Today we have a guest blog post from Katrina Collier of recruitment transformation consultancy Winning Impression. Here she looks at a key area of the recruitment cycle that is often overlooked.

“Through the cries of high unemployment can be heard the complaints of companies struggling to hire quality talent, which seems strange until you hear how they sabotage themselves with convoluted application systems.

On Facebook, I read about Kris, a dynamic publisher, who was trying to apply for a role in the public sector role and though she expected a long-winded process she gave up for several reasons:

• The online form involved no less than 11 separate steps – the first of which asked for current details but did not allow for someone who wasn’t currently working.
• She was asked to complete 2 separate 750-word essays but the two links to the attachments explaining what was required did not work!
• She had to list no less than 3 referees, which seems rather irrelevant when fear of litigation keeps many from being honest, and
• The thing that made her give up… the role was advertised at £55k but on application was listed as £40k, so she decided that if the publishing department could not publish an advert correctly, goodness knows what they’d be like to work for. Continue reading “Is Your Application Process Preventing You From Hiring the Best Talent?” »

We attended yesterday’s CIPD Conference on HR and Social Media in which a number of HR practitioners were able to share their experiences of embedding and using social media within their organisations. The key sessions were around making the business case, maximising engagement, organisational considerations of rolling out usage internally and how to leverage social media for collaboration and team working.

Delegates were a mix of social savvy HR professionals and those attending in the hope of finding out more – in which case a measure of the day’s success could be found in the high number of attendees who sent out their first ever tweets during the event! The feedback during the networking sessions was very positive and there was a clear benefit from having practitioners presenting from their own experiences.

There were three themes that kept recurring during the day:

• Will social media affect productivity
• Policy or Guidelines? Who owns it?
• How to leverage the connectivity for business

Productivity

This question was first raised in an opening poll that showed 10% of delegates strongly feeling that allowing employees access to social media sites would impact on productivity. Most speakers felt that productivity would not be affected any more that it is by employees using the phone, having general internet access, chatting or reading papers/magazines. Continue reading “HR and Social Media – Productivity, Guidelines and Business Opportunities” »

A big thank you to all of you who have been leaving feedback for recruiters on the experience you’ve had while job hunting. Your responses enable us to record and reward the top recruitment agencies on Jobsite, who are giving you guys the best customer service.

At Jobsite we believe that job hunting should be as simple and easy as possible, everything we do and have built has been with that goal in mind; to take the frustration out of finding the right job. Some time ago, we asked you how the job hunting process made you feel and you said that the biggest annoyance was the lack of response from recruitment agencies. Your comments about the importance of agencies offering good customer service prompted us to do something about it. So we launched Jobsite’s RecruitRank to encourage and reward the agencies who are offering job seekers a great experience.

How do I leave feedback for recruiters?

Through your MyJobsite page you can feedback anonymously to recruitment agencies on the service you have received after applying for a job. We also send you a reminder email 2 weeks after you apply for a job.

Do recruiters listen?

The feedback is completely anonymous, but recruiters can respond to comments you leave. The anonymous conversation will hopefully lead to any issues being resolved. Your comments also enable recruiters to monitor and, if necessary, improve their service offering to job seekers.

Who are the top recruitment agencies in 2011?

Each year we also hold a RecruitRank Awards evening, celebrating the top recruitment agencies in the UK – as voted for by you (rather than a panel of judges). The award categories are based on the responses to the questions we ask you. With several thousand recruitment consultancies eligible for inclusion in the RecruitRank Awards, these winners stand out as examples of best practice in the area of customer service, so a big congrats to all the winning recruitment agencies: Continue reading “Thank you for telling us what you think” »

With planning in full swing for Jobsite’s advertising activity in January we’ve been reflecting on the results of October’s campaign and wanted to share these with you.

New candidates

Our four weeks of TV advertising in October, combined with our other brand campaign activity, resulted in:

• Over 4.5 million visits – 675,000 more than September
• Over 999,400 applications – an average of more than 35,000 per day
• Over 119,000 new candidates registered with us – a huge 55,000 more than September
• Over 134,000 searchable CVs were added – 52% more than September

Continue reading “Results of October 2011’s TV campaign” »

In the short time since our Fresh Thinking 2 event – in which Tomi Ahonen and Tony Fish presented on Mobile and the Future of Digital Engagement – we’ve been hearing from attendees about their key takeaways and how they are implementing them in their businesses.

As part of our event review we are bringing you some of the best ideas…

The Bloggers View

We always enjoy reading the blogs that the Fresh Thinkers inspire, and there were three really strong ones that we’d like to share with you:

Mobiles, Metronerds and Digital Footprints with Jobsite’s Fresh Thinkers – social recruiting consultancy Sirona liked the way that Tomi and Tony made them think about the recruitment sector from different angles, and also enjoyed many of the soundbites!

Data drives effective mobile marketing strategies – digital marketing agency Pauley Creative specialise in the construction sector and they were looking at ways that their clients could leverage mobile to grow and nurture customer relationships

Elan Computing – then there was this review from the IT recruitment company Elan Computing…they are fast adopting social and digital tools and talk about the takeaways that will help accelerate performance. Continue reading “How Fresh Thinkers are Changing the Way You Think About Mobile” »