Jobsite

We recently hosted the TedX Portsmouth learning event on Developing Human Potential. During the day we heard several leading speakers drawn from the coaching and leadership space enlighten us on performance and potential, how to inspire and encourage. Over the coming weeks we will be bringing you some of the sessions with the key learning points that we can take into our day to day business operations.

In this post we hear from executive and business coach, and sports psychologist, Sarah Fenwick, who three times broke World Records for Paragliding. She takes the familiar 5Ps of ‘planning and preparation prevent poor performance’ and turns it on its head! Believing that by preventing poor performance you’re only likely to achieve average performance Sarah has created her own 3 Ps – Purpose, Planning and Preparation Produce Peak Performance.

Here she gives us her take on getting peak performance – watch the inspiring video as Sarah talks us through the journey that led to her becoming the first person to break the elusive 100km paragliding barrier. She explains how she used the 3 Ps to make it happen…and looks at ways in which you can use them too…

Purpose and Passion

•  Defining vision and goals

Planning

• What, when, where, how
• The journey – risks, options, what ifs

Preparation

• To know you’ve done everything you can (because in paragliding if you get it wrong your life is at risk)
• To launch with confidence
• To maximise times of opportunity
• For when things might get out of control and you end up being outside your comfort zone Continue reading “The Three Ps of Peak Performance” »

The Spring 2012 Evenbase Quarterly Recruitment Review of jobseekers’ changing attitudes and behaviour, plus business confidence in the recruitment market, is now available to download.

This report is run by independent brand tracking agency HPI, and shows two key findings since our last report:

• Jobseekers, whilst still downbeat, are showing a spirit of quiet determination to stay competitive
• Job boards remain the most popular route to market for recruiters, but they using fewer agencies as personal networks become a more important part of their recruitment mix

Around a third of people surveyed felt that the jobs situation was worse than a year ago, which was broadly in line with our last report, although there is now a slight demographic shift – about 25% of 18-24 year olds thought that things were better than last year, but only 8% of 45-54 year olds and 15% of 55+ respondents felt similarly.

For recruiters there was a sharp drop in vacancies – with a 27% fall in the number of vacancies advertised (from 7.87 per business respondent surveyed last quarter to 5.74 in Spring 2012). The corporates were showing a small increase in hiring, with the number of SMEs and smaller businesses hiring showing a drop.

Other key findings in the report include:

• Jobseekers are becoming more pro-active – there’s an increase in the numbers sending CVs directly to companies that interest them. And a desire to see more company information on job boards
• Jobseekers are also continuing to use job boards in large numbers
• Recruiters are increasing their use of social media and personal networks whilst jobseekers reduce usage of social and business networking
• The use of personal networks by recruiters seems to have come at the expense of their use of recruitment agencies, down 6% since our last report Continue reading “Jobseekers More Proactive, Recruiters Less Proactive – Exclusive Recruitment Research” »

In this blog we are bring you the final sessions from the first recruiter training event that we ran with UK Recruiter.

The previous sessions from the Client Relationships event that we featured dealt with getting new clients on board and ways to deliver the desired recruitment outcome, and the videos below cover Account Management and Self-management.

Account Management

In this first session trainer Denise Walker looks at the secrets of successful account management. She shares some illuminating research from Cranfield University into why businesses lose long term clients, and also looks at the protocols of maintaining client relationships. And she fully explains the link between managing accounts and squeezing lemons!

Watch the video below, and look out for these key points:

• 0m 20s – 45% of SMEs grow by developing existing markets/clients and finding clients just like them, whilst the other 55% grow by looking for new markets/clients
• 2m 05s – the link between squeezing lemons and successful account management
• 4m 15s – the customer lifecycle
• 5m 50s – why B2B businesses lose customers (70% leave because they feel ‘unloved’)
• 6m 35s – only 14% clients leave because of poor service
• 8m 15s – account management protocols
• 11m 10s – benefits of good account management – client retention!
• 14m 15s – clear business development strategy Continue reading “Secrets of Successful Account Management” »

Jobsite’s April 2012 newsletter contains news of our parent company’s acquisition of Jobrapido, plus the latest edition of our Quarterly Recruitment Review, which is free to download.

