Jobsite

Jobsite’s December 2011 Recruiter News email contains the latest information on Jobsite’s activities, blogs and event attendance – including the return of Jobsite’s TV ads in January 2012.

This month’s highlights include:

• Jobsite’s ads return to TV from 9th January
• Record mobile traffic for Jobsite in November
• Social Media – productivity, guidelines & opportunities

To read the newsletter online, click here.

Continue reading “Recruiter News, December 2011” »

Accurate writing is essential in business and never more so when you are applying for new jobs. Any recruiter faced with a number of CVs will almost certainly screen out those with typing mistakes and poor grammar.

We asked Mark Cochrane – experienced proofreader whose business is called Mr Proofread – for some advice for jobseekers keen to get their CVs noticed.

“There is no doubt that your initial job application is the key to get you through the door to an interview, but how can you be sure that your writing is the best it can be? The easiest answer to this is to get someone else to proofread it; this exposes your writing to a fresh set of eyes, and in the right hands can highlight all of your bad habits.

Why not try to develop your own proofreading tactics? Here are ten ways to fine tune your proofreading skills:

1. Take a break and change your shoes

Allow yourself some time to separate you (the writer) from you (the reader). Some people can achieve this with a quick trip to the kitchen to make a cup of tea or coffee after they have finished writing. It’s important to remember that the person reading your document may not know you, or your situation. When you put yourself in the shoes of a stranger reading your writing you may find parts that don’t deliver your point clearly enough. Identify these areas and develop them for improved clarity.

2. Read your work aloud

This is easier said than done; you must read it slowly and literally. As the writer we know what each sentence is trying to say, so we read it the way we think it is written rather than the way it is actually written on paper. Try to read every word literally and pay close attention to the meaning you are projecting with each sentence. Do this aloud and at a much slower pace than you would normally read. Continue reading “Ten Tips to Develop Your Proofreading Skills for a Better Job Application” »

Jobsite, one of the UK’s leading recruitment sites has teamed up with Portsmouth Football Club to offer a life changing CV-optimising opportunity to 18-22 year olds, culminating in a chance to visit Africa where they will be providing skills and support to develop youngsters and face up to the many challenges of growing up in communities plagued with poverty and hardship.

The initiative, named ‘Beyond Blue’ is a group community project designed to help improve employment opportunities and prepare futures of young people in the competitive job market that awaits them after education. It is another progressive project developed through Jobsite’s main club sponsorship of Portsmouth FC, along with local youth volunteer service Community Fusion and international volunteering and development charity Coaching For Hope.

The Beyond Blue project builds on the highly successful Premier League Into Work Scheme piloted by PFC and Jobsite back in 2009, the continuing scheme has so far resulted in an outstanding 62% of participants getting back into work.

Continue reading “Jobsite supports young talent in the South” »

A few weeks ago we wrote about our sponsorship of the UK Recruiter Blog of the Year. It’s an annual competition that aims to recognise the top blogs by active recruiters (agency and inhouse) – nominations are made by readers and provided they meet the entry criteria then they are assessed by a judging panel against the criteria of:

• Quality of writing (is it interesting/engaging, no typos, ids there a call to action etc)
• Volume of posts
• Blog design (descriptive name, picture of the blogger, easy navigation)
• Post content (is there a mix of text, images and video)
• About the blogger page (contact details, links to facebook, LinkedIn, Twiiter to enable readers to interact with the writer)

The panel made its deliberations earlier this week…and we have not one but TWO winners!

The overall winner of Recruitment Blog of 2011 – and recipient of the Jobsite Trophy – is…

The Dylan Blog Continue reading “Jobsite Honours the Recruitment Blog of the Year!” »

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” »