstly the volume of new recruitment firms each week is astonishing. Even if this is not new, it hasn't been running at this rate since 1999/2000. A lot of consultants are going out on their own, and the market will consolidate again once the boom slows down a little in 2009.
Secondly there are adverts for people living here to go work in developed economies such as the USA. What's interesting is that they are tapping up and trying to directly attract the skilled workers who have migrated here from MENA traditional (under-developed) sourcing markets such as India and the Philippines.
Add to this the growth in India's own economy and their efforts to attract non-resident Indians back to India - and you add a third level to the talent crunch. I wouldn't expect to see much movement back to the Philippines of their overseas workers, as they represent a massive part of the Filipino GDP (2 largest contributor I believe is remittances from overseas workers).
So with fast developing economies such as Dubai's now starting to feel inflation, and starting to lose knowledge workers, the need to develop local resources is more important than ever. The problem for Dubai is that the local population is so small that it can not meet the demand. All of this means we face a continual recruitment cycle where we're bringing a dozen people each month in the front door; whilst ten leave through the fire escape.
Qatar is facing the same pressures, with similar demographics and economic growth; whereas Saudi does at least have a large enough population to eventually stop the merry-go-round.
Companies are going to have to get their heads around the concepts of talent warehouses, just-in-time recruitment pipelines & robust talent retention strategies if they want to be stable between now and 2010.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Jobcasting - audio job boards
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.
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.
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?
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Recruitment System Tenders/RFP's - be careful out there!!
A word of warning for companies investing in recruitment management systems. I've seen too many firms struggle with a solution they have chosen, simply because they didn't really know what they wanted. The difficulty is in documenting the requirements which are often sophisticated, and writing it in such a way that vendor responses are properly evaluated and investigated. Many companies in the region are investing in ATS technologies for the first time, and so don't understand the many pitfalls.
A common mistake is to focus in one area and not understand the breadth of these solutions. An example would be to focus on functionality simply to make it easier for the jobseeker to apply, but to ignore Line Manager access to that data. That often leads to loads of CV's, but hiring managers being inundated with emails that haven't been vetted.
Often IT run a tender as they're buying software after all, but they don't understand recruitment at all. Of course everyone thinks if they've been to an interview then they understand recruitment, so they don't consult the business and the Recruiters when
writing the RFP. Recruiters (or Users) are brought in then to see the products on show, but often the scope of the solutions are very limited.
The opposite is more common, where Recruiters write a requirement, but of course the typical technical understanding of a recruiter is limited. Sure we all understand how to post a job ad online, and we may know about blogs and search engines, but data security, back-ups, storage, SLA’s, uptime, bandwidth, servers, systems integration??, the list goes on.
The risk potential is enormous, and I see many companies making mistakes in this area. You have to start of course by putting together a team, who will commit to the requirements gathering/tender/evaluation/selection/implementation process for a whole year, because often it takes that long. You have to ensure the team reflects the needs of all sides of the business, and that there is an agreed recruitment strategy or a vision of what recruitment should look like in 2-3 years.
It’s a tricky area, but the more effort you put into, the more chance there is of getting a solution that is fit for your firm. Good luck with those RFP’s!!
A common mistake is to focus in one area and not understand the breadth of these solutions. An example would be to focus on functionality simply to make it easier for the jobseeker to apply, but to ignore Line Manager access to that data. That often leads to loads of CV's, but hiring managers being inundated with emails that haven't been vetted.
Often IT run a tender as they're buying software after all, but they don't understand recruitment at all. Of course everyone thinks if they've been to an interview then they understand recruitment, so they don't consult the business and the Recruiters when
writing the RFP. Recruiters (or Users) are brought in then to see the products on show, but often the scope of the solutions are very limited.
The opposite is more common, where Recruiters write a requirement, but of course the typical technical understanding of a recruiter is limited. Sure we all understand how to post a job ad online, and we may know about blogs and search engines, but data security, back-ups, storage, SLA’s, uptime, bandwidth, servers, systems integration??, the list goes on.
The risk potential is enormous, and I see many companies making mistakes in this area. You have to start of course by putting together a team, who will commit to the requirements gathering/tender/evaluation/selection/implementation process for a whole year, because often it takes that long. You have to ensure the team reflects the needs of all sides of the business, and that there is an agreed recruitment strategy or a vision of what recruitment should look like in 2-3 years.
It’s a tricky area, but the more effort you put into, the more chance there is of getting a solution that is fit for your firm. Good luck with those RFP’s!!
