I'd like to think that all recruiters know how to put a CV together for themselves. 

But an article I read by  Emma Hackforth, the Director Of Coaching and one of the Founders of The CV Clinic, has wrote a great post on her blog. This blog is one you might like to keep in reserve for jobseekers who need a little help in this department.

In fact, there is quite a lot of useful content on the blog for candidates that need a bit of career coaching.

She points out fact like;

•  60 % of the CVs received by British companies via recruiters or directly from applicants had spelling mistakes.
• CVs tend to be poorly punctuated and over 4 pages. I personally would not want to read more than 2 pages. If a candidate has more than 4 pages they need to discuss their 3 or 4 most recent jobs.

 For more in-depth information please feel free to vistit Emma Hackforth's blog.Your comments below are always welcomed.

I have some friends in mid level executive positions such as; engineers, commercial lenders, SAP consultant and they are always getting contacted by recruiters, even if they don’t want to be.  I also have other mid level executive friends in various professions, who wished they received call but recruiters just don't contact them.

Clearly there are two distinct groups of candidates, professionals that want to be contacted and professionals that don’t want to be contact. You have to angle your "sales pitch" and deliver an exceptional opening statement accordingly to these two types of candidates. Your opening statement must quickly engage the candidate so they will listen to what you have to offer. David Szary, Founder of Recruiter Academy, provides two great examples of opening statements.

 

Heavily recruited professionals:

By using this line, you can break the ice and let them know that you know they get called all the time. This is a respectful, tactful way to let them know you appreciate their situation (heavily recruited) and that you DON’T want to bug them, but . . . you DO want to talk to them about an opportunity and/or to network!

Hi John:

My name is Jessica Rubinstein. I am sure you get calls from recruiters all the time but I have an excellent opportunity . . . . (Continue with some type of Attention Grabber . . . )

Not so heavily recruited professionals:

This line is GREAT with these folks. Since they don’t get calls from recruiters, this really gets them thinking . . .

“I don’t get called all the time, I feel left out, I want to be wanted . . . so I am going to talk to you and see what opportunities I am missing out on.”

 

I have talked to many recruiters that use the above line successfully when recruiting two different groups of candidates!

Give it a try! You can also easily comment your thought.

Jafeth Rorgiuez, the Chief Innovations Officer of RECRUITadvantage the maker of turboRECUIT would like to discus Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 is a complex subject and it has many interpretations. Blogging, video sharing, RSS feeds and the incredible amount of social media available today in the Internet are just examples of the types of interactions that can take place in the World of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 deals with the following concepts:


1.      The Web becoming easily accessible by people without a strong technical background.

2.      Applications served over the Internet becoming mission critical for many industries.

3.      Technology cost getting lower and lower.

4.      Web applications have become truly global.


Web 2.0 certainly means different things to different people.  For some people it is about interaction, for others it is about social content.  According to Jafeth Rodriguez, Chief Innovations Officer at RECRUITadvantage, “Web 2.0 is about the level of interaction we have been able to achieve between people, across language and geographical barriers.  It is about the business value generated out of the active user base centred on a particular application in a particular industry.  The difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 therefore could be associated with the level of engagement, with the fact that communication is 2-ways or n-way as opposed to the 1-way communication paradigm we got used to in the early stages of the Internet.  It also deals with the fact that the technology is being used in ways that haven’t been seen before and it is constantly evolving. It is also about authenticity, about real-time free information sharing between content creators, collaborators, critics and observers.”

New terms have been born around the Web 2.0 concept.   Some examples of these terms are:

• Wikis. A wiki is an online environment, which allows anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipediais perhaps the best-known wiki, but not the only example.  Wiki technology is used for knowledge management, customer support databases, intranets, etc.

• Folksonomy.   This is a humongous word which simply deals with the practice of collaboratively creating and managing tags to describe and categorise content.  It differs from traditional indexing in that the tagging is done not only by content creator but also by content consumers.

• Blogging.  A blogis an extension of the bulletin board technology found in the Web in its formation stages.  It consists of a Web site, usually maintained by an individual or a company representative, with regular public entries, opinions, and content, in the form of text, graphics or video.

Recruitment, as a service business, must engage on these types of interactions, as possible means to find talent, find clients and add value in the process.  As people embed themselves more and more in the Web 2.0 World, they become increasingly connected to particular topics, themes, and industry discussions, professional and personal networks.  Web 2.0 is becoming part of normal communication; just another dimension to it.

Without realising it, recruiters have been active supporters of the Web 2.0 movement for some time.  The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, inherent to applicant tracking systems (ATS) such as turboRECRUIT, is a good expression of the Web 2.0 paradigm.  There is much more to learn and changes to take place in these kinds of systems, and the model are in constant evolution.  The foundation for value adds is already in place and it will get better. To get engaged in other facets of the Web 2.0 world, try doing a search on the Web about a topic of your interest, find some blogging sites and blog until you drop!  Develop a feeling about the technology and what is possible and think about the possible applications of this technology into your day-to-day business activities.  You will be surprised to see and experience how many people and businesses are already engaged in the powerful world of Web 2.0.

What do you think please comment.

Jafeth Rodriguez, CIO of RECRUITadvantage has been measuring job board ad numbers for a few years in the Australian market.  In terms of industry trends, Jafeth has decided to have another look at current job advertisement trends to see if we can reach some conclusions of our own, at the high level overview. The average number of online job ads in Australia (per week) grew from 71,000 in Aug 2003 to 105,000 in Aug 2004 (48%) than to 132,000 (26%) in March 2005, than to 184,000 in September 2006 (40%), than to 250,000 in June 2007 (36%). To June 2008, we jumped to 352,000 ads, another 41% increase in one year.  If we see the trends on a month-by-month basis, we will see some signs of a softening market, but looking at the market over a longer period of time, we can say it has indeed grown in a healthy and consistent manner over recent years.

