Friday’s normally have an extra buzz about them in the Jobsite offices with people gearing up for the weekend but today there is definitely a more sombre air. This is a result of the news that Pompey Football Club have officially gone into administration. As a local company and main club sponsor we’ve got a lot of PFC fans working here, some that have supported them for years, and others that have become fans since we partnered with them last summer.

Whilst there’s been speculation for a while I think we were all hoping for a last minute resolve and so the news that it’s official is still extremely disappointing. It’s a bitter blow for all of the fans and the people behind the scenes at PFC who have worked so hard at keeping the club operating successfully. Our main thoughts at this time are with them and with the local community, who are so closely entwined with the football club.

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This week was the quarterly Jobsite International Conference with our Eastern European partners from the top job boards in Serbia, Bosnia, Slovakia, Croatia and Hungary.

Spinnaker Tower

The conferences allow us to share our learnings with each other & invite guest speakers along to help us stay at the cutting edge of recruitment, so that we can continue to offer the best service to both our clients & candidates.

Previous conferences have been held in Sarajevo and Bratislava, but this time it was our turn to host it in Portsmouth. We’ve always been shown fantastic hospitality by the other hosts, so it was great to get a turn in organising the proceedings and return the favour. The bar had been set pretty high as at the last conference in Sarajevo, we were taken on a fascinating cultural tour of the city.

The presentations during the two days of this most recent meeting focused on trends in recruitment & the direction that the industry is moving in. We heard from expert speakers such as Onrec’s David Hurst on global trends, Matt Alder on how social media can be used in recruitment and Mick Rigby from Yodel on how developments in mobile technology will impact on the industry.  One of the interesting snippets from Mick’s presentation was that 74% of people never switch their mobile off - afraid I’m guilty of that one! On day 2, some of the team from Jobsite talked through what we’ve been up to. It was great to share information and learn how our European partners are operating and the opportunities available to all of us.

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Happy New Year to you all. I hope you had a great Christmas break. With three young children (and with their 3 birthdays over the same period) mine was anything but relaxing! It was great to spend time with the family though and, as tends to be the way with Christmas, I enjoyed the odd party and over-indulging on all the festive fare. Now comes the dreaded time though where I have to pay penance for my sins and think about the usual New Year’s Resolutions of getting fit, eating healthily etc. Probably a good job that I’m back at work and out of reach of the massive tin of leftover Quality Streets!

With today being the first day back at work for many we know there are a lot of people out there who have set themselves the New Year’s Resolution of finding a new job in 2010. This is why our adverts are going back onto TV from today to reassure those people who want a new job that there are plenty of opportunities out there for them.

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I’m getting asked a lot at the moment about my predictions for the next year but without a crystal ball I’m reluctant to commit too much as this year has seen so many unexpected twists and turns. In times of a recession it is very difficult to predict what will happen over the coming days or weeks let alone months but what has been interesting is watching how organisations innovate and diversify to achieve their aims. I think we’ll see more of this, especially in the early stages of next year, but I’m optimistic that things will start to improve throughout the year and with this I think we’ll see some companies returning to more proactive, dynamic activity, which will be exciting.

Interestingly, the research we run quarterly with brand tracking agency HPI shows an increase in the number of active job seekers in November 2009, who appear to be growing in confidence regarding finding a new job. This is mirrored by an increase in vacancies, which is likely to be playing a key role in the increased candidate confidence. The younger generation seem most optimistic about 2010 although this could be due to them having little experience of going through a recession or perhaps having fewer responsibilities than the older demographics.

It goes without saying that 2009 has been tough for pretty much everyone, particularly the recruitment industry, but this year was also one of the busiest in Jobsite’s history. We worked on widespread activity such as Jobs-by-Twitter, our Johnston Press partnership, launch of our news centre Insider and our behavioural targeting service. These projects and partnerships were all new ways for us to attract candidates, increase vacancy numbers and applications and make job hunting and recruitment quicker and easier.
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Has anyone else glanced at their calendar today and realised there are only 4 weeks until Christmas?

As usual, this time of year becomes a bit of a panic in the shops – realising I haven’t got all (or any) of the Christmas presents I need yet!

Well, at Jobsite we are making our own festive preparations too; but rather than buying presents, we are buying TV advertising space. Yes, January sees the return of our TV adverts starring Max Beesley, kicking off on 4th January 2010 in a nationwide campaign across terrestrial and satellite channels.

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