29.7.09

New Twitter Front Page Arrives - It's no longer just about you

Twitter has a new homepage. If you are a user of Twitter already you're not going to see a lot of it as you'll be already logged in but for all those people around the world who still have not logged into Twitter they will be greeted by this new home page which now has 23 topics covering the collective discussions of what is  happening on Google at any given time.  It's now the world's most powerful breaking news aggregator in real time. Contrasting the old page and the new page gives us some hints of the company's ambition.

Here’s the old description text:
“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
And here’s the new text:
“Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world”
They have moved away from the focus on your personal network and have now started focusing on real time news and discovery for world events.  Effectively for me anyway this is almost a step towards a more hybrid social networking/Google news type real-time platform.

This is an evolutionary change.  Twitter was first conceived as a place to update your friends and interested parties on your life. It was focused and very much about you. Now in its place the focus is now about the entire world.

27.7.09

Want to know how to translate your Twits

Recently, I've begun to write the odd Twit in Portuguese and Spanish. A useful tool that has come out to let me do this a little quicker and with less grammatical errors is Twinsalator. This could be a helpful tool when braodcasting to candidates that you are seeking to hire from other nationalities.

While you could (roughly) translate your Tweets by pasting them into Google Translate, new service Twinslator wants to make it even easier, allowing you to write a tweet, translate it into another language and (optionally) post both messages.

24.7.09

iCloud is what Google Chrome OS wants to be - but when will we see a recrutiment O/S

Following up from my blog post on Google Chrome's OS annuncement I decided today to go searching for small start ups that maybe already have created a OS in their browser. Often when companies are building innovative software they are faced with the classic "build or buy" scenario when deciding what to do. I was sure I’d unearth something or someone who had already build an O/S in a browser and low and behold iCloud appeared! Check out the video introduction:



Expect Google Chrome's OS to look something a long the same lines as this but with an even cleaner UI. The question for recruiters will be how to use it to benefit their cloud recruitment strategy? Well with a cloud drive as part of the offering synchronisation with your office hard drive will be important so you can work on the go. It will be interesting to see what other portability will be on offer to see if you can build ATS integration into the browser. Some of the open source ATS out there might be able to integrate with the platform which will make it easier for recruiters to work off their browsers which would be a nice piece of functionality to have if the security was tight enough when working from an airport for example.

The real question for me though is when will we see a recruitment O/S?


Aggregation is already becoming important as we head into the start of FY10. Expect a lot more desktop aggregation and clever desktop search tools popping up like Xobni, in the coming months as well as a continuing explosing of mobile apps. What I would be delighted to see would be a browser which allows me merge my RSS feeds, my facebook updates, my tweets and my hotmail, gmail and work emails in one place. Let me check my ATS feeds, have Skype imbedded and allow IMs from both Gmail and Messenger that would be great. Besides that integrations with a news aggregator like Newsgator would deserve a tip of the hat. Google Wave, meets iGoogle, meets Google Chrome OS, plus Google docs, plus Google News, plus Tweet deck, plus Messenger, plus LinkedIn integration and multiple utilities like Firefox have on offer would be a start.

Ever use toolbars, widgets or search engines to search in two languages

Well, if you do, then you'll like this.

2lingual,has a front page with two search boxes. Choose the language you want to search in from the drop-down boxes and start typing your query in the left box.

Today I was looking for a Brazilan recruitment blog from Sao Paulo and it helped a lot!

23.7.09

CPL acquires assets of Ecom Interaction Services

Not alot about this on the Net, but here is the update and a small section on it on one of the CPL employee blogs, here.

17.7.09

CPL picks up more distressed assets at bargin prices

CPL yesterday once again went on the acquisition trail by taking advantage ofrivals' problems as it bought two further units of Newcourt, the collapsed business support services provider. To learn more read the article here. Something tells me this is not the end of the bargain hunting and you can expect the company to also look for opportunities not only to diversify its portfolio but also expand its market reach into Europe.

Microsoft launches new career web site

Microsoft last Monday united over 150 career web sites, dozens of applicant tracking systems, and a lot of microsites that organically formed by businesses that felt the career site in the past wasn't telling their story as well as they wanted to. You can check it out here.

This is the culmination of two years work where we decided back then to re-invest in our talent management systems and update our Applicant Tracking System to a new SAP platform. The logical step after deciding to invest in a new ATS was to also invest in a new career site platform which is what we did. Over 10 full-time people worked on this project in addition to a validation team that was set up for project management and quality control. Margie Medd, Microsoft’s director of employment branding, spearheaded the project aided by one of our finest Recruitment Marketing Managers, Liz Frideman, and both have done a terrific job.  At Microsoft, in my opinion we have under invested across our businesses' portfolios including recruitment at telling our story. This is a great step forward in the right direction creating a one message platform that allows for more built in social media inclusion and tailorisation at the country level.

