30.4.09

Irish Recruiters TV - Meet Ruadhri McGarry - CEO of MyNewCV.ie

I had the pleasure of meeting Ruadhri recently in a very noisey pub in the city centre to learn about his company MyNewCV.ie and a new concept called Enigma Search. We also talk about LinkedIn, Twitter and iPhone apps.

29.4.09

Jobs2Ireland.ie release new career site

Jobs2Ireland have released a new career site which includes job search, news about the Irish jobs market as well as career advice articles. The site has a lot of RSS functionality built into it which is always welcome and should make life easier for job seekers. Current offering start at €19 per month, unlimited job advertising and unlimited access to the jobseeker database. Check it out here.

27.4.09

Hudson Offering Free Candidates Consultancy Event

Hudson is running free candidate workshops to help candidates in this economic downturn to market themselves better to find a job. A recent survey they conducted on 500 cvs found that 92% would not pass the basic test of grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Now more than ever candidates need to prepare their CVs well and Hudson hope this event event will provide some tips to help those candidates eager to improve their chances in finding a job. The event will cover cv writing, interview tips routes of entry to the job market and networking. To learn more go here.

25.4.09

Irish Recruiters Conference Update

I'm delighted to announce that as part of the line up for the up and coming "Future of Recruitment Conference" Patrick Traynor, Sales Manager for Corporate Solutions at LinkedIn will be flying into Dublin to give the attendees a presentation on LinkedIn and its meteroic rise into social networking and recruitment. It's great to have LinkedIn taking part and I'm looking forward to hear Patrick's thoughts on the recession and the future.

This makes up the final member of the presentation panel which includes myself, Jane Lorigan (IrishJobs.ie), Anne Heraty (CPL) and Joe Ffrench (Microsoft).

22.4.09

TwitterJobSearch adds Maps functionality

Here's what has come out from their latest press release:

"A new interactive feature launched by TwitterJobSearch gives visitors an immediate view of all vacancies posted onto the Twitter platform according to their location. Useful for those seeking employment in particular locations, the real-time visual map also proves just how fast professional use of the service is growing in different countries and cities around the globe. TwitterJobSearch’s JobMap allows people to drill down by continent, country or specific location, providing additional layers of detail as the map zooms in, with jobs signposted with a blue marker. The tool initially focuses on jobs posted by city, simply because that is the information most often used in job overviews, but any vacancies that provide more detailed address data in the original Tweet or destination url, such as postal or zip code, can be pinpointed exactly on the map. The total number of jobs posted in that location is displayed in a speech bubble with the option of clicking through for more information. www.TwitterJobSearch.com/map

20.4.09

Intel's new atom chip architecture and cloud recruitment

Anyone that is carefully watching the race for mobile internet dominance must have been very interested a year ago when Intel launched its amazing atom chips.

In less than a year there has been a revolution in netbook and mobile computing and this new generation of chip family is going to unleash an incredible array of new mobile internet devices in the very near future.

During the keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing last week titled "Mobility's Next Wave of Growth," Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, introduced two new processors for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). He also demonstrated the first live demo of Intel's next-generation Atom-based MID platform, codenamed "Moorestown."  Read the news release here.

Job seekers are and will continue to get access to a wide range of new mobile internet devices on the market that will allow them use the power of the internet while away from the traditional desktop and access job related information far easier. Ireland still has a long way to go to catch up with Asia and the US in terms of broadband penetration in the office and on the road as well as affordable smart phone data packages but with the recent launch by Vodafone offering mobile internet packages for 9.99 per month and moves by the likes of BT now offering a whopping 24 mbps of internet broadband to its customers for as less as 39 euros a month (including VAT) were beginning to get wired up slowly but surely.

At the Irish Recruiters conference on the 3rd of June i'll be diving into this topic in a lot more detail. I'll be looking at the rise of mobile technologies and how these advancements in technology may be applied to give recruiters and job seekers a competitive advantage. I'll be explaining what cloud computing is and how understanding it can give recruiters a new way to contact new audiences using different delivery channels. I'll also be giving a lot of examples of a lot of the new products and services from around the world that I am tracking that can let recruiters react with the cloud.

Mobile technology is evolving at break beat speed to remind us of how far we've come watch the below video.


17.4.09

Irish Recruiters TV - Meet Jonhathan Campbell of Select People

As part of building out the Irish Recruiters Network I have decided to get the camcorder out, dust it off, wipe the lens and start meeting some people on the road to put some faces behind the names and learn about what products, services and innovation some of the members are offering. I also think that this is a great way to get people's opinions on the recession and how technology is so quickly providing a plethora of tools to allow recruiters get more efficient and effective at most elements of the recruitment process.