One of Africa's Great Firms to Work For & Cyber Squatters
Hiring Solutions launched www.careersatceltel.com this week in a project which aims to make Celtel the best Internet recruiter in Africa. The first phase of the project seems to have launched well and rolls out now across fourteen countries and in various languages so definitely a benchmark careers portal in the making.
One shame was that the company planned on using celtelcareers.com, but looked it up and left it to a department to register. Two weeks went by and it was mysteriously snapped up by a cyber squatter.
This scam happens a lot. Basically when you're searching for career portal names for your company make sure you do your research discretely and if you have to check the availability of a name/URL on www.register.com or www.thename.co.uk then if you see a name you need then make sure you buy it immediately.
One shame was that the company planned on using celtelcareers.com, but looked it up and left it to a department to register. Two weeks went by and it was mysteriously snapped up by a cyber squatter.
This scam happens a lot. Basically when you're searching for career portal names for your company make sure you do your research discretely and if you have to check the availability of a name/URL on www.register.com or www.thename.co.uk then if you see a name you need then make sure you buy it immediately.
Recruitment Firms riding a wave..
..and fees seem to be getting fatter.
The feedback I'm getting from agencies and clients is that recruitment firms are raking in the deals at the minute, with ever increasing fees being earnt. This is normal in a growing market, but I do find it strange that so few major employers have realised they can employ internal head-hunters.
Sure firms are looking to technology to take on some of that role, but time and again they fail to let recruiters conduct true research assignments, they get too quickly drawn into admin tasks or 'special projects' and before you know it they too have to contract an agency to do their recruitment job for them.
The feedback I'm getting from agencies and clients is that recruitment firms are raking in the deals at the minute, with ever increasing fees being earnt. This is normal in a growing market, but I do find it strange that so few major employers have realised they can employ internal head-hunters.
Sure firms are looking to technology to take on some of that role, but time and again they fail to let recruiters conduct true research assignments, they get too quickly drawn into admin tasks or 'special projects' and before you know it they too have to contract an agency to do their recruitment job for them.
Oil & Gas Recruitment Innovation
The conference I presented at last week in Kuwait was poorly attended to be honest, however the quality of people there was quite good. A broad range of subjects were covered which is good for generalists attending to increase their knowledge, but no so for specialists who have specific problems to fix. One of the most interesting presentations was from the Oil & Gas sector.
The presenter talked about the shortage of students entering engineering disciplines at Universities. Compounded with the fact that the baby-boomers are due to retire in the coming 5 years; means that petroleum engineers and the like simply do not exist in the requisite numbers. This is clearly a massive worldwide problem for recruiters, so when you have to attract people to offshore fields and to less desirable countries you really have to be attractive. In the past salary has done the trick, but now employer branding and the recruitment process are critical also.
O&G recruiters are having to consider offering virtual status, so that new hires don't even have to leave their home countries and families, and allowing retirees to work 2-3 days a week. These workforce dynamics are new in the Middle East and it will be intriguing to see how many such appointments are actually made. This is a double-edged example of the crunch being caused by the Knowledge Economy. As the mature experienced heads are leaving the workforce, the new blood are choosing Law, Technology & Business degrees at Universities.
The War for Talent in this sector is entering a stage similar to that present in the Healthcare industry where we commonly see hospitals short of nurses.
The presenter talked about the shortage of students entering engineering disciplines at Universities. Compounded with the fact that the baby-boomers are due to retire in the coming 5 years; means that petroleum engineers and the like simply do not exist in the requisite numbers. This is clearly a massive worldwide problem for recruiters, so when you have to attract people to offshore fields and to less desirable countries you really have to be attractive. In the past salary has done the trick, but now employer branding and the recruitment process are critical also.
O&G recruiters are having to consider offering virtual status, so that new hires don't even have to leave their home countries and families, and allowing retirees to work 2-3 days a week. These workforce dynamics are new in the Middle East and it will be intriguing to see how many such appointments are actually made. This is a double-edged example of the crunch being caused by the Knowledge Economy. As the mature experienced heads are leaving the workforce, the new blood are choosing Law, Technology & Business degrees at Universities.
The War for Talent in this sector is entering a stage similar to that present in the Healthcare industry where we commonly see hospitals short of nurses.
Jobsite Launch Party & CareerBuilder $500M stock deal
www.exec-appointments.com held their launch party in the Metropolitan Hotel Dubai at the end of April which was good fun.