Highlights also include:

• Jobsite is the UK’s most visited recruitment service via mobile according to independent research from comScore
• A review of the Social Media in Recruitment Conference
• And our blog on how to get new clients on board

To read the newsletter online, click here.

Continue reading “Recruiter News, April 2012” »

Last week saw the fourth annual Social Media in Recruitment conference.

One of the event’s greatest strengths is to bring together a mix of corporate and agency recruiters, technology and media suppliers and HR consultants to share best practice and to hear previous years’ attendees talk about how they have successfully incorporated social media into their recruiting strategy.

This year was no exception. From the opening keynote to the closing panel, the three key areas talked about and debated were Strategy, Implementation and Jobseeker Usage. Here are our takeaways:

Strategy

Unlike in previous years, most attendees were now users of social media both in their personal and professional lives and the conversation has now moved on from ‘how to’ to ‘what to’. Content is king and you need to figure out who you are trying to reach and what you want them to do. The message came loud and clear from an entertaining opening keynote delivered by Steven Ehrlich that we are in the age of advocacy and endorsement, with your product or service defined by what people say about you. Conversation is the currency, so you need to move from broadcast messages to engaging, quality content that your candidates and clients will want to share and talk about.

The concept of storytelling was to the fore – 70% of what we learn comes from stories, so businesses need to learn how to tell them. Let employees tell your story and let your clients and candidates tell stories about you – create an experience worth sharing!

Implementation

There were two key case studies here, one from a recruitment agency (Success Appointments) and the other from a major corporate (nPower).

Both had integrated social media into their recruitment strategies – Success Appointments to find new ways to market themselves in order to attract and retain clients…nPower as part of a direct sourcing model, creating a compelling candidate experience, raising their profile and ultimately reducing the reliance on recruitment agencies. Continue reading “Strategy, Implementation & Jobseeker Usage – Highlights from Social Media in Recruitment 2012” »

Interviewing skills are essential for all HR and hiring managers and yet, sometimes we get it wrong. Interviewing for the right fit – for both the job and the organisation is essential HR practice.

We invited Sharon Clews, an experienced Recruitment and HR consultant and blogger, who has just completed a major recruitment project within a retail financial services organisation, to share her experiences of how to get it right…

“Hiring for technical skill over organisational fit or attitude can have detrimental consequences which reach wider than just the role you are hiring for. I learned this lesson when I hired a very talented designer for a pivotal role. As it turned out his attitude was so disruptive to co-workers and customers that his superior skill set wasn’t worth the trade off! This in no way means that you can’t have both. It does mean that particularly in technical roles, you must look for more than just skills. If you come across someone with both the right fit and the skills to match, hire them immediately!

The answer is out there, and it’s looking for you

Before you go in all guns blazing asking the deer-in-the-headlights candidate how they are going to fit in with you, you need to be clear and exacting about what they need to fit with.

• Make sure whoever is interviewing understands the position you are hiring for; what the organisational culture, values and expectations are. You really need to be interviewing before you interview!
• Is the Organisational Chart clear and up to date? Could you share it in an interview? Is it very clear who the new candidate is reporting to?
• Understand what the candidate drivers are. Is it the flexibility of the role; to work for a great organisation, money, benefits? Get to the bottom of why they are there. To that end, find out what their values are. Do they match with the core values of the business?
• Use behavioural questioning in your interview process. Ask the candidate specific questions to see how they did, not how they think they will do! These questions will provide examples of where they have been successful at something similar to the work they will be doing for you. Questions like “Tell me about a time when you had to manage a staff member for poor performance”. You want an answer that tells you the candidate has done this before.
• Are you recruiting for a particular type of person? Do you need an introvert, an extrovert; linear or lateral person? You need to be clear about the type of people who make up the existing team. Too many of the same type of person might not bring the best results. How well does the hiring manager understand the dynamics of the team?
• Does the organisation, the role or the industry need to overcome any perception issues?
• Try and dig out any hidden agendas a Manager might have about hiring a particular style of person. Continue reading “Are You Interviewing for the Right Fit?” »