As part of our quest to bring you some of the best recruitment blogging we are always proud to support and sponsor UK Recruiter’s annual Recruitment Blog of the Year Award.

This year saw a bumper entry with 148 initial nominations, which were eventually whittled down to 23 finalists to be assessed by the judging panel.

They entry criteria were:

• The blogger has to be an active recruiter.
• The blogger has to have posted something on their blog in the past month.
• The blog has been around for at least six months.
• In-house as well as agency bloggers were welcome.

And some of the judging criteria:

• Quality of writing
• Volume of posts
• Blog design
• Variety of content
• ‘About the Blogger’ Page (with links to Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn, plus contact details and enough “about me” information)
• Sign-up options

The panel (including the writer of this blog!) have finished their deliberations and we are pleased to announce the two winners as:

Best Company Blog – Source (Creative Communications Recruitment Consultancy) for their blog We Are Source

Best Individual Blog – Claire Faulconbridge (Internal Recruiter) for her blog Recruiter Claire

Continue reading “Recruitment Blog of the Year 2012 – Winners Announced!” »

Last year we joined forces with UK Recruiter to find the Recruitment Blog of the Year. There were many entries covering a diverse range of views, opinions and insights, giving the judges a tough choice. As more and more of us turn to blogging as a way to promote our skills and businesses, or just to vent and let off steam, we are sure that this year will prove even tougher to judge!

Anyone can nominate their favourite blog. The only crietra are:

• The blogger has to be an active recruiter (ie, has worked on a recruitment campaign within the last 6 weeks)
• The blogger has to have posted something on their blog in the past month
• The blog has been around for at least six months

And all types of recruiters are welcome. As UK Recruiter’s Louise Triance says “All recruitment blogs and bloggers are welcome; inhouse, agency, one man bands, bloggers writing for their organisation, bloggers just writing for the sake of their sanity….”

All you have to do is nominate your favourite recruitment blog – and you can do it here

There will be two awards – one for Recruitment Blog of the Year and one for Personal Recruitment Blog of the Year (to recognise individual recruiters) – and we will again be providing the two prizes! The winners will be announced in mid-December.

Check here for a refresh of last year’s winners, and also check out this guest post from Ed Scrivener who won the Personal Blog Award.

We recently joined forces with UK Recruiter to present the second in a series of unique recruiter learning events. Our first event, in March, dealt with how to manage client relationships (from business winning to account management) and for this one attention turned to the candidate with our two expert trainers – Denise Walker and Emma McDonnell – looking at how to manage candidate relationships.

In this blog we bring you the first two sessions from the event.

The afternoon opened with Denise and Emma setting the scene – the most successful recruiters in this market develop strong relationships with their candidates to ensure that they have loyalty and trust and to help encourage referrals and business recommendations.

In the short video below they start with the importance of being a respected partner and encourage the attendees to crowd source a list of the current challenges they face in trying to build trust with their candidates…you may recognise some of these challenges…

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” »

Last week we bought you the first session from the recent Recruitment Consultants’ learning event that we ran with UK Recruiter.

The topic was ‘Getting Clients On Board’ and leading trainer Denise Walker looked at the early stage sales process for winning and developing new client business. She was helped by search consultant Emma McDonnell – and this week it’s Emma’s turn to take centre stage as she leads us through a session on Managing the Recruitment Process.

Winning the initial business is one thing but to ensure that you continue to be briefed by clients you need to show that you can both deliver the desired outcome and manage a well-run recruitment campaign.

Watch the video below – here are some of the key points to look out for during Emma’s session:

• 1m, 30s – Get to know your candidates with in-depth interviews
• 2m, 00s – After all, candidates become clients and will respect the way you represent them
• 3m, 35s – Know the role inside out so that you can be honest with candidates if they are the right fit…Emma gives an example of how the candidate can help you sell them to the client!
• 4m, 45s – Good interview preparation but don’t just brief candidates on how to get the job…if clients think that you are putting the placement before getting the fit right then they won’t brief you again!
• 5m, 50s – Always keep clients and candidates updated as to where they are in the recruitment process
• 6m, 45s – The process can’t just be about you and your need to bill, it has to be about the client and the candidate
• 7m, 50s – Don’t be scared to pull a candidate out of the process if you doubt their fit…the long term client relationship is more important
• 8m, 40s – Always do a quality audit…and get someone other than you to ring the client for the feedback. They are likely to be more honest.
• 11m, 55s – Don’t just meet the client once and then maintain the relationship over e-mail/phone, make sure you visit them on a regular basis

The second event – Managing Candidate Relationships – takes place in London on May 2nd and there are still a small number of places available. You can register here

And look out for the 3rd session from Denise and Emma which we will feature on this blog next week…