Monday, June 23, 2008

Employment Consultant job with a difference

The Regular Forces Employment Association exists to help men and women of all ranks from the Armed Forces to find and remain in work throughout their working lives.

They are looking for a self starter with extensive knowledge of the Armed Forces and experience in commerce and industry to work in the London office. Your role will be to place Ex-Servicemen and women into appropriate employment. You must have excellent communication skills and be prepared to work to targets and deadlines. You must also be willing to travel around the capital and environs to meet with employers to market the services of RFEA.

The salary is in line with not-for-profit sector at £28,000 pa, good annual leave allowance, pension and job satisfaction guaranteed.

Deadline is 4th July so hurry to Careers In Recruitment for more details and how to apply.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The Personality Quiz: Are you cut out for a Career in Recruitment?

If you’re bored at work and feel like your job doesn’t utilise your talents or play to your interests it’s probably time to reassess. Take our personality quiz and discover the perfect career for you………….

Q1 – You have to put up a set of shelves. Do you:
A Ignore the instructions, this is like a walk in the park for you?
B Read the instructions, but work out your own way to get the job done?
C Dive right in and make a few modifications along the way?
D Get a friend round to help?
E Pay someone else to do it – you hate reading instructions anyway?
F Read the instructions and follow them?

Q2 – There’s a family party coming up. Do you:
A Find an excuse to get out of it?
B Put in an appearance and leave early, family parties are notoriously dull?
C Think you’d rather not go, but at least great Aunty Ruth is guaranteed to liven things up?
D Make a date in your diary – you love any excuse for a party?
E Look forward to it – it’s a good time to let everyone know about the new house and your job promotion?
F Ask if there’s anything you can do to help with the organisation?

Q3 – When working on a project, do you:
A Like to be well ordered?
B Feel happier in a support role rather than taking the lead?
C Feel happier in more creative situations?
D Enjoy being able to pass on your knowledge to others?
E Naturally take charge?
F Enjoy setting systems in place – you’re a born organiser?

Q4 – When it come to work, if your motto:
A Be Prepared?
B There are two sides to every story?
C Life is like a box of chocolates?
D Patience is a virtue?
E All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy?
F Leave no stone unturned?

Q5 – At the end of a typical day, do you:
A Put everything away in it’s proper place?
B Review the day’s events, and where things may have gone wrong?
C Leave the clutter on your desk – you know exactly what’s in each pile?
D Frequently stay late at work to help sort out problems?
E Praise yourself for a job well done, and then meet colleagues for a quick drink?
F Write a to do list for the next day?

Q6 – At the office party, do you win the title of:
A Mr Organised?
B Science Geek?
C Ms Unconventional
D Mr Helpful
E Born Leader
F Ms Conscientious

Q7 – It’s time for your annual pay review. Do you:
A Take the inflationary average?
B Research what you should be paid?
C Put in a request to work from home?
D Agree to what you’re given – you don’t want to rock the boat?
E Suggest a new pay scale, after all you can’t be compared to anyone else?
F Agree to a pay freeze, there could be redundancies around the corner?

Q8 – It’s 5pm and your boss calls an impromptu meeting. But you already have plans to see friends. Do you:
A Feel annoyed, this meeting should have been scheduled during work hours?
B Ask to see the agenda, to give you a chance to prepare?
C Ask if your attendance is really necessary?
D Agree to the meeting and arrange to catch up wit your friends later in the evening?
E Agree to the meeting. There’s no way you’ll risk your career just to meet with friends?
F Reluctantly cancel your friends?

Email me and say whether you are mostly A’s, B’s C’s, D’s, E’s or Fs and I will email you the results! We know which one should fall into the Recruitment category..... go on, just for fun.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Interview with Stephen O’Donnell, Founder AlljobsUK.com, Sales and Marketing with 1Job.co.uk, host of NORAs

- You own and run ‘Alljobs Limited’: tell me a little more about the nature of your business and your role within it

I set up AlljobsUK.com in 2000 as a comprehensive online recruitment portal for candidates throughout the UK, with databases of every recruitment agency, Job Board, Newspaper and Trade magazine that advertised vacancies, as well as the top 16,000 UK employers, and links to their websites.

