Back from my Fishing Trip!! Had I realised I wasn't going to be blogging for a while I'd have put up a sign! Happy New Year to you.
So, what happened in 2007. I guess in the MEA markets it was a case of a fuel economy driving everything, and recruitment trying to keep up the pace.
- Growth
- High oil price
- Weakening economies worldwide, seized on by Sovereign Wealth Funds of UAE, KSA, Qatar
- International growth by regional firms (Q: "How do we recruit in Algeria + Sudan?" A: "Good question!")
Attractiveness of working in the local economy is stronger than ever, however people are leaving at the same rate due to ripping inflation on the ground in the region itself.
Firms are still struggling to find executive talent, and retention of mid-managers below them is increasingly hard. The available talent pool is only going to shrink in 2008 I think; as what had promised to be the next great hunting grounds (India, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, Russia, South America, China for example) are all growing and recruiting heavily themselves.
Expect to see India and China aggressively repatriating its senior executive talent for the next few years. Personally I can even see the junior professional workforce (check out any hotel lobby in Abu Dhabi or hospital in Jeddah) moving back to the Asian growth markets before 2010.
I'm not sure how much the Middle East can stop itself being a worker merry-go-round. National talent development and expatriates buying houses can only provide so much stability, but is crucial. I think what's sadly missing and has to be put in place pronto is wide-scale introduction of Long-Term Incentive plans, so I really hope to see leading firms doing so in 2008.
M&A Activity hotting up
Consolidation in the recruitment market - should lead to more professional levels of service and many mid-market generalist recruitment firms will struggle as clients turn to established brands or niche firms offering high quality in a specialist sector.
Andrew Banks of Morgan & Banks fame recently invested in InterSearch, and Manpower have of course just announced they've acquired Clarendon Parker Middle East. Expect more M&A, and more new entrants.
What is eRecruitment anyway?
On the recruiting technology side of things, the biggest change has been the end-user awareness and level of comfort. Recruiters and Managers across the MEA market finally showed in 2007 that they expect to see their firms leveraging technology, so it's still baby steps for the masses, but I expect to see larger firms really try to get to grips with recruitment technology and how it can make a difference to recruiting across the entire enterprise.
Receiving a CV over the company website is no longer understood to mean eRecruitment, as honestly that is what most leading employers felt online recruitment meant here until 2007 in my opinion. The bar has been raised now and more sophisticated and comprehensive solutions that make life easier for all concerned in recruitment are now firmly on the corporate wish list.
I don't feel video-CV's will feature in MEA during 2008, however SMS messaging to candidates, candidate care, interactive communication tools on career portals, more psych testing online and a more personalised candidate experience will be the recruiting technology landscape in 2008.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Death knell for Walk-in Interviews?
Everybody was quite excited when Dubai Airports announced they were hiring 400 new staff, and they did a really good PR job talking about the walk-in interviews being held at a hired out college over 3 days.
What came next was a PR disaster though, particularly in terms of employment brand. The problem was that the company was using pre-2001 tactics.
30,000 people turned up on the first morning to submit there resumes and meet recruiters. With no recruitment system in place to coordinate, store, communicate etc; the company was completely overwhelmed and had to get back on commercial radio and into the press again to cancel the event and tell people instead to go to the affiliated Civil Aviation website and submit applications online.
The majority of large employers in the Middle East are still operating this way, so no particular shame on Dubai Airports; I just wonder whether such a public failure may spur on other large employers to realise that using technology and websites to do the screening first is a no-brainer?
In a congested City like Dubai where driving is rarely pleasurable, I feel for the thousands of jobseekers who most likely took a sick-day off and drove for an hour only to find the doors locked on arrival.
I remember going through this with a client in 2002 whereby we helped them implement an ATS to pretty much run the above scenario online. The recruiters then flew down to the interview location. At 8:30 on the first day they called the office and said it was a disastrous turn-out; only 180 people where they would usually meet 2,500. Initially we'd been concerned, but asked them to proceed with the interview day.
Turns out they hired 60 people which was over their quota. All that had happened was that all the initial screening had taken 2,500 down to 250 qualified people who were scheduled to the interview online, of which 180 turned up.
Have we seen the end of the mass walk-in interviews where 90% of the people present are looking for a job but not the ones you're interviewing for? I doubt it, not just yet; but I think the lessons have been made very public on this occasion and I hope a few leading organisations think harder about the candidates' experience before hosting their next walk-in event.
(PS - I've linked the DCA website above in case you want to apply for an airport job)
What came next was a PR disaster though, particularly in terms of employment brand. The problem was that the company was using pre-2001 tactics.
30,000 people turned up on the first morning to submit there resumes and meet recruiters. With no recruitment system in place to coordinate, store, communicate etc; the company was completely overwhelmed and had to get back on commercial radio and into the press again to cancel the event and tell people instead to go to the affiliated Civil Aviation website and submit applications online.