Good luck to Gamal Abdulla and the team as they grow that business. The site adds another badly needed Vertical jobsite to the Middle East and I hope the trend continues. There are a few Horizontal Regional sites now but specialists are surely needed.
Slightly related is the news I spotted on another blog yesterday about a deal between Microsoft and CareerBuilder. You can see the post here http://jimstroud.com/2007/05/10/microsoft-buys-a-stake-in-careerbuilder/
The headline is that Microsoft buys nearly $0.5bn of stock in CareerBuilder. As it happens it appears the deal is more an advertising swap where CareerBuilder have signed a deal to be the provider exclusively to MSN and other MS sites until 2013, and instead of paying $413 for the privilege, they'll give Microsoft a load of stock.
It's also a minority interest, so quite cleverly it values the company very highly even though no sale or exchange of cash has occured. In terms of cashflow, CareerBuilder have bought an endless amount of advertising but not parted with cash. Sweet deal! I wonder if this is going to set a precedent for how online portal and related recuitment software companies will grow in the next few years?
Good luck to Gamal Abdulla and the team as they grow that business. The site adds another badly needed Vertical jobsite to the Middle East and I hope the trend continues. There are a few Horizontal Regional sites now but specialists are surely needed.
Slightly related is the news I spotted on another blog yesterday about a deal between Microsoft and CareerBuilder. You can see the post here http://jimstroud.com/2007/05/10/microsoft-buys-a-stake-in-careerbuilder/
The headline is that Microsoft buys nearly $0.5bn of stock in CareerBuilder. As it happens it appears the deal is more an advertising swap where CareerBuilder have signed a deal to be the provider exclusively to MSN and other MS sites until 2013, and instead of paying $413 for the privilege, they'll give Microsoft a load of stock.
It's also a minority interest, so quite cleverly it values the company very highly even though no sale or exchange of cash has occured. In terms of cashflow, CareerBuilder have bought an endless amount of advertising but not parted with cash. Sweet deal! I wonder if this is going to set a precedent for how online portal and related recuitment software companies will grow in the next few years?
Saturday, April 21, 2007
CareerEx 2007 in Kuwait
Been a bit slow on the blog front recently as I took some time out with the family for a break to UK and Czech which was fantastic.
Back to it now though and I'll find myself in Kuwait tomorrow morning to attend and present in an HR Conference there called CareerEx 2007. Lots of good people attending this one so I hope to have a few interesting industry news clips at least to share this week.
Following on from my last comments about jobsites starting to market themselves in different ways, I did notice www.MonsterGulf.com on local radio and satellite TV in the last few weeks. It willk be interesting to check their visitor number which I intend to do on www.alexa.com shortly. It'll take a while to see the impact but you'd expect to hear PR about their traffic hike shortly (unless it didn't have the desired affect that is!!)
Back to it now though and I'll find myself in Kuwait tomorrow morning to attend and present in an HR Conference there called CareerEx 2007. Lots of good people attending this one so I hope to have a few interesting industry news clips at least to share this week.
Following on from my last comments about jobsites starting to market themselves in different ways, I did notice www.MonsterGulf.com on local radio and satellite TV in the last few weeks. It willk be interesting to check their visitor number which I intend to do on www.alexa.com shortly. It'll take a while to see the impact but you'd expect to hear PR about their traffic hike shortly (unless it didn't have the desired affect that is!!)
Monday, April 02, 2007
Mid East Online Recruitment Advertising Booming?
Interesting to see Monster.com advertising in Dubai this week (7 days newspaper), but not under the new MonsterGulf brand. Perhaps Monster have locally changed their advertising strategy back to the core brand. This would obviously make things easier from a cost and design perspective.
They've also put geo-redirection into place so basically if you go to Monster.com
from the GCC then you get taken to MonsterGulf.com by default. It's actually quite hard to get to Monster.com which is annoying but there you go.
Monster also started TV advertising (forget which channel) in Dubai this week - it was on Satellite TV so probably covered the region. Great to see, and we'll be monitoring the reaction over the coming months which I suspect will be quite strong.
One negative thing I have seen in the last few weeks is jobsites giving different prices out to different customers. I may get my company more involved when we have the time to protect clients and become a central buying agent for their online budget spend as I hate seeing clients getting ripped off. We have stepped in and helped clients broker sensible deals from time to time, but I think there may be scope to get involved in bulk buying deals in the near future.