- How has it changed over the last few years?

AlljobsUK.com has had to develop with the online recruitment sector, coming through the internet bubble, and remaining centrally placed in an industry that then saw wholesale consolidation through mergers and acquisition, and an ever more sophisticated agency sector. Our National Online Recruitment Awards have reflected this since 2001.

- What attracted you to this industry and where did your business idea come from?

I’ve been in recruitment since 1987, and established AlljobsUK.com as a natural progression after writing the website for my recruitment company.

- What would you like to change about the industry?

I would like recruitment agencies to make much more use of their own websites to attract candidates.

- Greatest challenge: Running AlljobsUK.com and a recruitment company at the same time.
- Favourite aspect of your work? Dealing with recruiters and agency owners.

- What would you do, as a career, if you weren’t working in Recruitment? Website development

- Any recommendations for job-seekers looking at a career in Recruitment ? Join a large company and benefit from the in-house training, find your niche and become an expert in it.

- Previous Jobs: I started in recruitment at 21, so just a couple of years selling everything from advertising to cable TV.

- What was your new years resolution and have you stuck to it? To cycle to work each day. Abject failure on that front I’m afraid.

- Ultimate ambition outside of work: Sleep

- Favourite tipple? A pint of chilled draught Warsteiner.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Interview with Lisa Scales, Director: Talent on View Ltd

We learnt recently of a new website due to launch which is a video interview solution for the recruitment industry. We caught up with the site’s Director, Lisa, to find out more……...

- Tell me more about Talentonview.com :

Talent on View is a web based video interview application designed specifically for the recruitment industry. It enables a recruiter to video their candidate whilst interviewing them and sending the video clip to their clients along with the candidates CV. When the client has viewed the candidate they can give feedback immediately which the recruiter receives via email. It is a user friendly application which saves the recruiter and client time and can expedite the recruitment process. It can be used by a high street recruiter through to a senior executive recruiter. The application is completely secure as we use the same security technology as NASA and the Department of Defence in the US.

- What is your background and what motivated you to establish the business?

My background is mainly in high street recruitment having worked for 2 major brands on the high street for a number of years. I have also worked for an executive search and selection firm as well as a HR role with a city law firm – these different roles have given me a wide overview of the recruitment industry. My main motivation to establish the business was the sense of frustration that I sometimes encountered when a client would make a recruitment decision based on just a CV. We have all been there when the client doesn’t allow you time to describe the person and “sell” them and asks for their CV on email. They come back to you saying they don’t want to see them and that is the end of the line for that candidate with that client. Sometimes a CV does not give the true picture of what a person is like and Talent on View enables clients to get a fuller picture prior to seeing them face to face.

- With the amount of websites available and the competitive offerings within the recruitment industry: how did you identify a gap and what are your USPs?

There are candidate driven video resume models currently on the market as well as the growing trend for Talent Managers to have corporate videos on the careers section of their company websites to attract talent but I felt that the nuts and bolts of the industry i.e; the recruitment companies, didn’t have a viable option to use this sort of technology. Video streaming in recent years has become more sophisticated and we live in the “YouTube” generation so I decided it would be great to be able to offer a recruiter another tool in their recruitment toolkit which was inexpensive, easy to use and a value added product. Our unique selling points are:
* Most affordable recruitment video solution on the market
* Completely web based so no need to download any software
* Speeds up recruitment process by enabling the recruiter to receive feedback immediately

- What are the characteristics and skills you have that you believe are particularly suited to what you do?

I am extremely motivated and focused, combined with the ability to juggle lots of different balls at once. I am organised and passionate about what Talent on View can do to enable the industry to embrace Web 2.0 technology.

- Favourite aspect of your work?

Talking to clients – I really like developing new relationships with clients and nurturing the relationship along to becoming a collaboration as opposed to a them and us scenario.

