Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Announcing the New Online Marketing Forum. We are shouting about our latest resource for you.
Online Marketing is the life blood of recruitment agencies. There is a massive thirst for knowledge out there. To try and meet that demand Webshed have created a Online Marketing Forum.
The forum has boards for SEO, Online and offline marketing, Social Media, and PR. The idea is that it will provide a place to ask questions in an anonymous manner.
SEO is a huge area in itself, and since SEO, Marketing, PR and Social Media all tie together, we at Webshed prefer to use the term holistic SEO. The forum is broken into sections, but for a really good online presence all of the sections should be married together.
The Online Marketing Forum is very new. As a result there little activity on it. This will change. I have just begun actively marketing the forum, and over the next few weeks it will see a spike in activity. If you have a question or a comment do not be afraid to be the first to post. After all, every forum has to start somewhere!
The Online Marketing Forum should be a good resource for recruiters who want to learn how to build both their own brand and the company brand online. It is not just recruiters who will benefit. Anybody with an online business can use the forum and benefit from free advice.
It is your forum, and will be very much user led. Enjoy it. Visit the Online Marketing Forum at http://www.webshed.ie/forum.
Tags: Forum, Forum for recruiters, Holistic SEO, Marketing Forum, Online business, Online Marketing Forum, PR forum, Recruitment life blood, Resource For Recruiters, SEO, SEO Forum, Social Media Forum, User Led Forum
Posted in Nothing to do with recruitment really, Recruitment, Social Media | No Comments »
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
Declan Fitgeralds Hat Tip Award
Declan Fitzgerald, the Microsoft recruiter who started of the Irish Recruiters group on Linkedin decided to hold his own Recruitment Awards over the Christmas period.
Dubbed the Irish Recruiters Hat Tip awards, Declan asked for nominations from the pool of over 1,000 members of the Linkedin Group.
You can check out the results for yourself.
While there are several recruitment agencies and individuals mentioned in the awards, it is unfortunate that being the organiser, Declan could not be mentioned himself.
Declan is a massively keen social media exponent. It is perhaps not surprising, since he is an in-house recruiter for Microsoft, that he is somewhat obsessed by technology – not that I can talk! Thus the awards focuses solely on the use of technology and ability to adapt to technology by recruiters.
I don’t know of any other recruiter who has managed to grow a linkedin group so successfully. In fact Declan’s impact on the recruitment industry was such that, after he organised his first conference for recruiters, there where whispers that he was trying to take over from the National Recruitment Federation. This is absolutely not the case, but it is a strong indicator of the ground breaking work he was doing bringing Irish recruiters together.
The Irish Recruiters group came about at a time when the Irish Recruitment industry was just waking up to the potential of Social Media for Recruitment. The first tentative steps were being made, and everybody was hungry for information on how to use it without time wasting. Declan saw the opportunity and acted on it.
So Declan, here’s a hat tip back at you!
Tags: Declan Fitzgerald, Hat Tip Awards, Irish Recruitment, Linkedin, Linkedin Groups, Microsoft, National Recruitment Federation, Recruitment Agencies, Recruitment Awards, Recruitment Industry
Posted in Recruitment, Social Media | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
Ok, so saying “no news is good news” is a lousy cop out for neglecting the posts on this blog.
The truth is that I have been spending more time on my seo blog.
Recruitment News had a nice Christmas. Hope you did too.
In fairness though, there has not been a lot of news in recruitment over Christmas. Another agency (which I had never heard of before) bit the dust. There is some more news, but I’m saving it for later when I have a bit more time to write. I’ll try and get around to it this evening.
I have also conducted a small experiment in blogging. I’m sure you are all aware that it is necessary to keep blogging regularly in order to keep your blog at the top of the pile.
Well I decided to see just how often you need to blog, and how long it takes to regain lost places in the Google rankings. It turns out that a newish blog like the SEO one lasts only about a week before slipping at least 4 places. A more established blog will fare better. It will still slip, but not as much or as fast.
It took me three posts on three successive days to regain my position.
The moral of the story…. my new years resolution is to blog daily. I may not blog on every blog every day, but I won’t be leaving it for more than a few days between posts.
I have noticed during my surfing that many of you have corporate blogs. Some of them have not been updated in months. Why is that? I’m not going to spend more than five minutes on this one. Plus, once you get into the habit it gets easier. Nominate somebody (or some people) to write your blog. Schedule it. Mary blogs on Mondays, Trevor on Tuesday, Charlene on Wednesdays etc. Remember too that if you are using wordpress you do not have to publish the post straight away. Sometimes, if I get into the swing of writing, I write several and only publish one on the day. The rest I keep for another day.
As you will have seen from this and many other blogs, you do not have to stay on-topic all the time. This post has very little to do with Recruitment News, but you will notice that I still managed to mention it!
I’ll be mentioning blogging in my next post too. Here’s another blogging tip. If you write several posts on the same/similar topics in succession, they tend to do better in the Google ranking stakes.
Happy new year to you all and happy blogging.
P.s. I am always looking for Recruitment News. If you work for an agency and have any news (however small it may be) I have no problem plugging it here if I think it may be even vaguely interesting
Tags: Blog post, Blogging, Blogging tip, Corporate blogs, Good News, No News, Post, Recruitment News, SEO, Seo Blog
Posted in Blogging, Recruitment, Search Engine Optimisation | No Comments »
Friday, November 27th, 2009
Got a headache with your servers. Take one Cloud computing pill to relieve tension
Here is the thing. You can have a server with your entire database on it. You have to back it up, have redundancies in place, ensure it is physically secure, keep the hardware and software on it up to date, protect it from power outages or spikes. It’s an expensive thing to run if it is done properly.
That is why, increasingly, recruitment agencies are turning to hosted software. The company that provides your recruitment software keep the server. They are responsible for backing it up, keeping it running smoothly, and keeping it up to date.
It runs over the internet. This is cloud computing. Your software and database are “out there” in the cloud that is the internet. Obviously there is a server involved, but you don’t need to know about it. All you have to do is log into your software.
The result.. no headaches. Don’t have an IT team. Not a problem. You pay to have somebody else worry about it.
The benefits:-
- Reduced staff (You can reduce your IT team)
- Lower cost desktops. Your desktops will only need an internet connection. They will not have to have any hefty, resource draining software running on them. In other words, you don’t have to buy higher end machines. You just need a good internet connection.
- Offices split over several locations do not need complicated VPN tunnels set up to communicate between several servers. Again, all you need is an internet connection.
- Lower Maintenance bills for your hardware and software. Computers need regular attention to keep running smoothly. Using a cloud solution makes that someone elses problem.
- If your business burns down you can be up and running again as soon as you have a working PC and an internet connection.
- It is much harder for data theft to take place on your premises (nobody can plug a USB key into your server and download your database)
- Someone to shout at. It’s nice to have somebody else to give out to if everything is not running entirely smoothly. You will have a whole team of them to work on getting it right.
The Disadvantages:-
- The cost is higher from your provider (but this should still work out less expensive than having to upgrade your own server). Have you virtualised your servers yet? That will be done for you.
- Lack of control. You give up some of the control you have over your systems. In general you will be giving control to people who are better qualified to look after them anyway.
- High bandwidth requirements. While you can be extremely portable (particularly if you use Voice over Internet for your telephony), the internet connections needed for each staff member and for voice calls will use up a considerable amount of bandwidth. A 3 meg broadband connection may be ok for general occasional browsing, but you are likely to need considerably more. If you are based in the center of one of our metropoli then this is not a problem (apart from the expense), but outside our major cities broadband speeds are still embarrassingly low and can’t cope. Even where higher broadband speeds are offered. The actual speed often falls far short.
- Online security. While it will be in the hands of your provider, by using online services security will never be as good as a closed system. Then again, if you have a wireless network then your security is not great anyway. If you have not upgraded your security from the Eircom default you can be hacked in under a minute! Still, If you want total control over your security then you need to keep your servers under your own roof.
- You have no say in who your service provider hires. If you hire your own IT personnel then you know what you are getting. You can check references, look at their linkedin profiles, facebook and see who has recommended them. You build a bond of trust and loyalty with your employees. That is all out of your control with a cloud based recruitment system.
Ready to take a further plunge into Web 2.0? Some of you have already!
Tags: Backing up your data, Broadband requirements, Closed networks, Cloud Computing, Cost is higher for cloud computing, Database, Facebook, Hosted software, Linkedin for reference Checking, Linkedin Profiles, Lower cost desktops, Lower your IT bills, Online Security, References, Servers, Someone to shout at, Telephony, Virtualising your servers, Voice over Internet, VOIP, Web 2.0
Posted in Cloud Computing, Recruitment, Recruitment software | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Friday will be a tough day for one recruitment agency. They face a day in the high court for an examinership case. It seems that winning a National Recruitemnt Federation award for one of the “Best in Sector” categories is not enough to save some agencies from the ravages of the recession.
It is a sign that competition in the Recruitment Industry is hotter than ever. Obviously I don’t know the ins and outs of it all. My personal view is that the particular agency had not placed enough emphasis into their online presence. I know it is a pet topic of mine, but while advertising in national media is great, it no longer has the same effect as a good presence on Google.
Search engine optimisation is no longer a nice thing to do that has some beneficial effects on a business. It is absolutely vital in a market as competitive as recruitment. In fact, it is absolutely vital for all Irish business.
Here is a simple rule: If it appears above you in google get your name on it!
(Of course that is not always possible. But where it is, and your competition are there….)
While some of the agencies that have floundered over the past year can be put down to bad management or sharp practices, to see a recruitment agency that has been recognised for good practice in trouble is unsettling.
Webshed would like to wish the agency in question luck over the coming months.
Tags: Bad management, Best in Sector, Competition, Examinership, Google, Hotter than ever, National Recruitment Fedration Award, Ranking for survival, Ravages of the recession, Recession, Recruitment, recruitment agency, Recruitment Agency in Trouble, Search Engine Optimisation Vital, SEO for Recruitment, Sharp Practices
Posted in Recession, Recruitment | No Comments »
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
Search Engine Optimisation is not some mystic science
We have all heard of search engine optimisation (SEO). Recruitment agencies in general have more than a passing interest in ranking well.
In the past we have had to rely on job boards to advertise our jobs. This was because jobs on our own sites do not rank as well. What can we do to improve that?
There are a few things. Unfortunately some of them require some effort on our parts.
- Write unique content. Search engines love unique content. Most of us use syndicating software to post our jobs. We post them once and they get sent to multiple sites. This saves us a ton of time and time is money. There is a downside though. In cases of duplicate content (the same text in various places) Search engine algorithms try to find the original source and rate that while giving less importance to other sites. Since, in general, big job sites get crawled by search engines more regularly than recruiters websites the end result is that your job on a job board is given priority over your own site. The solution: Rewrite the job description for your own site. That means that more of your own site has unique content. It means doing the job twice, but it’s worth it.
- Keywords: Make sure you include terms that you think that people will use to look for that type of job. “Tiler urgently required” will not have the same impact as “jobs for Tilers” or “Tiling Vacancies”. Put keywords in both the title and the body of your job description.
- Interesting Meta Descriptions: The search results in google and other search engines show the page title followed by the contents of the description tag from the page (<meta name=’description’ content=’blah blah blah’ />). If this is not filled out google uses content it gets from the page directly. Don’t leave it up to google. Sell your job with the description. Use descriptive words that excite like “fantastic career opportunity”.
- Tags: Several job sites allow you to use tags. (Jobshot.ie and all the associated sites do) Use them. Most sites make separate pages out of each tag. If you are not using them, you are not showing up as well as someone who is using them.
Tags: advertising jobs, better job descriptions, Doing the job twice, Duplicate content, Job Boards, job descriptions, Job tags, Job titles, Keywords, Meta Descriptions, Multiple sites, Rewrite your job descriptions, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, syndicating jobs, tag your jobs, tags, Write Unique Content
Posted in Job Boards, Recruitment, Search Engine Optimisation | No Comments »
Friday, November 20th, 2009
Twitter becomes more useful to recruiters by integrating with Linkedin
What has the recession taught us? We went from times of plenty to something approaching mass hysteria in 0.6 seconds flat. It gave us all a bit of a scare. More than that; it killed a few agencies completely.
Why have the other recruitment agencies survived? For most it was a combination of factors.
Recruitment takes place on the internet. That’s a sweeping statement but largely true. It is more imperative than ever to be visible online.
We have so many new tools at our disposal too. Twitter, Linkedin, Blogging, Forums, Facebook. No longer are we confined to our own websites and a few job boards. Now we can grow networks and interlink them too.
Linkedin - Facebook in a suit!
How many of you have linked up your twitter job posts to your linkedin status? That way every time you post a job it goes directly to Twitter, and from there to your Linkedin status (which of course gets sent in status update messages to all your contacts!). Fantastic. From posting one job you can have it reach hundreds or even thousands without even having to touch on the number of people the job boards reach.
I knew twitter was good for something!
I’ve drifted a bit from my “Survival of the obvious” heading. The point is that if you do not make yourself blindingly obvious as a recruiter then you are behind the curve.
If you are not utilising all the great new tools we have then you are trading in a backstreet instead of the main street.
Good marketing is all about visibility and getting your name out there. If we get it wrong we won’t survive. How high does your website rank for your chosen keywords? Who are internet searchers finding first? If you are not in the first three results of an internet search you are losing out in a big way.
A little investment in Search Engine Optimisation pays for itself. A little time invested into social media is the best free marketing you can get.
Tags: Blogging, Facebook, Forums, Free marketing, Growing online networks, Interlinking Networks, Internet, Job Boards, Job Sites, Linkedin, Linkedin Status updates, Losing out, Recruitment, Social Media, Survival, Twitter, Twitter and Linkedin, Twitter is good after all!
Posted in Recession, Recruitment, Social Media | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Recruitment News
Hi folks,
Recruitment News suffered a little setback. The machine it was hosted on corrupted and it started acting up.
I have now moved it to the main site, but the original backup content also corrupted. So to cut a long story short I’m starting it off from scratch.
My apologies to those of you who were subscribed to the original feed. The good news is that everything is working well in the news sections new home!
Contributions: If anybody has any news connected to recruitment let me know. (It might even get you a link).
Tags: Contributions, Corrupted Data, Get a link, News, News Section, Recruitment, Starting from Scratch
Posted in Recruitment | No Comments »