Jafeth will discuss more on this topic very soon…

What do you think? Please comment your views to today's.

I keep reading about video CVs as the newest wave in recruitment technology. But how many CVs are actually being used by video versus the conventional CVs? Would you actually use video CVs in your next recruitment campaign?

A couple of years ago hip-hop performer, produce, and designer, Sean Puffy Combs posted a video on YouTube looking for an Executive Assistant and thousands of eager candidates submitted their video CVs in hope of being the next Executive Assistant for Sean Puffy Combs. The technology has been out for a while but it has been Sean Puffy Combs who has tried to bring the new recruitment method of Video CVs to the mainstream. But has the Video CVs really taken off and over ridden traditional CVs?

In a survey conducted by MRINetwork, one of the world's largest executive search organisations, it was stated that four percent of potential candidates have actually used a video CV in a job search. This minimal number of 4% could be due to some issues such as the internet connection. I strongly believe that as internet speed becomes faster with broadband and internet connections in almost every home, school, and university, more people will start to use video CVs and move away from traditional CVs. Generation X will probably be the for runners of video CVs since they are the generation that has grown up with computers and other technologies.

RECRUITadvantage is in the process of developing a business relationships with a video technology company so that we can expand our product line and continue to be the leader in providing the latest recruitment software technology. We currently have the ability to record people’s voices in a voice based technology used in recruitment campaigns that generate large response rate through turboVOICE.

I would like to know, do you think that video CVs are the next wave in technology and if so would you use video CVs in your next recruitment campaign or job search? Please comment your opinion below.

We keep on talking about a ‘candidate short market” yet the unemployment rate are the lowest ever in Australian history which is great but my concern is about the candidates that are rejected. I am sure that at some point you were looking for a job that you thought you would be great at, you apply and you hear nothing from either the company or the recruitment agency. A lot of jobseekers apply to many jobs and they only hear back from a couple companies, days, weeks, or even months later stating ‘sorry you have been rejected’. It can be frustrating to the jobseeker because they may want to know more in-depth why they were not chosen or at least acknowledged that they have applied to the job.

I recently read in article in Recruitment Daily written by LinkMe discussing a research about ‘What do jobseekers hate most about recruiting?  In this article the top complaints mentioned were; 1. recruiters never call back a jobseeker, 2. recruiters not notifying jobseekers if unsuccessful, and 3. recruiters’ not receiving any calls after they register on a database. Whether we are a jobseeker or a recruiter we can all relate to this 3 complaint issues.

The turboRECRUIT product can help minimise jobseekers complaints by allowing recruitment companies the ability to send atomically ‘thank you for applying to this job emails’ or when a client is rejected with the click of a button the jobseeker will be indicated via email that they are not successful. turboRECRUIT also has a candidate management centre that is designed for jobseekers to apply online through recruitment company website and automatically receive job vacancies emails. The candidate centre provides jobseeker the opportunity to choose which type of work they are looking for, location, and monetary status which can be emailed to the jobseeker, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly all depending on what the jobseekers chooses.   With the user-friendly turboRECRUIT software the recruiter’s job will be make easier and simpler so that the jobseekers will less frustrated with the whole recruitment process. If you want to find out more about turboRECUIT and other related changes to turboRECRUIT please have a look at our newsletter for the lates news.

You can also comment its too easy!


 

Hi All,
Thanks for having a look at our newest online newsletter. I look forward to hearing about what you would like to listen to in a Webinar session. We are willing to discuss numerous topics such as High Impact Recruitment or Developing Successful Graduates or How to Generate Quality Candidates. All you have to do is click on the comment button below and share your opinion.

Three months ago we revamped our website so that we are more "Google Compatible" however we still have a long way to go till we are in the non sponsored area.  We are using the sponsored link area and we hope to be in top 3 spot in each of our 15 word category every day. We are slowly generating some response but not the response rate we are looking for, so we are trying Yahoo also.

If you are thinking about Yahoo or Google and you don't have either, Yahoo is a great place to start because you get:

•  Dedicated account manager who helps you achieve your goals
•  When paying for sponsored links your ads can be shown in Yahoo, Nine MSN, Fairfax, Sensors, and AnSearch
• You pay only for the clicks

This month will be our first time using Yahoo and we hope to become useful. I am wondering if you have sponsored Yahoo and Google links and if you find it effective? Do you yourself search in Yahoo, Nine MSN, Fairfax, Sensors, and AnSearch or do always search in Google? 

We have been promoting turboVOICE our new product that uses voice technology called Interactive Voice Technology (IVR). IVR is an automated telephony system that interacts with callers, gathers information and routes calls to the appropriate recipient. IVR systems have been around for many years across different channels such as: telephone banking, call centre, customer facing or retail roles.

 

This technology can be used by recruiters, giving them the opportunity to take advantage of alternative channels of recruitment. It allows a new call to action to be through telephony. Your recruitment campaign message can be delivered 24/7 giving the candidates the ability to respond anytime.

The candidate can be reached by two options:

1.  An email that is sent out to the candidate informing them that they are to call a number with explicit directions
   
2. On the job ad, the candidate is prompted to call a number

Both options work, giving the company the opportunity to convey brand messages using music and tone of voice to personalise the message and soften the screening procedure.

This technology helps recruiters to reduce costs, reinforce company brand image, and increase candidates’ understanding of the role.

Is this technology you would use? Please comment your thoughts!

I  came across this article  from Online Recruitment Blog while looking for stories to blog about.

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: