Online Recruitment Blog

Understanding RSS, Wikis, Social Networking, Podcasting and Social Bookmarking

With so many different Web 2.0 products, services and applications out there on the Internet things can get very confusing? Every day there seems to be a new service to improve your online experience!

I came across a site yesterday that takes a look at a lot of the popular applications like RSS, Wikis, Social Networking, Podcasting and Social Bookmarking and they have done a great job in explaining how they all work via a series of short videos.

So if you have ever wondered how all the above applications work, or why you would want to use them, these videos are very useful.

Here is the video about Social Bookmarking:

Mike

www.Web-Based-Recruitment.com

    

Everything You Wanted To Know About Podcasting

The growth on Online Video still continues to grab the headlines but have you considered Podcasting as part of your online recruitment strategy?

Podcasting is effectively Online Audio where people can either visit your web site to listen to your recording or subscribe to your recording via RSS to be notified when your next recording is published. 

You may wish to talk about your company, your current vacancies, have interviews with members of staff etc. In fact the subject areas are virtually endless!

At the moment there are not many companies who have audio on their web sites and online audio is certainly quicker and cheaper to produce than online video. 

Up to now there have been hardly any comprehensive courses about podcasting but starting next week there is a new six week course run by Paul Colligan and Alex Mandossian.

I had the pleasure of being part of the first course they released in 2007 and would certainly recommend it. So if you want to learn everything there is to know about Podcasting from the true experts then visit: www.PodcastSecrets.co.uk

As a result of the course I started the www.JobsInSearchPodcast.com last year plus I have other recruitment related podcasts under development.

Watch this space!

Mike

Changes to Google Adwords Could Affect Recruiters

Google have just announced changes to their adwords url display policy in that the display url (which is the url displayed in the ad) must match the landing page url (which is the page that the visitor goes to) with effect from the 1st April 2008:

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/02/update-to-display-url-policy.html

This could have major implications for Recruiters who link their ads directly to the relevant job description page as sometimes the url for the job description is on a different url.

For example, an international company XYZ may have a XYZ.co.uk careers web site but their recruitment system is on their global XYZ.com domain.

Also, there may be a situation where the XYZ company has their recruitment system hosted by a third party and the the url is a sub domain   "xyzcompany.recruitmentsystemsuppliername.com"

In both the above situations Google are saying that the ads will not longer run.

Whilst I can understand their reasoning (see the announcement) I can see major problems ahead for Recruiters in the above scenarios.

Mike

www.Web-Based-Recruitment.com

New Job Site For Recruitment

It was good to see the other day that Louise from UKRecruiter has started her own job site for Recruiters: http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/jobs/

When you think about it this is the opposite of how a niche job site usually starts.

Usually when you start a job site from scratch (which I did with www.JobsInSearch.com ,  www.OnlineMarketingJobs.com  and www.DigitalMediaJobs.com ) you start from no web site and no clients.

The advantage for Louise is that she already has a loyal following of subscribers (c15,000) to her regular newsletter, lots of visitors to her well known web site, plus she is well known in the industry.   

What a great way to start a new venture. I feel sure that it will be a success from day one!

Mike

www.Web-Based-Recruitment.com

   

Have You Ever Interviewed The Wrong Person?

One of the things about the Christmas Holiday period is that there are usually some good "Best Of...." or "Worst Of..." type programs on TV. One program in particular caught my attention which was about mistakes that took place on various different TV news channels.

I missed this when it actually happened last year but there was a case of someone ending up being interviewed live on BBC 24 News. The only problem was that he was only at the BBC that day because he was there for a job interview! 

Apparently there were two people in reception called "Guy" and when a member of staff went down to reception and said "is Guy here" and he put his hand up.

What the member of staff didn't know was that this was "Guy Goma" and not "Guy Kewney" who was there to talk about court case between the Apple Computer Company and the Apple Music Label.

The look on his face in the interview is quite something!

I wonder how many Recruiters have found themselves in a similar position when they have the wrong person or wrong CV?  I'd love to know how you managed to get out of the situation?

Thanks

Mike

www.Web-Based-Recruitment.com   

Have You Heard About The Best UK Recruitment Blog?

Its that time of year for competitons and voting so here is your chance to vote for the Best UK Recruitment Blog.

Just follow the instructions over at Louise's Blog: http://ukrecruiter.typepad.com/uk_recruiter_blog/2007/12/vote-for-best-u.html

Should be fun to see who wins the "trip of a lifetime" to Blackpool. (I've not been to Blackpool so I hope I win!)

Happy holidays!

Mike

www.Web-Based-Recruitment.com

Cadbury Schweppes Graduate Recruitment Introduce Online Chat Room

The Cadbury Schweppes Graduate Recruitment team have been at it again!

In addtion to introducing a Blog in 2005 and mp3 downloads in 2006 they have now introduced a dedicated Online Chat Room for their 2008 Graduate Recruitment campaign. The chat room opens again this Friday 9th November at 12.30pm (UK time).

You can see the full story via the Personnel Today web site by clicking here.

A good example of using Web 2.0 features to "connect" with their target audience.

Mike

www.Web-Based-Recruitment.com

TypePad's Featured Blog Of The Day - Online Recruitment!

I had a nice surprise the other day when I got an email from TypePad saying that they wanted to feature my blog as their "Featured Blog Of The Day" for the 23rd October 2007.

So on the 23rd October 2007 anyone who signed in to TypePad via the TypePad home page would have seen a link to my site.

I wasn't  quite sure if I should tell anyone (just like being told that you are going to Buckingham Palace to be awarded a Knighthood by the Queen of England - but don't tell anyone just yet!)

Anyway I did tell a couple of people but I don't think I told them the date so I think I sort of kept a secret!

If you want to see what they had to say about my blog here is a link to their Featured Blogs:  http://featured.typepad.com/blogs/

I admit I am not the most active of bloggers but nevertheless it was good to hear that they thought my blog was worth reading!

Mike

www.Web-Based-Recruitment.com

Its Official - Recruitment Is Just A Game!

I saw an interesting news story today about GCHQ and recruitment.

GCHQ stands for "Government Communications Headquarters" and is an intelligence and security organisation that works closely with the UK's other intelligence agencies (commonly known as MI5 and MI6).

The campaign will promote career opportunities in the British Intelligence services via online in-game ads on selected games in the UK.

You can see the full details behind the campaign to attract job seekers through the online gaming market here: http://www.onrec.com/newsstories/18868.asp

It will be interesting to see what response they get from the campaign as they have clearly indentified a target audience.

I wonder if the results will be classified as "Top Secret" and if they will be released? Or will it be a case of "I can't tell you otherwise I'd have to kill you!"

Mike

www.web-based-recruitment.com

Have You Got Your Recruitment Blog Yet?

I've been promoting blogging for recruitment for a couple of years now (you can get my Free Guide to Recruitment Blogging here) and it seems that more and more recruiting companies are now starting to get involved.

A good indication of how fast an industry is growing is by looking at how many Trade Shows there are and the other day I came across the following show: Blog World & New Media Expo.

It is being promoted as the biggest blogging conference in the world and for those who like some up to date statistics on blogging here are some figures from their site:

• There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day .
• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.
• 120,000 new blogs are created every day .
• 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 .
• 51% of blog readers shop online..
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week.
• Over 120 thousand blogs are created every day
• 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.

One of the interesting stats for me is that 89% of companies think that blogs will be more important in the next five years.   

Does your company already have a blog, and more importantly, do you use it to promote your company your career opportunities?

Looking at the stats maybe now is the time to get one!

Mike

www.Web-Based-Recruitment.com