When we started our focus groups two years ago it became obvious that three things were critical for success: search and apply for jobs was number one. Knowing what to apply for in a company with 100,000 employees was next on the list and third was specific information on the company and the job.

That’s why the job search is ubiquitous on the site and that’s why the navigation bar is super simple with only three main channels: Apply Now, Find Your Fit, and Meet Microsoft. The content for the latter two channels will grow over the next several months, although the core pieces are in place. Microsoft’s most popular recruiting features - Hey Genius, View, and Microspotting — will stay and retain their own separate identification, though one or two might be folded into the career site over time. The irreverent “Day of Microsoft Perks” video was preserved and is a part of the channel that talks about the company’s benefits package.

We are already planning for more social media integration and more story telling in the coming months which should be exciting when launched. On the topic of media, also check out our Office 2010 trailer. There is a lot of cool things happening in Microsoft at the moment and its great to work with so many creative people now more than ever who are getting an opportunity to express themselves much more in the ideas they have and in the way they work. The future of recruitment is in the cloud!

16.7.09

15.7.09

CPL in the black and on the acquisition trail

I'm only catching up on my CPL news now but in a note last week Goodbody analyst Dan Cavanagh said he was expecting operating profit of €4.9m for CPL in the year to June 30.

CPL Resources,has warned in a trading statement that the outlook for the group for the remainder of 2009 remains uncertain."It is impossible to predict with any accuracy whether the markets in which the group operates will experience any significant improvement in the foreseeable future," the company said yesterday. Shares in CPL finished down over 2pc at €1.35 yesterday.

Also, the company has been on the acquisition trail by agreeing to buy the business and assets of Kenny Whelan & Associates from the receiver of Newcourt, David Carson of Deloitte. To learn more go here, and here.

Nice! Bing Tweet Integration


Microsoft's new Bing search engine was the first of the big search engines to integrate Twitter into results. Yesterday, Microsoft’s fledgling search tool has gone one step further with Twitter launching BingTweets, a separate site that combines Bing search with Twitter search and trending topics.

There will be more from the Bing team in terms of Twitter integration in the future, however. The Bing team writes, “many people share their thoughts on Twitter, and search engines don’t currently do a great job of capturing that real-time content. We designed Bing to help you make faster, more informed decisions, and, since people often turn to real-time content to help them make decisions, BingTweets was a logical next step.”

HireLabs - Next generation employment testing


14.7.09

TwittAround and Augmented Reality (AR)

A lot of people are calling Augmented Reality AR) the new mobile killer app. Certainly there has been a lot of debate about it of late and how it will revolutionising the way we live. Even Twitterland has caught onto this new emerging field and now there is a new beta augmented reality out for the new iPhone called TwittAround. Interessting to see that Apple has not opened up there full SDK for augmented reality yet, but there is plenty of folk petitioning them to do so. When this happens expect a flood of new AR apps on the market.

10.7.09

TwitterJobSearch.com Adds Video CV Functionality

Looks like Bill Fischer and his team have been very busy of late one of the products of which is TwitterJobSearch has added support for Video CVs to its product. This enables job seekers to attach a Video CV or even a "personal video elevator pitch" to job offers that have been posted to Twitter with a single click.

The new service allows individuals to quickly record a Video CV and then attach that Video to a job that has been posted in Twitter. By simplifying the process of creating the video and by developing a single-click way to get that Video CV in front of the hiring manager, they're hoping to make that functionality more widely available.

"Recruiters are now faced with the challenge of having to quickly evaluate multiple candidates, and video can help in these assessments," commented Bill Fischer, Co-Founder of TwitterJobSearch. "We're tracking and/or working with companies in 17 countries that are using Twitter as part of their recruitment efforts. Our products build a layer of services on the Twitter infrastructure that connects job seekers and employers."

Bill is going to be presenting at Part 2 of the Future of Recruitment conference. I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say on the day and to get his perspective on what the future of micro-blogging holds for the recruitment industry, should be a very interesting presentation.

8.7.09

Google Chrome OS on the way

Check out what Google had to say about it on the offical Google blog, here.

"It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be." Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management and Linus Upson, Engineering Director

Job Search Engine Simply Hired launches in Ireland but do they have an unfair advantage and should they be allowed to scrape others jobs?

Does Ireland need a job search engine entry into the market. Simply Hired thinks so and I can see why! Last week they  launched into five new markets including our own, the list of locations goes as follows: Italy (www.simplyhired.it), Ireland (www.simplyhired.ie), Belgium (www.simplyhired.be), the Netherlands (www.simplyhired.nl) and Brazil (www.simplyhired.com.br).