Forgive me for my poor light management, framing, audio balancing, post production editing and the terrible orangey tunsun lighting in the background but as time goes by I hope that the productions can become a little slicker.

First up is Jonathan Campbell from Select People Limited. Jonathan talks about some of his searching techniques as well as using Xing in Germany and cultural differences when recruitment across Europe. He also talks about the way recruitment is changing in the recession and the rise of the "smart candidate".

Don't forget to the hit the HD button on the bottom of the YouTube video to get a better visual.

14.4.09

RecruitIreland offers free job posting to Irish Employers.

Only a few months ago Monster USA announced a campaign called the "Keep America Working Tour" that has the company embarking on a tour of 140 cities this year to set up job clinics and assist the unemployed get back to work. So far feedback on the events have been positive.

Likewise, RecruitIreland are getting creative. When Dell was hit with its large set of redundancies in Limerick the company soon after offered free job postings to all Limerick employers. It has now gone one step further and offered free job postings to all employers in Ireland.

On their blog today they wrote:

"This week we launched a new campaign offering free advertising to employers in Ireland - the aim of this campaign is to provide support to businesses at a time when they most need it and also to be a "one stop shop" as such for jobseekers. We want to offer you a complete service whereby when you log onto the website you will find all vacancies in Ireland in the one place - we hope by offering free advertising to employers we will facilitate this."


This is a clever but controversial move by the company and one that should see the a lot of jobs that are live and offered by internet savy employers in the country being aggregated onto their board. It will makes sense for a signifigant amout of employers that they post their jobs on the site now that it is free and job seekers will be happier as they can view more jobs in one place. However I question if RecruitIreland will be denting future revenue streams in the future from the important recruitment agency companies that make up a signifigant chunk of their client base. I wonder is the offer open to all recruitment agencies as well? It wasn't obvious from reading the announcement on their site if it was or not.  If not, I wonder will agencies view this as an attenuation of their brands in the market?

Recently it has been more evident that a new set of outplacement and CV clinic services and products are entering the market with IrishJobs for example setting up  Horizon Outplacement As the recession moves on we will no doubt see more innovation in the market. I wonder when Tesco's will decide to enter the market. TescoJobs.ie could be an interesting move into the industry or I wonder will Michael O'Leary at some stage look at the similar technology behind his RyanAir web site model and also enter into the market with RyanAirJobs.ie. Probably long odds on both. You'd be best served putting your money on Ireland winning the next Eurovision. However, I'd be far more willing to bet on a lot more change and response in the coming months. Recruitment providers will work harder to build new and foster deeper relationships with job seekers and clients. RecruitIreland again, have seemed to grasp this concept well by introducing new functionality on their home site where they specifically call out a section called Web 2.0 and RecruitIreland.com which allows job seekers interact with their web site by offering them the option to follow them on Twitter, Bebo or by RSS. They also provide an option to download a simple App or join their group to use FaceBook to facilitate their search. I'm suprised that other job boards haven't followed suit already and I have no doubt more will in the future. It will be interesting to see which will be the first to offer a full mobile recruiting advertising campaign targetted to mobile smart phones. I'll be talking more about this topic and web 2.0 recruitment tactics at "The Future of Recruitment Conference" on the 3rd of June. I'm also looking forward to debating RecruitIreland's free

PS - Apologies about the illuminous links font that has mysteriously arrived on the blog today. Looks like there are some problems with Blogspot which Google will hopefully rectify soon.

8.4.09

Twitter killer has arrived - nano blogging :)

Careerbuilder expanding even more into Europe

Careerbuilder has announced several partnerships in Europe that marks a clear message of how serious they are about the market.

They've set up deals with: Amris, Bond, Broadbean, Bullhorn, Candidate Manager, ChangeWorkNow, First Advantage, iCIMS, Kenexa, MrTed, PeopleBank, Peopleclick, PCRecruiter, Profilsoft, and Webcruit (Kaonix). Job posting aggregators such as and eQuest and candidate sourcing tools such as TalentDrive, AIRS, Daxtra and infoGIST will also be partners.

The idea behind this seems to be integration and making sure recruiters can be more efficient. Smart move and another reason for recruiters to use their platform.

"CareerBuilder's goal is to provide our clients worldwide with an experience that makes connecting them with the right people efficient and cost effective," said Farhan Yasin, president of CareerBuilder Europe, Africa and the Middle East. "Significant advances in technology have paved a road for new process-improvement tools that can easily integrate with a variety of applicant tracking systems. By adding these partners, CareerBuilder is strengthening its commitment to improving the recruitment process for our corporate employers."

