Posts filed under 'Recruitment'

Recruiters - be very careful how you treat your rejects candidates lest they turn evil and flame you on Facebook...

A Facebook group called "I F#CKING HATE Recruitment Agencies, they don't help u, they r useless" is using Facebook to showcase their superior literacy and vocabulary skills by articulating concerns with recruitment practices online. 

A few classic quotes from members of the group:

"all i want to say is arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhrrrrrrr. worse than public transport, worse than politicians, worse than rude bailiffs who threaten small children and worse than traffic wardens...yes it's job agents. patronising, cloth eared, two faced liars. the (almost) lot of them"

"god damn vampires. i swear if they tell me "sorry, its all a bit quiet" or "just put your name on the availbles list" thats already got like 10,000 names on it once more i WILL kill one of them useless pricks."

Given that recruiters now commonly check out candidates on social networks during the recruitment process I would think these gifted individuals are not doing much to help their cause....

This is not something we need to worry about in Australia just yet however prudent recruiters will be starting to consider these things in light of trends in the US.

We are so used to a booming job market in Australia that many people may not have given much thought to how you evaluate recruitment sources in a down market.

An interesting blog post in the US this month shows huge increases in applicants per job for online job boards from Q1 2007 to Q4 2007.  Apps per job ad at Monster for example were up 1275%.

A down or declining job market in Australia would have the same effect.  Does this mean the dominance of the top 3 job boards in "apps per job ad" would be watered down relative to other sources?  Very likely.  So how then do recruiters decide where to spend their ad budgets in a down market?

Some of the key metrics that recruiters will need to be thinking about are:

- cost per placement
- cost per quality applicant (cost of job ad / # of applicants per ad per job board that make it into the database)
- ratio of keepers vs non keepers (apps per ad per job board that make it into the database vs ones that don't)
- cost of doing business.  Overall return from a job board vs the cost to your business of working with them.  During a down market things like ease of use, customer support, account management, flexibility and minimum length of contract can become important considerations when choosing job board partners.

Do you measure these things now?  Do you plan to?

A recent Hudson survey of job seeker opinions is getting plenty of coverage around town today.  You can read a detailed breakdown of the study here on Shortlist but there are a couple of very interesting points that I wanted to comment on...

1. Job Seekers want more details in job ads. 
   "It showed a growing frustration with job ads among candidates, with 45% of respondents saying they lacked sufficient detail for the candidate to make a decision. This included vague descriptions of roles, omitting the employer's name and lack of salary information."
   
   There are only 3 reasons I can think of that might explain why a recruiter wouldn't write a detailed, descriptive job ad. (i) You don't know much about the job (ii) you are too lazy to spend the extra 5 minutes (iii) you are being driven by unreasonable KPIs that don't give you the time you need to write a good ad.
   
   If you are guilty of (i) or (ii) then the good news is you can easily turn this around.  You will make more placements and more money by spending the time to understand your roles and write detailed ads.
   If your problem is (iii) then go and find yourself a new job.  There are plenty of them going..


2. Your web site is critical to your success.  "The research showed that more than half of all candidates (55%) now go directly to a company's website during their jobsearch process."
   
   Intuitively you would expect that people check out your web site when they are considering working for you or using your agency, but did you realise it was more than half?   These findings should spur all recruiters and employers to re-examine their web sites.  What does your web site say about you?  Would you work for you based on your web site?


3. Poorly written job ads are harming your future chances with today's passive candidates.  "Nine out of 10 (88%) candidates used the major job boards as a research channel during their job search process, and 83% also used newspapers."
   
   When writing your job ads bear in mind that job seekers and future job seekers are using your ads to research the job market.  In so doing they are forming opinions about you.


4. Niche job boards are vital.  "54% of candidates used specialist industry job search sites as a research channel."
   
   Are you using specialist niche job sites to advertise your roles?  This report proves that the global move to specialist job sites is alive and well in Australia.  There are some great specialist job sites in Australia and you owe it to yourself to try them.

How do you go on these 4 points?