2009 saw me as an absolute Twitter evangelist - really enjoying the interaction, connectivity and wealth of useful and useless but interesting info that was out there. The last few months have seen a change in my professional and personal views (i don't pretend here to be giving an industry view - its just my personal feelings and how i use it.)
Professional - why i love it
1. I have a network of people who are not friends(a few are) but people i know and the info we share can be really useful and impossible to get without scouring sites and conducting arduous email conversations.
2. I think its going to be the big thing in recruitment communications - i just know it will (is) work really well - and create a genuine conversation between employer/recruiter without the pitfalls of a site like Facebook
3. We are seeing really nice experimentation - trial and error - low cost pilots. That shows nobody has got it 100% right yet but there will be a good set of data to make some improvements next quarter
4. It really does cost almost nothing - but does require application and thought - the best sort of combination. These digital new things that cost a lot and deliver little are very passe in 2010.
Personal - why i don't love it
1. The chatter has become rather tiresome - the "journey into work" problems interest very few
2. Clearly everyone i follow has a more interesting life than me - their saturday night consists of theatre/abseiling/art galleries/truffle hunting - mine consists of being too tired to switch over from All Star Mr and Mrs
3. Their relationships are great too and their children perfect....(just like mine, he says quickly)
In summary - the personal stuff is all a little self publicist oriented (and yes i know this as i am self publicist extraordinaire)
But the professional side is going to be fascinating and brilliant
Anyway - have to go as need to book my table at The Ivy on saturday night with Brangelina, Michael Jackson and Elvis.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Monday, 11 January 2010
In Praise of MonsoonCareers
I really like how Monsoon Accessorize are running their Twitter recruitment account (let me declare an interest - we work with them on some media stuff - but not this). It feels exactly what a company should be doing at the moment (given budget restrictions)
- posts jobs - but not just bare text
- it has a tone of voice which reflects company and rec team
- it is up to date and busy
- its not trying to blast in and get 1000 irrelevant users - it seems they are happy to organically grow it and let it take (a directed) life of its own
anyway - enough of being positive - i will find something to criticise now
- posts jobs - but not just bare text
- it has a tone of voice which reflects company and rec team
- it is up to date and busy
- its not trying to blast in and get 1000 irrelevant users - it seems they are happy to organically grow it and let it take (a directed) life of its own
anyway - enough of being positive - i will find something to criticise now
Monday, 30 November 2009
In Briefs
1. Louise is running UK rec blog of the year again (i was shortlisted last year) so vote here. When i look at the blogs - i thought that Digital Recruiting should have won last year but this year (the DigRec Collective have lost a bit of blogging motivation) i think that Peter Gold's blog is the one i find most interesting and relevant stuff on.
2. Had a very important re-tender last week which went successfully. Although - we were up against an individual and an organisation that i massively respect so my natural pessimism was partly preparing me for the worst. It has made me think that we have to a) keep innovating and progressing and b) keep the very high customer service/satisfaction levels in order to retain our competitive advantage. I think its fair to say the competition is coming - the bad news for them is that we will make sure we have moved it on again next year.
3. Have decided to have a massive blow out for company xmas do - everyone has worked so hard this year in difficult circumstances - we are going to Arbutus for lunch on Dec 10th and then onwards and upwards from there. There will be talk of going to a club and being out till 3 am - although i expect i will be a broken man and in a cab by 10.30.
4. Our most satisfied customer at moment is MinistryofWaxing - who have been quoted in Mail and interviewed on radio today related to Simon Cowell waxing story. The media found their details via our rather super SEM campaign. Have booked myself in for a pre-wedding treatment - probably not the Boyzilian though.
5. Presenting award tomorrow at IPAC awards - its a gentle re-entry into what was a large revenue stream of ours - where we advised media owners on their digital classified products (mainly launches such as key103jobs, supplychainonline etc). Its at Vinopolis - so have a feeling it might get messy - but then its December tomorrow isn't it....
2. Had a very important re-tender last week which went successfully. Although - we were up against an individual and an organisation that i massively respect so my natural pessimism was partly preparing me for the worst. It has made me think that we have to a) keep innovating and progressing and b) keep the very high customer service/satisfaction levels in order to retain our competitive advantage. I think its fair to say the competition is coming - the bad news for them is that we will make sure we have moved it on again next year.
3. Have decided to have a massive blow out for company xmas do - everyone has worked so hard this year in difficult circumstances - we are going to Arbutus for lunch on Dec 10th and then onwards and upwards from there. There will be talk of going to a club and being out till 3 am - although i expect i will be a broken man and in a cab by 10.30.
4. Our most satisfied customer at moment is MinistryofWaxing - who have been quoted in Mail and interviewed on radio today related to Simon Cowell waxing story. The media found their details via our rather super SEM campaign. Have booked myself in for a pre-wedding treatment - probably not the Boyzilian though.
5. Presenting award tomorrow at IPAC awards - its a gentle re-entry into what was a large revenue stream of ours - where we advised media owners on their digital classified products (mainly launches such as key103jobs, supplychainonline etc). Its at Vinopolis - so have a feeling it might get messy - but then its December tomorrow isn't it....
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Making Money out of Digital Recruitment
Its been a month of meetings, proposals and tendering. If i looked at the money in as opposed to effort out - it probably does not tally but we have added 2 new clients (welcome PGC and Dixons) and it feels better out there even if feelings don't pay the bills. Overall we are still up year on year so the team deserve a very nice blow out for the Xmas bash this year. But 4-5 more good weeks to go before any let up.