- What would you like to change about the recruitment industry?
I think the recruitment industry is seen as the poor relation to a lot of other industries and it has a reputation for being unscrupulous – I would like industry leaders and umbrella organisations to introduce a harder “barrier to entry” like licensing to weed out the more unscrupulous recruiters out there. The majority are doing a professional job and the minority give it a bad reputation.

- Previous jobs:
Recruitment Consultant, Contract Manager, Business Centre Manager, HR Manager, Executive Consultant
- Any recommendations for job-seekers looking at a career in Recruitment?
Approach the larger organisations for roles as they give fantastic training and will get you off to the best start in a fabulous industry.

- How do you fill your leisure time?

It’s all about family for me but I do like skiing, riding, travelling and reading a good book.

- Ultimate ambition outside of work: Design and build my own house.

Interview with Dan McGuire, MD of Broadbean


Dan McGuire will be a name you recognise if you work in Recruitment or the Online Job Advertising industry, if you haven’t – then please come out from under that rock! His interview below shows us just why he is so successful and we hope you will gain some inspiration from reading it. In November 2007 he was named CBI/Real Business Magazine Young Entrepreneur of the Year. He is also a regular public speaker and has delivered speeches at The HR Software Show (CIPD), The Recruitment Conference and several Onrec events.

- You are the Owner and MD of Broadbean Technology: tell me a little more about the nature of your business and your role within it

Broadbean is the leading distributor of online job adverts in Europe. We currently serve over 1.5m adverts and process around 2m candidate applications every month. My role involves the day to day running of the organisation but I’ve got a great team around me so it doesn’t take all of my time. That leaves me to work on our international expansion, specifically our European operation and my business partner, Kelly Robinson, and I are currently at an advanced stage with our US launch.

- How has your role changed over the last 5 years?

Five years ago it was just me in an office on my own with a contract techie working from home. I did everything except technical development. At the time certain sites like Monster wouldn’t let us post to them so those adverts went through the system, into my inbox and I had to manually add them. It was a great way to spend the first 2 hours of my Friday night I can assure you! We hired our first proper staff towards the end of 2003, had 4 people (including me) by the end of 2004 and I was responsible for 100% of our sales right up until well into 2005. Now my role is much more about developing the management team and ongoing strategy for the business. 5 years ago we were talking about one day becoming the number one player in the UK. Now we’re actually in the process of becoming the number one player in the world.

- Where did your business idea come from?

Kel had 15 years experience in the recruitment industry. He didn’t think any of the companies offering advert distribution at the time were particularly good so he started building his own, brought me in and the rest is history.

- What’s the best thing about working in your industry?

From a technology perspective we have to stay at the forefront and keep innovating. I love that. Internet technology evolves at such a fast pace and knowing you’re in the leading pack gives you great satisfaction. On a personal note, getting to deal with so many down to earth people right across the market is great fun. Plus, most people I know like doing deals in the pub which always works for me.

- Complete this sentence: “An MD of a successful, ever evolving company is never without ………”

A bloody big smile on his face and an attractive lady on his arm. Well, certainly the first part of that is true!

- Greatest challenge:

I never really saw it as much of a challenge at the time because I spent most of 2003 running round with an excited grin on my face but that first year - overcoming the doubters and the cynics, getting by with hardly any money, convincing people to actually pay for the service, making the overdraft last forever - looking back that was the biggest challenge I’ve ever had to deal with.

- Favourite aspect of your work?

How much I still enjoy coming to the office every day. It’s been nearly 6 years and I’m having more fun now than I ever have. A lot of that is down to the people I work with. We just got back from a weekend in Poland and you’d never have guessed we were work colleagues, more like lifelong friends.

- Who do you most admire?

In a business sense I hugely admire self-made entrepreneurs. I could list people all day. They’re my inspiration and I’ve always got an autobiography of someone who’s been there and done it nearby. It’s great that I’m in a position where I get to meet a lot of those people now. More recently I’ve realised how much I admire people that work with kids. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple of years talking at schools and colleges and the teachers and youth workers have such a hard job. Plus they get paid rubbish money and it really annoys me.

