Posts filed under 'Recruitment'

It is becoming more and more common for recruiters and HR professionals to Google job candidates, particularly as the candidate moves further along the hiring process.

There have been various articles of late calling into question the validity, legality and ethicality of looking up candidates on Google or social networks such as Linkedin, Facebook or MySpace.

I think this is a perfectly legitimate practice.  Here is my take on it:

• Everybody in 2009 knows that if you put any information about yourself on a public web site then it can and will be accessible to others
• Recruiters looking at public information made public by a candidate have every right to do so
• Recruiters continue to be bound by law to ensure they do not discriminate against a person seeking a job based on race, religion, age and so on.
• There are (thankfully) still no rules about discriminating against someone for being a tool.  We all do it every day.  An essential part of a recruiter's job is to quickly spot and cull out unsuitable candidates based on a thousand different criteria.  These criteria can include "cultural fit" - i.e. "you appear to be a tool and our client probably won't like you."  
• Quite frankly if there are photos of you on Facebook being a knuckle then a recruiter has every right to assume you are such and to find a suitable reason not to offer you an interview. 
• Recruiters are discreet and sage enough to know not to tell a candidate they were rejected because their MySpace page showed them shooting heroin while having a threesome with Thai hookers.  Recruiters have entire handbooks of non contentious reasons for not putting someone forward for a job.

My Summary
Keep your personal, private, embarrassing, incriminating, cringe worthy photos and information OFF the internet and no one can ever use it against you.  Put that information on the internet and, as in life, people will most certainly judge you by it.

Congratulations to SMF Recruitment for winning the inaugural Recruitment Extra "Best Recruitment Agency Web Site" award on Friday night.

I wasn't there but a little birdy tells me there me there weren't any SMF representatives present to collect the award (no doubt busy making placements).  I am sure it will find its way safely to their offices.




{Shameless mention : the SMF web site was designed and developed by the JobAdder team so naturally we're a little bit pleased for SMF. Congrats to Chris and Camilla for their great work}.

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?