A more general observation coming through with jobsites, and not just regional ones but also global players, is that they seem to be looking to derive 75% of their revenue from CV database search these days, and 25% from Job Advertising. That struck me as odd - can anybody comment on that as I am a bit suprised and would really like to get feedback from the market
on whether that is right.
They've also put geo-redirection into place so basically if you go to Monster.com
from the GCC then you get taken to MonsterGulf.com by default. It's actually quite hard to get to Monster.com which is annoying but there you go.
Monster also started TV advertising (forget which channel) in Dubai this week - it was on Satellite TV so probably covered the region. Great to see, and we'll be monitoring the reaction over the coming months which I suspect will be quite strong.
One negative thing I have seen in the last few weeks is jobsites giving different prices out to different customers. I may get my company more involved when we have the time to protect clients and become a central buying agent for their online budget spend as I hate seeing clients getting ripped off. We have stepped in and helped clients broker sensible deals from time to time, but I think there may be scope to get involved in bulk buying deals in the near future.
A more general observation coming through with jobsites, and not just regional ones but also global players, is that they seem to be looking to derive 75% of their revenue from CV database search these days, and 25% from Job Advertising. That struck me as odd - can anybody comment on that as I am a bit suprised and would really like to get feedback from the market
on whether that is right.
107 Saudi firms banned from recruiting
Yet again the government have had to get heavy to enforce the regulations encouraging employment opportunities for the National population. Hiring foreigners has been frozen for selected firms who have deemed to have abused their obligation to recruit Saudi nationals. Of course hiring is hard in Saudi at the best of times, and I'm sure these firms have been trying,
but it will be interesting to see how it impacts the growth and success of those firms.
See ArabNews website for more details.
There will be a few reactions to this, and I imagine outsource firms have a great future in KSA as outplacement of non-nationals could be a great way to increase the ratios of Saudi nationals that a company 'employ'. This of course isn't restricted to Saudi, and certainly there has been a rise in the number of banks who have contracted out their call centre and retail banking support centres to external service providers.
The productivity has probably risen because all of a sudden they're using an outside firm that has to be paid a fee (all good), but the effect on Nationalisation quotas must also be driving this trend I imagine. Is that increasing the number of Nationals employed in a bank though - or just reducing direct employment of non-nationals whilst reducing the employee size overall??
Not sure, but this topic only seems to get more interesting.
but it will be interesting to see how it impacts the growth and success of those firms.
See ArabNews website for more details.
There will be a few reactions to this, and I imagine outsource firms have a great future in KSA as outplacement of non-nationals could be a great way to increase the ratios of Saudi nationals that a company 'employ'. This of course isn't restricted to Saudi, and certainly there has been a rise in the number of banks who have contracted out their call centre and retail banking support centres to external service providers.
The productivity has probably risen because all of a sudden they're using an outside firm that has to be paid a fee (all good), but the effect on Nationalisation quotas must also be driving this trend I imagine. Is that increasing the number of Nationals employed in a bank though - or just reducing direct employment of non-nationals whilst reducing the employee size overall??
Not sure, but this topic only seems to get more interesting.
Umniah - Hanania
A Jordanian client of our recruiting package, Sniperhire ATS, is a really interesting mobile operator. They're interesting in that they are incredibly entrepreneurial and have grown amazingly quickly. They are called Umniah and I spotted this week an announcement that they have appointed Joseph Hanania to run the business. We also support Bahrain Telecoms group and they acquired Umniah last year.
Joseph is a well known leader in the communications/technology space in the region and spent a long time heading up HP in the Dubai office. Great to see people moving from IT into Telecoms, as I think all too often companies are not brave enough to look outside their own direct competitors. My opinion is that that attitude restricts growth so I'm right in this case, and that Umniah continue to soar under Mr Hanania. Visit www.batelcocareers.com which is where Umniah jobs will shortly be available online.
KSA GSM Operator Recruiting
More Telecoms recruitment related news. My firm are implementing a package for the new mobile operator in Saudi Arabia. The Operator name is not yet known, but it will be great to be associated with the new GSM licensee and to help them recruit a few hundred people in what is already a challenging market. Check out www.mtccareers.com for update on this over the coming weeks.
Joseph is a well known leader in the communications/technology space in the region and spent a long time heading up HP in the Dubai office. Great to see people moving from IT into Telecoms, as I think all too often companies are not brave enough to look outside their own direct competitors. My opinion is that that attitude restricts growth so I'm right in this case, and that Umniah continue to soar under Mr Hanania. Visit www.batelcocareers.com which is where Umniah jobs will shortly be available online.