Having indexed more than five million jobs worldwide, Simply Hired’s country-specific destination websites in Italy, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Brazil now enable job seekers to search from the leading job boards, content websites, newspapers, and company career pages in each country—providing a simple online job search experience. Through its international partnership with LinkedIn, Simply Hired’s local websites will also allow job seekers to discover connections at companies, providing them the inside track on the hiring process. Without requiring membership, Simply Hired immediately shows returning users which new listings have been added since their last visit and offers an advanced search option to return job listings that match specific criteria, all in the users’ native language.

“Simply Hired is proud to offer localized job search engines in Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australia,” said Sachin Shah, Director of International, Simply Hired. “Our recent expansion to Italy, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Brazil is a testament of our commitment to helping job seekers around the world.”

“As Simply Hired continues to grow and expand globally, localizing our job search services is crucial to ensuring successful market entry,” said Gautam Godhwani, Co-founder and CEO, Simply Hired. “Localized Simply Hired sites in the U.S., Australia, Canada, India, the U.K., Germany, Spain and France are already providing job seekers in these countries the best opportunity possible to discover their dream job. By expanding our services to Italy, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Brazil, Simply Hired is demonstrating a strong commitment to the worldwide job search market.”

What Simply Hired is doing is worth digging deeper.

Let's do a search: 

I logged onto their site today and conducted a very simple search for "recruiter" under the keyword search prompt, pulling up 98 results. The engine produced roles posted on Stelfox's web site, IrishJobs, LoadzaJobs, Gumtree and also Recruit Ireland's to name but a few. Very nice!  However, one thing I was disssappointed with was the number of duplicate jobs that were aggregated which is typically the major failings of all aggregators that are not smart enough to allow for semantic or intelligent search features. But still, I was impressed. What I also liked was the advanced search feature which allows Boolean syntax.

A simple search for - recruiter (waterford OR cork) NOT cpl - pulled up a very focused 12 results which allows me extra functionality to pin point the type of roles I am searching for and in some cases gives me the ability to reduce the duplications myself with even more targeted strings.

 
Very interestingly in the results page that it turned back you see a little LinkedIn icon that prompts you for access to your account. This is the first time that I have seen LinkedIn integration with a jobs search engine and it is an extremely clever way to find contacts that might be able to give you information from withn the company the job exists.

What I particularly like:

1. It's clever technology: Aggregaton by its nature is efficient and that's why search engine aggregators like Dogpile have been holding their own and doing well. The basic premsise of one location to go and get your jobs from still is a powerful pulling point. Most job seekers don't care what job board they visit to get their jobs. There is very little loyalty involved. If they could go to one location to get them all they probably would. I know I would.  What is particularly impressive is when you return to the site it remembers your previous searches and in a simple dashboard like feature at the front of the site refreshes your search and tells you how many matches it has and provides then a list of RSS feeds for each search you made for you to subscribe to. Very well thought UI concept with the job seeker very firmly being taught about as being in the driving seat of their own search.

2. Clever partnership deals. Simply Hired is only a 4 year old company  but already it is in the top75 web sites in the US for a reason. It powers 30,000 local job portals and is part of a network of more than 5,000 sites. They also power the international job channel for MySpace U.K. and supplement LinkedIn’s job board with millions of job listings from Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, India, France, Germany and Spain. They have also created partnerships with BusinessWeek, US News & World Report, Workforce Management, CNN Money and most recently, The Washington Post. They will try replicate this platform abroad.  The LinkedIn and MySpace deals are good news for the company. Watch out for more in the future on their various country platforms. Expect to see integration with Wer-Kennet-Wen or Xing in Germany and the likes of  Orkut in Brazil.

Check out Lucian Beebe, Director of Product Management at LinkedIn, walks through the LinkedIn API implementation on the SimplyHired site.



3. Google Monetisation functionality is both at the top, side and bottom of all searches. While some Irish job boards have integrated this feature and done an "ok" job at doing so they should pay attention to the prevalence and positioning of the ads on Simply Hired platform.

Simply Hired's entry into Ireland for me raises the entire discussion again that has been raging in the US for quite some time on the vaildity of "job aggregators" - but this time brings the topic to our own door steps.  Just a few short years ago sales reps for some of the major job boards in the US were outraged at aggregators bold enough to scrape postings without permission from job boards or corporate career sites and some companies like Craig's list went as far as to ban them from spidering their site entirely.Others believe they are a positive force in the recruitment industry that won't be going away any time soon and if used properly can help with your search engine optimisatoin strategies and get more people to your own site. I wonder what the Irish recruitment industry thinks?

While Simply Hired have not entered Ireland with trumpets blowing and huge marketing budgets at the ready it will be interesting to see if they do decide to splash out with some advertising and if so how and when and whether or not job seekers in large numbers begin to avail of their service in any kind of sizeable numbers.

This is a very good example of  recruitment innovation in the job board market that is pushing the boundaries of the industry in a new direction. It will be very interesting to watch where Simply Hired goes from here, especially with their integration and apps strategy. I'll be watching closely.