How would you sell the benefits of this job?

Northern Rock has recently appointed a human resources (HR) director, due to start with the firm in September. If you had this job on your books, with all the bad press Northern Rock has experienced over the last year - how would you encourage applications?

Richard Smelt joins the firm with more than 20 years experience in HR management. He was most recently group HR director with Carphone Warehouse.

Ron Sandler, Executive Chairman of Northern Rock, said: "The company is going through a major restructuring exercise and his considerable HR expertise will be invaluable as we move forward. " Well that is one way of putting it! I guess there are challenging times ahead for Smelt, we wish him lots of luck and of course if he needs to recruit personnel externally then he should consider advertising on our niche jobs-board network to keep the recruiting costs down.

Featured Job - Employment Consultant

Employment Consultant

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.
We are looking for a self starter with extensive knowledge of the Armed Forces and experience in commerce and industry to work in our 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. You must have IT skills to ECDL level, a current driving licence, live within easy travelling distance of London, and have excellent knowledge of the employment market preferably with existing employer contacts. Marketing, sales or recruitment experience would be an advantage.

For the full job description or to APPLY click here

Work Place Bullying: What are your thoughts?

The government defines work place bullying as follows:

"Bullying includes abuse, physical or verbal violence, humiliation and undermining someone’s confidence."

You are probably being bullied if, for example, you’re:

constantly picked onhumiliated in front of colleagues / regularly unfairly treated / physically or verbally abused / blamed for problems caused by others / always given too much to do, so that you regularly fail in your work

Bullying can be face-to-face, in writing, over the phone or by fax or email. Workers across the UK suffer from bullying in all its horrid forms. A UNISON survey estimated that up to 5 million people are bullied at work in the UK. The net result of this is 18.9 million work days lost to the distress and pain caused. The Andrea Adams Trust is the world's only non-political, non-profit making charity operating as the focus for the diverse and complex problems caused by bullying behaviour in the workplace. They offer excellent advice to anyone who thinks they are being bullied.

Are you a victim or have you experienced Bullying in the Work Place?

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.

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.

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.

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.