KSA GSM Operator Recruiting
More Telecoms recruitment related news. My firm are implementing a package for the new mobile operator in Saudi Arabia. The Operator name is not yet known, but it will be great to be associated with the new GSM licensee and to help them recruit a few hundred people in what is already a challenging market. Check out www.mtccareers.com for update on this over the coming weeks.
Microsoft Excel 2007 - any good for Recruiter reporting?
One of our chief geeks (it's okay - he proudly wears a 'Geek' bracelet that he won in a Microsoft competition) is at a Business Intelligence conference hosted by Microsoft today, and the reports coming out of the conference are that Excel 2007 holds a lot of promise for Recruiters. Well at least those using a web-based recruiting system, because those of you who do, should at least be able to get some fantastic reporting functions out of the new Excel.
I mention it here as I think it's worth Recruiters investing a bit of time now to get familiar with how to manage 'Pivot tables' in Excel as these tools are going to become more and more a part of your daily lives if you want to satisfy the demand of Execs and their appetite for information on what we do in recruitment and where the money is going. We've been doing a lot of work in this area last year, believe me if you haven't already, then get familiar with it.
The 2007 version of Excel, which will take a while to get onto the PC of many of you out there for sure, has native OLAP tools built in which is a first for Excel. This means that MS have made a big improvement in usability (you won't need to install or download drivers to get it to run great reports). If you don't know what a Pivot table is, visit the help section in excel or
speak to the support team of your ATS vendor.
I mention it here as I think it's worth Recruiters investing a bit of time now to get familiar with how to manage 'Pivot tables' in Excel as these tools are going to become more and more a part of your daily lives if you want to satisfy the demand of Execs and their appetite for information on what we do in recruitment and where the money is going. We've been doing a lot of work in this area last year, believe me if you haven't already, then get familiar with it.
The 2007 version of Excel, which will take a while to get onto the PC of many of you out there for sure, has native OLAP tools built in which is a first for Excel. This means that MS have made a big improvement in usability (you won't need to install or download drivers to get it to run great reports). If you don't know what a Pivot table is, visit the help section in excel or
speak to the support team of your ATS vendor.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Selfish Recruiters - what's wrong with that? Ask the CFO if he cares.
"It depends on having the right people on board" - we hear that all the time on the industry. People often quote Jack Welsh of GE and how made HR an executive priority. However what most people overlook is that Welsh also critically understood that he had to get the best Recruiters and HR professionals on board.
Every country a new GE business entered, they would go out to find the best Compensation & Benefits person in the field. Cisco's approach to get great results was to make every employee think like a recruiter, and to contribute to the company recruiting efforts.
How do you get a sales man to focus on the kind of sales that are good for the firm, and not only what's best for his/her pocket? It's very hard, especially in large organisations, however there are three obvious things that most firms do:
1. Talk endlessly about the company mission, strategic direction etc
2. Incentives - top sales people are linked to company performance, often with KPI's, and these affect their own earnings potential.
3. Hire the right people into the role
Here's my point. The above simply does not happen in the Recruitment Department, well all too rarely anyhow.
90% of the time, business unit Recruiters are only concerned with their own workload and making things as easy as possible
for themselves. They have little care or understanding of corporate recruiting objectives, and often counter what is for the good of the company.
I'm talking about simple things such as sharing talented CV's, recording recruiting costs, or submitting evaluation sheets so that colleagues can see interview notes in the future. Imagine the reaction of a CFO if he found out that an accountant was not declaring cost of sales -- the auditors would go crazy, it could even affect share price if it was deemed to have hidden information on performance.
This practice has to change in order for national employers to become successful recruiters. I believe that it is this attitude that is driving (and hindering at the same time) the move to Centralised recruitment departments.
It is a bit of a Catch 22. Large employers need to be able to report and measure their recruiting activities in order to improve, and they need individual recruiters across the organisation to use centralised tools to help improve recruiting on an enterprise-wide or strategic level. Again though it's often those same individual recruiters who have no genuine interest in 'Group' views or goals for recruiting.
Therefore to ensure and meet quality targets, there seems to be no choice but to centralise recruiting, or at least manage recruiters against SLA/KPI's. Certainly I think corporate recruiters should be rewarded against their performance (as you do for Agencies), and the performance of the company on a whole.
