Hire Strategies Blog

What's in a name?

I've been updating a contact list and have noticed there are a lot of varying job titles amongst those that 'look after the people/resources'.

Offline advertising makes me laugh

I love one of the front page banners on Retail Week:

Breaking news and top jobs at Retail-Week.com

With only 3 pages of advertising in the magazine (worse than The Appointment) and only 162 jobs online (results of a search ALL selection) maybe Retail Week is really:

Breaking News.

Nothing wrong with that but makes you wonder why - doesn't it (someone at Retail Week)?

Do CEO's talk to recruiters?

If anyone in the recruitment sector tried to speak to a CEO about recruiting they would no doubt get bounced and passed onto HR.  And most people would think of this as normal/fine/obvious etc.

Tesco's are expanding yet further with mini Argos-style non-food Homeplus stores according to Retail Week.  I'll bet Sir Terry Leahy is VERY interested in recruitment as without enough people, of the right quality, how else will Tesco continue to grow?

Job board masala

When I first started to eat curry it was that horrible Vesta frozen muck my parents generation dared to call curry.  Since those halcyon days, the now famous chicken tikka masala has become a staple diet of the UK and has even been quoted as the UK's favourite dish!

But as with anything that starts off as a niche or designer concept of a high quality, commodotisation ends up with quality levels all over the place.

Totaljobs will no doubt claim to be the UK's favourite job board but since the early days when they had to educate the market, commodotisation of the job boards has resulted in quality levels sinking with little or no innovation on the horizon (from job boards) and conversion ratios sinking to pathetic levels (in my evidence based experience).

How to recruit - HR should read and learn!

Amongst the carnage of our recent earthquake (5.2 so it's a real one) and the Microsoft/Yahoo acquisition, MS corporate recruiters have not missed the opportunity to start pillaging before the ship even goes down!

Social recruiting - is it really Web -2.0

We wrote out a shopping the list the other day yet the next morning still no milk; why do I have to even bother with paper let alone online shopping?

Before the early 1950's shops had a shop keeper who would serve each customer individually and at weekends, they would have a boy (sorry girls) on a bike who would deliver to your house.  Then, Woolworths launched the first self-service stores in response to intense competition from rival chains like S. S. Kresge.

Over the years the self-service concept has become ever more sophisticated but is on an obvious curve.  We now have personal shoppers and home delivery taking us back to before the 1950's; so is it only a matter of time when we get automatic deliveries of certain items based on regular usage so the rest of our 'traditional' shopping is for 'specialist' items only.

 

Ad agency workout

For those that visit a gym you will have seen the various types of members.  The people that amaze me the most are those that do everything in a hurry with no finesse or control and wonder why, 12 months later, they still look like someone who has never visited a gym.

Clearly no real focus, measures or plan; just do it all, sweat a bit, look busy and surely it will work?  I'm sure most 'normal' people would consider them fools and wonder why on earth they would attempt such a ridiculous activity with no 'measures of success'.  I agree!!

So why is it that I constantly see HR letting their Ad Agency do the same with  online recruitment activities?

Cost per hire

On some occasions cost-per-hire (CPH) is part of the calculation employers use to justify their advertising decisions i.e. if an advert cost £10k, I need to get e.g. 2 hires to make it a good return.

But is CPH the right measure?

Ad agency howlers

Over the last year I have had the pleasure of meeting with a number of recruitment advertising agencies whilst working for 'their' client.  And some of the claims have been fantastic.

Of course, we won't be naming names - that would be a bit unfair!

The end is nigh Danny boy!

Just over a year ago I raised the issue of RSS being used instead of job posting in my post 'RSS - the death of eQuest and Broadbean' not to antagonise(!) but to forewarn them of their impending doom so they could plan ahead!

And now the first job board has accepted this method of job consumption; how dare they.