- What would you do, as a career, if you weren’t working in the New Media and Recruitment industries?

It’s hard to say as I got into recruitment at 18 straight from college. I always wanted to start in something sales related and always wanted to have my own business so I kind of followed the path I wanted to follow. If you took Broadbean away from me today I’d... actually I’m not going to say because I’m saving that for myself in the future.

- Any recommendations/advice for job-seekers looking to work in online advertising?

It’s a great industry, lots of fun and there’s plenty of opportunities for the right people. At Broadbean, we’re much more interested in hiring people with the right attitude than specific skills or education. We can teach you the skills we need you to have, attitude is something you have to get right yourself.

- Previous Jobs:

My CV is pretty straight forward: worked as a Recruitment Consultant between the age of 18 and 21 and have run Broadbean since then. Before I was 18 I did a paper-round, washed-up in a pub, sold sweets at school, worked in a kitchen in an old people’s home, put up CCTV cameras and worked in a cafe. I sold so many ice creams in that cafe they put me on commission. I got £2 an hour and 1% of all ice cream sales.

- What was your new years resolution and have you stuck to it?

I don’t bother with New Year’s resolutions. They’re pointless and no one ever sticks to them. Why should it take the start of a new year to make a change in your life. If I want to make a change I just do it. Last October I decided it was time to sort my diet out and start eating properly so I went to a nutritionist, learnt what I needed to know and changed my diet accordingly. I learnt a long time ago that to make a change you have to really want to do it and not just do it because you think you should or everyone else is.

- Favourite Film?

Love, Honour and Obey with Ray Winstone. That film gets a lot of airtime in my house.

- Tipple of choice?

Usually bottles of lager, although I’ve become very partial to good Cognac over the last few months. That said, if I’m in a club late at night, which is quite often, it’s nearly always JD and Redbull. I once heard it described as the drink of champions. Actually, it was me that said that.
- Any unfulfilled ambitions?

Because I went straight into work at 18 I never went travelling and that is something I’ll definitely do at some point. I’d also quite like to get drunk with Lily Allen.

Thank you very much Dan for taking the time to share your experiences with us.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Oh dear .. lying on your CV, never a good idea on national TV!

For those Apprentice lovers I am sure you watched Lee McQueen, Recruitment Sales Manager, squirm last night as he was interviewed and caught out for telling a porky on his CV. Lee's CV was scrutinised closely by his interviewers who were unimpressed by its contents – one picked up on his spelling of 'tommorrow', 'ambtion', and 'recoinged', whilst the other had confirmation that he didn’t spend 2 years @ university, but just 4 months!

The other classic that Lee pulled out of the bag was his impression of a dinosaur, which he was asked to do by property tycoon Paul Kemsley. Yes it was extremely uncomfortable to watch as he performed his famous reverse pterodactyl impression. Come on Lee, you work in Recruitment – you must have interviewed hundreds of candidates – you could have done a lot better. That said, it was great TV and he is through to the final.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Fancy working for Robert Half? Branch Manager Opportunity


Branch Manager - Finance & Accountancy Recruitment, £50-65k 1st Year OTE
The Company
Since 1948 Robert Half has been the world's first and largest specialised financial recruitment firm. In 2008 Robert Half was voted one of Sunday Times Best Companies to Work for in the UK for the fourth consecutive year. As a result of our rapid growth we have a Branch Manager position open in Telford. Strong tenured management, deep resources of a large publicly held company and exceptional earnings potential are just a few reasons this recruitment career opportunity is so exciting.

The Role
As a Branch Manager your responsibilities will include:
- Reporting to the Regional Manager, you will provide sales leadership, motivation, coaching and direction to all branch employees- Review monthly recruitment sales activities for all consultants, actively lead marketing activities as a sales leader and creating and maintaining a positive recruitment sales culture- Facilitate cross-sell activities for all recruitment divisions within the branch- Developing new recruitment business opportunities- Foster an environment of outstanding customer service to both clients and candidates- Participating in industry trade associations to increase our presence within the local community.