The HR Connexions Blog

Thank you for visiting HR Connexions Online Recruitment Blog. Designed to keep Employers & Recruiters up to date on all the developments in Online Recruitment. Please feel free to express your point of view and share your experiences with us. We look forward to communicating with you!

• 27Nov

  Linked In to Find a Job?

  Social Networking 2 Comments
  Although quite amusing and a bit of tongue in cheek humour never hurt anyone, this video does lend it self to an interesting debate.  According to Hitwise.com Linked In is the second most used website for recruitment (after jobcentre plus) and thousands of head hunters can’t all have it wrong!  It just goes to demonstrate that there is a sever lack of knowledge amongst job seekers and recruiters alike.  Let us know what you think and hopefully our Top 5 Tips below will help you too….

   

  Your Linked In profile is a virtual CV. Not only are thousands of recruiters using linked in to find talent, but increasing numbers of employers are also searching the site to find out more about the applicants before the interview stage.

  If you are not using it effectively, then how will you ever be the first choice for a recruiter or even alerted to potential vacancies?

  Top 5 Tips to Finding a Job on Linked In.

  1. Build your Profile
  If an employer or recruiter is searching Linked In for potential applicants, they will not waste their time (or money) sending inmails or referrals to people who have no contacts, a hidden private name and no information on their profile.  Aim to get your profile status to 100% by building a professional and informative profile and then demonstrate that you are using the site by joining discussions, updating your status, connecting with people. 

  2. Make your Profile Available
  There are an unbelievable amount of profiles on the site that have their interest set to “career opportunities” and then have their privacy settings on maximum.  How can anyone inform you of career opportunities if you do not allow them to connect with you?

  3. Build your Network & Personal Brand
  Promote your personal brand & build your connections by joining groups, answering questions & promoting what you know.  If a recruiter is looking at two similar profiles and one has shown indepth knowledge of the industry by answering questions, this candidate is going to stand head and shoulders above the other one.

  4.  Engage with Employers and Recruiters
  Find out who they are & where they are, become one of their contacts, join their company or industry groups.  You will usually find that most smart recruiters are Open Networkers and are willing to connect and with most people as it widens their network and helps them too

  5.  Don’t Give Up
  Linked In is another tool to help you find a job and help promote yourself to future employers. Keep active and keep up the momentum. The more you use the site and the more you engage with your connections the more you will get from it, hopefully the job of your dreams!

  Tags: linkedin, Social Networking, social recruiting

• 16Nov

  What is the Recruitment Industry Thinking?

  Online Recruitment, Recruitment Strategy 2 Comments
  Some months ago, along with 700 other recruiters, I took part in a survey by the Recruiter.co.uk (part of Centaur).  This was to provide feedback on views from the recruitment industry.

  The results were given as two separate reports:  Recruitment Agency & Direct Recruiter and at times, the format of the results were difficult to disseminate as there was a lot of qualitative data.  However, here are some of the results from the report:

  53% of respondents said they expect to see a significant improvement in business by Spring 2010, the next highest of response was 14.7% respondents who said by the Summer 2010

  When questioned about how they think the recruitment industry will have changed once the recession is over. The highest responses were: Fewer Agencies (381), Offer a wider range of services (209), Employers doing own in-house recruitment (301), Increased pressure on fees (280).

  50.4% of respondents felt that their clients would spend less on recruitment fees and 39.6% felt they would spend the same.

  When the market picks up; 35.5% respondents felt that they would do more with advertising on General job boards whilst 46.9% would continue to do the same.  Similar figures were also represented for specialist job boards. 

  73% of respondents would do more on Professional Networks to attract candidates and 17% would do the same.

  There were some interesting comments on what the biggest challenge recruiters faced (apart from the recession). The most common threads were; Recruitment Agencies under cutting each other, cash flow, rogue recruitment agencies, flat fee recruitment agencies and direct hiring strategies from companies.

  What does all this mean?

  Firstly, the recruitment industry percieves recovery is still 6 - 9 months away and with fewer recruitment agencies on the landscape.  There also seams to be an agreement that employers will be adopting a more direct & in-house recruitment approach with the many of them spending less on recruitment fees.

  These results show that generating applicants through Social networking is high on a lot of recruiters agenda’s at the moment but the job boards, both specialist and niche, shouldn’t worry just yet.

  Lis Wilson is a Director of HR Connexions and helps companies take a more direct approach to recruitment through using the internet and online recruitment software.

  Tags: economy, in-house recruitment, Online Recruitment, recruitment agencies, surveys

• 11Nov

  Is YOUR HR Strategy in Place for the Recovery?

  HR Services, Online Recruitment No Comments
  Now that there are signs of brighter futures on the horizon, many organisations are starting the process of planning their HR Strategy, in line with their corporate objectives, to sustain their recovery.

  Having stripped their businesses to cope with the recent economic pressures or strived to maintain the status quo, we can formulate a HR plan to help us move forward.

  HR strategy is built up of a number of components, including:

  • ‘hard’ aspects – The competences and resources an organisation needs.  This will include the people and the specific skills
  • ‘soft’ aspects – The behaviour it needs to encourage to achieve a competitive advantage.  This is often shown in the culture and organisational structure.

  The HR strategy should work with the company objectives, helping the organisation plan their human resources to achieve success. 

  If, for example, an organisation plans to grow and increase turnover in the next 12 months, the HR plan will probably involve recruiting additional staff to meet demand.  By planning for this process, we have the time to properly asses the market and review our recruitment options to ensure we attract and retain key employees.  This should be from a wide talent pool with the correct skills and competences.  If we do not plan, we leave ourselves at risk of panic recruiting; taking on new staff who are immediately available but who do not necessarily meet our selection criteria, or spending high recruitment fees to meet our short timescales.

  So, to move forward and achieve success and growth it is essential to plan and develop an effective HR strategy at the earliest opportunity.

  HR Connexions can offer support and guidance in putting together an HR strategy, working together to achieve your business goals and objectives.  Call our HR Helpline on 0113 239 5672 today

  Tags: HR, HR Strategy, Recruitment Strategy

• 10Nov

  LinkedIn Tips for Recruiters

  Applicant Attraction, Social Networking 3 Comments
  As a recruiter, I can’t remember how I used to do my job without LinkedIn….quite simply - Linkedin is an invaluable tool for recruiters and hiring managers.

  1) Use advanced search to find and view the profiles of perfectly matched, passive candidates for your jobs
  Try it – you can search by keyword, job title, company, industry, geography and more….a whole free database of candidate info.

  2) Increase you network size
  LinkedIn has a global membership of 50 million – but it’s no good searching for all those great candidates if you have access to only a few. The more connections you have, the more access to candidates you will have. That’s why you will find many recruiters are ‘super connected’. I have over 2600 first line connections which gives me access to about 16 million candidates…consider becoming an ‘Open Networker’ for the benefits that will bring.

  3) Join relevant groups
  Groups are a great way of having access to candidates which aren’t necessarily in your 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree network. I join a new group for every new search I do…the group members then become available to you via the advanced search facility.

  4) Accept all invitations to connect
  There are arguments for and against having a large network, but for a recruiter, BIGGER is definitely better. The network will have more access to you, and vice versa.

  5) Use your network
  A network is like a muscle – use it to make it work for you. Be active, join discussions, give recommendations, answer questions, start your own group….the more visibility you have, the more business…

   

  Tags: linkedin, Online Recruitment, social recruiting