Technology of course makes all this possible and easier to measure, but that isn't really the point of my rant here. I just continue to be amazed by recruiters in large organisations who has such a myopic vision, little ambition, and no consideration towards corporate objectives. More troublesome is that this is allowed to take place without complaint.
Executives in the Middle East, until now, have preferred to ignore that their business leaders often don't want to work with internal recruitment functions, and would rather pay through the nose for external support when hiring. Now though with unprecedented growth, escalating hiring costs, high turnover and limited talent supply; the tides may be about to change and we may see CEO's taken a keen interest in 'Corporate Recruitment Performance.
Above is an example of a cost analysis report that an HR Director now runs every quarter and discusses with the Board of one of my clients in Kuwait. This only started in 2006.
It's drill down report so if they see anything that looks incorrect, they can mine down into fine details and work out exactly where the recruitment budgets are going and if they're getting value for money. In this Telco client at least we have seen a mindset change in the recruitment department now that they know the CFO are analysing their activities.
Long may it continue I say, as it seems to be finally driving a quality and corporate consciousness into recruitment, which was sadly lacking before.
Every country a new GE business entered, they would go out to find the best Compensation & Benefits person in the field. Cisco's approach to get great results was to make every employee think like a recruiter, and to contribute to the company recruiting efforts.
How do you get a sales man to focus on the kind of sales that are good for the firm, and not only what's best for his/her pocket? It's very hard, especially in large organisations, however there are three obvious things that most firms do:
1. Talk endlessly about the company mission, strategic direction etc
2. Incentives - top sales people are linked to company performance, often with KPI's, and these affect their own earnings potential.
3. Hire the right people into the role
Here's my point. The above simply does not happen in the Recruitment Department, well all too rarely anyhow.
90% of the time, business unit Recruiters are only concerned with their own workload and making things as easy as possible
for themselves. They have little care or understanding of corporate recruiting objectives, and often counter what is for the good of the company.
I'm talking about simple things such as sharing talented CV's, recording recruiting costs, or submitting evaluation sheets so that colleagues can see interview notes in the future. Imagine the reaction of a CFO if he found out that an accountant was not declaring cost of sales -- the auditors would go crazy, it could even affect share price if it was deemed to have hidden information on performance.
This practice has to change in order for national employers to become successful recruiters. I believe that it is this attitude that is driving (and hindering at the same time) the move to Centralised recruitment departments.
It is a bit of a Catch 22. Large employers need to be able to report and measure their recruiting activities in order to improve, and they need individual recruiters across the organisation to use centralised tools to help improve recruiting on an enterprise-wide or strategic level. Again though it's often those same individual recruiters who have no genuine interest in 'Group' views or goals for recruiting.
Therefore to ensure and meet quality targets, there seems to be no choice but to centralise recruiting, or at least manage recruiters against SLA/KPI's. Certainly I think corporate recruiters should be rewarded against their performance (as you do for Agencies), and the performance of the company on a whole.
Technology of course makes all this possible and easier to measure, but that isn't really the point of my rant here. I just continue to be amazed by recruiters in large organisations who has such a myopic vision, little ambition, and no consideration towards corporate objectives. More troublesome is that this is allowed to take place without complaint.
Executives in the Middle East, until now, have preferred to ignore that their business leaders often don't want to work with internal recruitment functions, and would rather pay through the nose for external support when hiring. Now though with unprecedented growth, escalating hiring costs, high turnover and limited talent supply; the tides may be about to change and we may see CEO's taken a keen interest in 'Corporate Recruitment Performance.
Above is an example of a cost analysis report that an HR Director now runs every quarter and discusses with the Board of one of my clients in Kuwait. This only started in 2006.
It's drill down report so if they see anything that looks incorrect, they can mine down into fine details and work out exactly where the recruitment budgets are going and if they're getting value for money. In this Telco client at least we have seen a mindset change in the recruitment department now that they know the CFO are analysing their activities.
Long may it continue I say, as it seems to be finally driving a quality and corporate consciousness into recruitment, which was sadly lacking before.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Which countries work when it comes to Internet recruiting and Sourcing candidates?
Well many of them of course, and often different sourcing areas are better depending on which skill sets you're looking for.
Never the less we were doing some analysis last week on this topic and the results were quite interesting and worth sharing I thought.
Below are two images, firstly is a specific campaign run by a client based in Dubai, and where there candidates came from.