Anyway - in this process of meetings i have been able to see many other proposals from other agencies both traditional recruitment and digital specialists (non recruitment) and some interesting ways of making money seem to get slipped in to the deals. Most common listed below.
1. Campaign Management - these costs generally are far too high - either the agency is getting a bad deal from a 3rd party or they are trying to make the margin here. Reporting is incredibly important and a key part of any campaign we run but the costs need to be proportionate - i don't think there is any justification for 20% of media bills for this service - discuss....
2. Appalling media buying - again 2 possible reasons a)cant negotiate with media or more likely b) marking it up massively. Now in the interests of full disclosure - when we have achieved huge discount on certain deals i am sure on certain occasions we have kept part of it (with agreement from client) but its silly when you are trying to charge a big Monster 12 month deal out at 10% discount for instance.
3. Production charges. You absolutely need to charge a rate for work you do - but its silly to charge occasionally v high prices for 30 seconds work.
Interestingly - what i don't tend to see is proper charging out for the expertise involved in planning buying managing a digital campaign - that is the real value but the industry still seems shy to price accordingly.
Anyway - in this process of meetings i have been able to see many other proposals from other agencies both traditional recruitment and digital specialists (non recruitment) and some interesting ways of making money seem to get slipped in to the deals. Most common listed below.
1. Campaign Management - these costs generally are far too high - either the agency is getting a bad deal from a 3rd party or they are trying to make the margin here. Reporting is incredibly important and a key part of any campaign we run but the costs need to be proportionate - i don't think there is any justification for 20% of media bills for this service - discuss....
2. Appalling media buying - again 2 possible reasons a)cant negotiate with media or more likely b) marking it up massively. Now in the interests of full disclosure - when we have achieved huge discount on certain deals i am sure on certain occasions we have kept part of it (with agreement from client) but its silly when you are trying to charge a big Monster 12 month deal out at 10% discount for instance.
3. Production charges. You absolutely need to charge a rate for work you do - but its silly to charge occasionally v high prices for 30 seconds work.
Interestingly - what i don't tend to see is proper charging out for the expertise involved in planning buying managing a digital campaign - that is the real value but the industry still seems shy to price accordingly.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
OME News
So we are expanding!
As of Monday our newest member of staff Bethan Trezise joined. She is ex Golley Slater and will be a great asset to the team - by accident rather than design we had become rather male oriented so i also hope she may bring a more civilised air to the office too!
We have added new clients in form of Ping Pong, Cote Restaurants (i can't work out how you put a circumflex over the o) and DSGi too in last month so this post catches me in a happy mood.
Also delivered a breakfast seminar on social media and recruitment (is there any other seminar topic at moment) to 5o retail HR managers recently which seems to have gone down really well and has generated some very exciting enquiries)
But the last 10 weeks of year are absolutely crucial in us having a good year compared to just an OK one. So one more big push for us all (we have pitches/re-tenders/large proposals aplenty - not all necessarily good things to be doing) and we can put this "interesting" year to bed.
As of Monday our newest member of staff Bethan Trezise joined. She is ex Golley Slater and will be a great asset to the team - by accident rather than design we had become rather male oriented so i also hope she may bring a more civilised air to the office too!
We have added new clients in form of Ping Pong, Cote Restaurants (i can't work out how you put a circumflex over the o) and DSGi too in last month so this post catches me in a happy mood.
Also delivered a breakfast seminar on social media and recruitment (is there any other seminar topic at moment) to 5o retail HR managers recently which seems to have gone down really well and has generated some very exciting enquiries)
But the last 10 weeks of year are absolutely crucial in us having a good year compared to just an OK one. So one more big push for us all (we have pitches/re-tenders/large proposals aplenty - not all necessarily good things to be doing) and we can put this "interesting" year to bed.
Friday, 2 October 2009
Dodgy Online Stats Part 73
Yesterday, they revised the statistic to 4% down year on year - a miscalculation apparently...
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Dodgy Online Stats Part 72
Everyone in our industry has rightly been getting very excited about recent IAB/PwC market stats . The most exciting top line figure being Internet has overtaken TV as biggest single ad sector.
However less trumpeted but possibly more remarkable is the following
"Online classified advertising grew by 10.6% year on year to £385m" - this figure relates to H1 2009 (vs H1 2008)
I just don't believe that stat.
Lets assume online classifieds consist of listings (banners/MPUs etc are counted as display) for
Jobs, cars, homes, travel
Which of these sectors was up year on year in 2009?
Most media owner MDs i speak to say that they are down +20% year on year (and i think that is a decent performance - there is much worse out there)
I think we need some clarification from IAB/PwC as it would be a hell of a performance to out perform the UK economy in such a startling way
However less trumpeted but possibly more remarkable is the following
"Online classified advertising grew by 10.6% year on year to £385m" - this figure relates to H1 2009 (vs H1 2008)
I just don't believe that stat.
Lets assume online classifieds consist of listings (banners/MPUs etc are counted as display) for
Jobs, cars, homes, travel
Which of these sectors was up year on year in 2009?
Most media owner MDs i speak to say that they are down +20% year on year (and i think that is a decent performance - there is much worse out there)
I think we need some clarification from IAB/PwC as it would be a hell of a performance to out perform the UK economy in such a startling way
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