The majority of large employers in the Middle East are still operating this way, so no particular shame on Dubai Airports; I just wonder whether such a public failure may spur on other large employers to realise that using technology and websites to do the screening first is a no-brainer?
In a congested City like Dubai where driving is rarely pleasurable, I feel for the thousands of jobseekers who most likely took a sick-day off and drove for an hour only to find the doors locked on arrival.
I remember going through this with a client in 2002 whereby we helped them implement an ATS to pretty much run the above scenario online. The recruiters then flew down to the interview location. At 8:30 on the first day they called the office and said it was a disastrous turn-out; only 180 people where they would usually meet 2,500. Initially we'd been concerned, but asked them to proceed with the interview day.
Turns out they hired 60 people which was over their quota. All that had happened was that all the initial screening had taken 2,500 down to 250 qualified people who were scheduled to the interview online, of which 180 turned up.
Have we seen the end of the mass walk-in interviews where 90% of the people present are looking for a job but not the ones you're interviewing for? I doubt it, not just yet; but I think the lessons have been made very public on this occasion and I hope a few leading organisations think harder about the candidates' experience before hosting their next walk-in event.
(PS - I've linked the DCA website above in case you want to apply for an airport job)
Thursday, November 08, 2007
HR Summit in Abu Dhabi - no more get out of jail free cards for recruiters
I attended the Middle East HR Summit in Abu Dhabi this week. Here's a review in case your interested and couldn't make it. Firstly the exhibition centre (ADENC) is a stunning facility and easily accessible from Abu Dhabi airport. The gala dinner was also in stunning surroundings (The Emirates Palace Hotel), and a client of mine from Gulf Bank was awarded the HR Excellence award of the year. Mabrook! (congratulations) Surour Al Samerai.
Generally the quality of delegates attending the event was high - and some of the speakers were genuinely interesting; including the CIPD Chairlady and Fellows from London Business School and Oxford.
Much of the content on show during the first day was nothing new, but still the coffee and the networking was hot! The general theme was attracting and retaining talent.
Last year there was a lot more theoretical discussion about lofty HR plans such as the effects of moving groups of staff from fixed pay schemes to variable or performance related pay. This year, it was all very practical and operational: "How do we get more good people, and how do we stop losing them so fast?"
I recall one delegate from the crowd asking for the microphone and asking the panel what they would suggest for her dilemma: "I work for a major national engineering employer. I had to hire 1800 people in a year, I managed 1000. However to achieve that, such is the scarcity of talent, both the line managers and myself had to lower our standards and hire very average staff. I feel guilty, what do you suggest?" The speaker, I think not knowing where to start or end, simply suggested they get a better handle on the requirements going forward and agree at the outset with line what is 'nice-to-have', and what skills are mandatory. Pay more, educate the line how important it is to get it right, get a recruiting system and a decent website to attract and educate jobseekers - would have been amongst my answers!
Clearly some companies haven't worked out yet that during a talent war, standing still is equivalent to running backwards. Many national employers are still operating recruitment the same way as they did in 1998. Leave recruitment, do not pass go, there can be no more "get out of jail free cards", go directly to another job!
The Head of L&D from real estate development giant Nakheel talked about how he was in the process of recruiting a psychologist into recruitment who would focus on the experience of humans, so for example if you have 10 staff on a training course - what should you feed them at lunch to maximise the learning experience - should you give them ice-cream to boost ceratonin so the brain can take on more info, and how can you combat those post-lunch sugar lows?
He also said how how detested 'Training' as a function in general, and that if we recruit the right people, then surely they would be best serving the company if they are not in a training room, and that they should know the job anyhow! Very interesting, and it did cause a bit of a stir which was partly why it was said I think. Certainly a thought-provoking presentation, and to a large degree backed up by the Oxford Fellow who showed that the least effective method of transmitting learning was 'classroom' based, with only 5% of the material delivered in that format being learnt.
From a technology perspective there was little to talk about, although RecruitGulf.com were there and told me they are happy to offer 3 and 6 month posting packages to clients, and also have an 'unlimited posting' philosophy which I think is great and will really help them step up their growth in the Middle East market. Unlimited was the original UK job board model in the early days as I recall, however nowadays if you take Monster as an example they will give you an unlimited (max 200 posts) contract, or an unlimited (up to 500 posts!) contract.
That's it for now, if you want any more details drop me a line on the blog.
Generally the quality of delegates attending the event was high - and some of the speakers were genuinely interesting; including the CIPD Chairlady and Fellows from London Business School and Oxford.
Much of the content on show during the first day was nothing new, but still the coffee and the networking was hot! The general theme was attracting and retaining talent.
Last year there was a lot more theoretical discussion about lofty HR plans such as the effects of moving groups of staff from fixed pay schemes to variable or performance related pay. This year, it was all very practical and operational: "How do we get more good people, and how do we stop losing them so fast?"