Then below there is a pie chart on which countries are the best performing markets (outside of the region itself) for generating online candidates. :
+2006-7.jpg)
How to make Email add value to Recruitment?!
For many recruiters still using email addresses to receive CV's, email is your worst nightmare I'm quite sure. But it needn't be useless. There are many really cool ways email can be very helpful; and here's just two ways that are easily set up if you have a candidate management system in place:
1. Systemised Emails to Deliver Candidate Vouchers
Initaitives are always worth talking about, and this isn't revolutionary but still very underutilised in the realm of employer branding. Basically every time you complete an interview, you set the system up to send a thank you letter/email to the candidate. With it you include a voucher for them to redeem against your products. It could be 20% off a cup of coffee or CD (depending on what you sell). The options are limitless and costs next to nothing to put into place. What's the point of this? Well you can imagine the impression you'd have if after your last interview you received a free cinema ticket, or a bottle of wine for you and your partner when you next go to dinner. It would be positive right? Regardless of if you get the job offer next week, or they tell you that you've missed out on the job - you're going to think they're a great company. You may not even spend the voucher, but you'll tell people to think about applying to them. We've done this for retail and hotel clients, but there is no reason most employers couldn't do this. The mareketing department would love recruitment for it (there's a first!) and you'd be creating customers for the company whilst making candidate attraction easier for yourselves.
2. Recruiter EMail Footers to Carry Hotjobs
This can be done whether or not you have a hiring platform in place or not, it can just be automated and more usuful if you're lucky enough to have one. Get all recruiters or even HR staff to update there email auto signatures to include the 3 'hot jobs' of the moment. This free marketing tool will generate awareness and free candidates. It may even cause employees to be aware of those hard-to-fill jobs and refer you fresh candidates.
1. Systemised Emails to Deliver Candidate Vouchers
Initaitives are always worth talking about, and this isn't revolutionary but still very underutilised in the realm of employer branding. Basically every time you complete an interview, you set the system up to send a thank you letter/email to the candidate. With it you include a voucher for them to redeem against your products. It could be 20% off a cup of coffee or CD (depending on what you sell). The options are limitless and costs next to nothing to put into place. What's the point of this? Well you can imagine the impression you'd have if after your last interview you received a free cinema ticket, or a bottle of wine for you and your partner when you next go to dinner. It would be positive right? Regardless of if you get the job offer next week, or they tell you that you've missed out on the job - you're going to think they're a great company. You may not even spend the voucher, but you'll tell people to think about applying to them. We've done this for retail and hotel clients, but there is no reason most employers couldn't do this. The mareketing department would love recruitment for it (there's a first!) and you'd be creating customers for the company whilst making candidate attraction easier for yourselves.
2. Recruiter EMail Footers to Carry Hotjobs
This can be done whether or not you have a hiring platform in place or not, it can just be automated and more usuful if you're lucky enough to have one. Get all recruiters or even HR staff to update there email auto signatures to include the 3 'hot jobs' of the moment. This free marketing tool will generate awareness and free candidates. It may even cause employees to be aware of those hard-to-fill jobs and refer you fresh candidates.
RSS for Recruitment Staff Knowledge
We're implementing a massive retail talent management platform for a client currently, and the project champion told us this week how his recruiters across many countries are relying on RSS feeds to keep them up to date with news from around the recruitment/jobs/jobseeker world that is the Internet. I'm not sure how many others are doing this but I thought I'd scribe about it here briefly.
What is RSS, well it stands for Really Simple Syndication; and is an easy automated way of having content sourced from across the Internet for you without having to go and find it yourself. Imagine you like to check the weather each morning in Glasgow (it's raining I can tell you!), and like me you check the sports news or your share values. Well through RSS you can set up a page, think of it as your own private homepage on the Internet, and all those items of interest will be brought into your page for you. It only brings you news when their is latest news to show you, so it saves you going to a site if there's no need.
Back to the recruitment scenario. So as a recruiter you can set up RSS feeds for your business concerns, senior appointments, new jobsites opening up, legislation & staff tribunal cases, salary data, exchange rates, housing prices; and of course the sport!
Quite a nice way of keeping up to speed as a recruiter. Speak to your IT dept/Portal Managers and see if they can help you set something up, it's extremely simple and many RSS readers are free.
What is RSS, well it stands for Really Simple Syndication; and is an easy automated way of having content sourced from across the Internet for you without having to go and find it yourself. Imagine you like to check the weather each morning in Glasgow (it's raining I can tell you!), and like me you check the sports news or your share values. Well through RSS you can set up a page, think of it as your own private homepage on the Internet, and all those items of interest will be brought into your page for you. It only brings you news when their is latest news to show you, so it saves you going to a site if there's no need.
Back to the recruitment scenario. So as a recruiter you can set up RSS feeds for your business concerns, senior appointments, new jobsites opening up, legislation & staff tribunal cases, salary data, exchange rates, housing prices; and of course the sport!
Quite a nice way of keeping up to speed as a recruiter. Speak to your IT dept/Portal Managers and see if they can help you set something up, it's extremely simple and many RSS readers are free.
'War for Talent' Banking Conference - my thoughts
Well I went to the 'War for Talent' in Banking Conference a fortnight back, and I wasn't really given the impression that the audience were in battle mode. It was quite disappointing from that perspective. I had hoped HR staffers would be there talking about how they were finding advantages over each other, and who was leading the field; but nobody seemed to be using any tools or techniques worth a mention. I spoke individually to a number of senior recruiters and HR generalists to ask privately what challenges they were facing and how they were reacting....nothing, nobody home.
Shocking really, and I only hope that the Executives of those banks represented are aware at the lack of action being taken, or that there are actually steps being taken to be competitive but that nobody wanted to share their ideas. There were no stand-out employers except HSBC maybe who at least seemed to be going to good efforts to implement locally some of the international retention strategies in the local set up. Even these efforts though seemed to be limited to Opinion Surveys, Exit Interviews and Employee of the Month Awards for staff recognition.
It struck me that the HR Banking community doesn't fully understand yet how difficult it has got to hire great talent in the Middle East markets. Part of the problem I think is that Bankers, not unlike Hoteliers, see banking as something that runs through your blood. Therefore so long as you're a good bank, then you'll attract good bankers (as they won't want to work anywhere other than a bank). The finance markets are changing very quickly across the MENA region as they have in Asia; and corporate recruiters need to see it. There is a diversifying pool of jobs for bankers now more than ever; stock markets being born, Islamic Banking on a meteoric rise, corporate and infrastructure financing and IPO's abound. Banks need to start implementing tools and techniques that the rest of industry has been doing for a couple of years. General employer branding (wider than just targeting bankers) and targeted selection to develop talent pools in key skill areas. Using the Internet to develop relationships ahead of time with that talent.
Banking is so regulated and every risk has to be mitigated; hence training & development is always a mandatory measure.To compound this issue further for banks, is the very fact that have invested in Training so heavily (also as a retention tool) they are a good target for highly developed staff - which others will continue to feed off.
As banks in the region outsource and offshore more of the back-office functions, I foresee a huge crunch in talent shortages in the retained core banking areas; and very few employers in this sector are prepared for this.
Shocking really, and I only hope that the Executives of those banks represented are aware at the lack of action being taken, or that there are actually steps being taken to be competitive but that nobody wanted to share their ideas. There were no stand-out employers except HSBC maybe who at least seemed to be going to good efforts to implement locally some of the international retention strategies in the local set up. Even these efforts though seemed to be limited to Opinion Surveys, Exit Interviews and Employee of the Month Awards for staff recognition.
It struck me that the HR Banking community doesn't fully understand yet how difficult it has got to hire great talent in the Middle East markets. Part of the problem I think is that Bankers, not unlike Hoteliers, see banking as something that runs through your blood. Therefore so long as you're a good bank, then you'll attract good bankers (as they won't want to work anywhere other than a bank). The finance markets are changing very quickly across the MENA region as they have in Asia; and corporate recruiters need to see it. There is a diversifying pool of jobs for bankers now more than ever; stock markets being born, Islamic Banking on a meteoric rise, corporate and infrastructure financing and IPO's abound. Banks need to start implementing tools and techniques that the rest of industry has been doing for a couple of years. General employer branding (wider than just targeting bankers) and targeted selection to develop talent pools in key skill areas. Using the Internet to develop relationships ahead of time with that talent.
Banking is so regulated and every risk has to be mitigated; hence training & development is always a mandatory measure.To compound this issue further for banks, is the very fact that have invested in Training so heavily (also as a retention tool) they are a good target for highly developed staff - which others will continue to feed off.
As banks in the region outsource and offshore more of the back-office functions, I foresee a huge crunch in talent shortages in the retained core banking areas; and very few employers in this sector are prepared for this.
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