6.4.09

New iPhone 3.0 Operating System


iPhone OS 3.0 Software Sneak Peak part 2

iPhone OS 3.0 Software Sneak Peak part 3 

iPhone OS 3.0 Software Sneak Peak part 4

  • Over 1,000 APIs!
  • Meebo is gone native on the iPhone.
  • Cut and Paste
  • 3G Tethering
  • New Multimedia Messaging (MMS)
  • Remote Control for your accessories

Here's a great article that goes through all the main features and applications.

4.4.09

Chink in the light during tough times

Good synopsis on some of the new jobs coming into the economy from Louise McBride in the Independant.

3.4.09

Friday's top 6 - Google looks like buying Twitter

Some news items that caught my attention today.

[1] Saongroup.com, the international online recruitment company, has appointed Patrick Keenan to the position of Sales Director for RecruitGulf.com and Colm Reddy as Senior Account Manager. Read here.

[2]  Europe's unemployment up to 8.5%. and Ireland's up to 11% in March.

[3] iEmploy come out with fixed price model. The article goes on to say  

" iEmploy may be new arrivals on the online recruitment scene, but their founders have over 18 years of industry experience between them. With a sound backing and knowledge of what methods of service work, the iEmploy team have been able to cover recruitment advertising throughout all business sectors across the UK, Ireland and even internationally as is sometimes the case. Their unique selling point is an exceptional return for money spent, something that is extremely welcome in today's economy.

iEmploy's recruitment advertising packages are designed to suit businesses and employers of all sizes and calibre and are a mixture of traditional recruitment agency service as well as the effectiveness of job boards. All vacancies are posted on no less than 4 major job boards that have proven efficacy, and are seperately managed by personal account managers."


[4] Blow your trumpet to keep your jobs - James Caan fielding questions


[5] Online recruitment companies charge candidates. - I came across this practice when I was in Brazil over New Years. My sister in law was searching for work and had to pay 200 reis (65 euros) to get her CV allowed into a boutique retail job board's candidate database so that employers could see her details. Looks like UAE and Brazil have some similarities in the jobs market.
 
 [6] Looks like Google is about to get Twitter, here.

2.4.09

Kevin Costner becomes partner of Green Job Interview

Green Job Interview is the latest entrant into the virtual interview market.  Check it out here.

Also, ever wish you could highlight some text on a page, click a button, and tweet a text as a quote... well TweetThisText has answered your prayers!


Twitter Adding New Search Functionality

Twitter is now offering a way that you can go and search for other twits or twitters without leaving your own page without leaving the page they are on, as well as seeing what the most topical subjects being tweeted are.

Check out the update on the twitter blog, here.

Co founder Biz Stone stated that:

"We've added a few other features to this design. If there's a search you want to do on a regular basis, you can "save" the search. That will place the word or term permanently in your sidebar for easy access. So if you want to know what people are saying about the city you live in, the products you use, or just something weird, it becomes a link on your home page.

Twitter Search is an engine for discovering what is happening right now but it doesn't always have to be a box and a button. Trends are words or phrases being referenced with more frequency suggesting that something interesting might be happening. When you click on a trend link, you can read the tweets and find out what's up. Trends is in beta—but it has potential."

1.4.09

Google and Microsoft alliance to bring a new world of job matching

In an extremely rare partnership Google and Microsoft have decided to come together to create what looks like will be  the world's most sophisticated and successful job board!

Both 800 pound gorilla's have decided that the job board industry worth an estimates 6 billion dollars a year is now too good to ignore and they have jointly in an incredibly rare partnership agreement come together to form a new job board that will be based on a mixture of Microsoft's new algorithmic search engine called Kumo and Google's now already highly trafficked GoogleBase product. Open Source APIs will be offered using the new HR-XML consortium's CV distribution schemea to allow savvy job seekers to upload their CV for free and employers will have to bid to get access to candidates that match their search criteria. The new model will cleverly be a time-to-hire paradigm. The fresher the CV the higher the cost-per-click bidding starts at. So as an employer when you register the key parameters for your search e.g. Financial Accountant > Dublin district > 10+ years experience > ACCA > salary range 70 to 90k, etc - If the new database provides 8 candidates that match you can bid to see the CV the latest result being the most expensive. The idea being the latest candidates on the market are the most expensive to access. Employees can "turn on" or "turn off" their CV search at will. A set of guidelines and policies are in place to ensure that employees who have accepted a new job must "turn off" their CV before they can searching again for a new job.

The project is elegantly called called "FreeJobsForAll.com and has already been localised into 55 languages for launch. Both businesses are planning to integrate their Windows Mobile and Android platforms as well as their respective video hosting sites: YouTube and Soapbox to create a new world order in job matching and advertising. It looks like finding a job has got a lot more interesting. Happy April fools!