I recall one delegate from the crowd asking for the microphone and asking the panel what they would suggest for her dilemma: "I work for a major national engineering employer. I had to hire 1800 people in a year, I managed 1000. However to achieve that, such is the scarcity of talent, both the line managers and myself had to lower our standards and hire very average staff. I feel guilty, what do you suggest?" The speaker, I think not knowing where to start or end, simply suggested they get a better handle on the requirements going forward and agree at the outset with line what is 'nice-to-have', and what skills are mandatory. Pay more, educate the line how important it is to get it right, get a recruiting system and a decent website to attract and educate jobseekers - would have been amongst my answers!
Clearly some companies haven't worked out yet that during a talent war, standing still is equivalent to running backwards. Many national employers are still operating recruitment the same way as they did in 1998. Leave recruitment, do not pass go, there can be no more "get out of jail free cards", go directly to another job!
The Head of L&D from real estate development giant Nakheel talked about how he was in the process of recruiting a psychologist into recruitment who would focus on the experience of humans, so for example if you have 10 staff on a training course - what should you feed them at lunch to maximise the learning experience - should you give them ice-cream to boost ceratonin so the brain can take on more info, and how can you combat those post-lunch sugar lows?
He also said how how detested 'Training' as a function in general, and that if we recruit the right people, then surely they would be best serving the company if they are not in a training room, and that they should know the job anyhow! Very interesting, and it did cause a bit of a stir which was partly why it was said I think. Certainly a thought-provoking presentation, and to a large degree backed up by the Oxford Fellow who showed that the least effective method of transmitting learning was 'classroom' based, with only 5% of the material delivered in that format being learnt.
From a technology perspective there was little to talk about, although RecruitGulf.com were there and told me they are happy to offer 3 and 6 month posting packages to clients, and also have an 'unlimited posting' philosophy which I think is great and will really help them step up their growth in the Middle East market. Unlimited was the original UK job board model in the early days as I recall, however nowadays if you take Monster as an example they will give you an unlimited (max 200 posts) contract, or an unlimited (up to 500 posts!) contract.
That's it for now, if you want any more details drop me a line on the blog.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Life Insurance for all overseas hires? Latte for me..
Domestic recruitment (yes, housemaids for those living a life of less luxury than many here in Arabia!) is not my special topic, but I have just noticed an interesting change to the scene which could have wider consequences to general expatriate hiring across the region.
My view today comes from Starbucks in Kuwait Airport. It’s a great spot and one of the most happening bucks, well worth a visit. A glimpse into Kuwaiti youth pastimes, you wouldn’t believe how many 20-something’s come here to get online and play network games whilst having a latte and a chat.
Anyhow – back to the point. The Ministry of Labor & Employment of the Philippines has passed a law that any person sponsoring domestic workers in Kuwait have to provide life insurance for them. So have the Ethiopian Government – and every body else is expected to follow suit.
According to AbdulAziz Al-Ali who is the Chairman of the Union of Domestic Workers – the policy will only cost $50 a year so it’s hardly providing great coverage, sounds to me as though it’s a basic policy to cover events if a foreign worker sadly dies when overseas. This would seems to make sense as employers are already required to enroll domestic workers in government health programs so that medical care is provided for staff. Also end of service flights to repatriate workers are also a labor requirement.
So whilst it’s quite a morbid or sad story, it’s clearly a good thing to have in place. My interest in the story was that it might easily break out of the ‘domestic worker’ category and into professional expatriate hires. My life policy costs me $800 a year, so the cost to major national employers could be quite a hit.
Going to get mango frappucino..
Monday, October 01, 2007
Gap Job Applicants' Data Stolen - 800,000 of them!
Gap Job Applicants' Data Stolen - 800,000 of them!
A thief stole a laptop computer containing unencrypted personal information of 800,000 people who applied for jobs at Gap Inc., the clothing retailer announced Friday.
The laptop stored Social Security numbers and other data from people in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada who applied online and by phone between July 2006 and June 2007 for jobs at Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Outlet stores.
This news comes hot on the heals of a security breach last month where online job site Monster.com exposed the confidential information of 1.3 million people looking for jobs.
Gap said the laptop was lifted from the offices of a third-party vendor that manages job applicant data for the San Francisco-based clothier. If you look at the link of the GAP career portal which is run by Taleo, there are still jobs published although the CEO of Gap is rightly taking this breach of security very seriously.
Storing data without encrypting it to protect it from hackers is contrary to Gap's agreement with the third-party vendor, Gap said Friday.
"What happened here is against everything we stand for as a company," said Gap Chairman and CEO Glenn Murphy. "We're reviewing the facts and circumstances that led to this incident closely, and will take appropriate steps to help prevent something like this from happening again."
Ouch - are your privacy policies strong enough, are those of your recruitment system vendors? This is serious business folks, please be careful. I'm not sure if Gap or the vendor will get sued, but this could get very messy if jobseekers start reporting fraud activity as a result of their stolen data. Job applicant data, especially in the US where it often includes social security ID numbers as Gap's did, is very highly targeted by hackers.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Talent Scraping
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.
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.
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.
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