Speaking at a Business Forum in next few weeks and have landed topic of social media and recruitment.
Now here is the issue - we have case studies, we have read 1000s of words on topic, attended many seminars and advised numerous organisations (some even got good advice). The audience is a mix of experienced recruiters, with wildly varying levels of experience in digital and social/business networks. Time slot - 20 mins (+ questions).
So, i sit here pondering - where to start/end? - what to include? - what to to exclude? - keep it to UK or look at US too? while keeping it engaging and pitched at right level.
Clearly as i am lazy - my starting point will be a couple of other presentations i have done on topic that can be updated and then i have a fantastic recent piece of research that i can source/make reference to/ rip off (delete as appropriate)
I often think that the true skill in advising companies on emerging technologies/media is not to know everything and show how clever and expert you are but in translating it into bite size chunks of interesting and useful info that they can go away and use or at least tell their boss and impress him/her.
So in terms of structure - i tend to always revert to "Golden Rules" Top Tips" "Dos and Don'ts" and finish with "Do the following 5 things tomorrow" - its worked ok so far...
Friday, 21 August 2009
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Come and Work with OME
We are going to recruit at 2 different levels - this is the more junior post
Account Manager
Central London
Competitive salary
“Making Online Recruitment Work”
OnlineMediaExperts(OME) was the UK's first advertising agency specialising exclusively in online recruitment. In our three years of existence, we have helped our clients plan, optimize, and develop their online candidate sourcing activity. We have remained at the cutting edge of digital innovation while priding ourselves on “cutting the crap” and delivering solutions and services to our clients that really work not are merely clever or new! This approach has helped us to blossom and grow as a business in 2009 – hence our need to grow the team.
We look after some of the UK’s biggest digital recruitment accounts such as Carphone Warehouse, Odgers Berndtson, Game Stores Group, TheTrainline, Doosan Babcock and Verizon. We are now looking to expand the team by looking for an ambitious Account Manager with a background in recruitment advertising (in media or agency) and an enthusiasm for digital to help us manage our expanding client base.
You need
· To be diligent and have a great customer service ethic
· To be able to communicate the complexity of the digital world that makes your client understand while not boring them to death
· to be open minded to new solutions/products with a healthy cynicism that means you want some evidence that it may actually work for our clients money
If you are interested, please email your CV to our MD at dominic@omexperts.co.uk or call him in confidence on 07973 865 637
Account Manager
Central London
Competitive salary
“Making Online Recruitment Work”
OnlineMediaExperts(OME) was the UK's first advertising agency specialising exclusively in online recruitment. In our three years of existence, we have helped our clients plan, optimize, and develop their online candidate sourcing activity. We have remained at the cutting edge of digital innovation while priding ourselves on “cutting the crap” and delivering solutions and services to our clients that really work not are merely clever or new! This approach has helped us to blossom and grow as a business in 2009 – hence our need to grow the team.
We look after some of the UK’s biggest digital recruitment accounts such as Carphone Warehouse, Odgers Berndtson, Game Stores Group, TheTrainline, Doosan Babcock and Verizon. We are now looking to expand the team by looking for an ambitious Account Manager with a background in recruitment advertising (in media or agency) and an enthusiasm for digital to help us manage our expanding client base.
You need
· To be diligent and have a great customer service ethic
· To be able to communicate the complexity of the digital world that makes your client understand while not boring them to death
· to be open minded to new solutions/products with a healthy cynicism that means you want some evidence that it may actually work for our clients money
If you are interested, please email your CV to our MD at dominic@omexperts.co.uk or call him in confidence on 07973 865 637
Monday, 27 July 2009
To recruit or not to recruit
that is the question for OME right now. And probably a little microcosm of what is going to be a long slow recovery for UK rec economy.
Our head count maxed out in June 2008 and we trimmed back by 2 over the next quarter (sounds a bit cold as these were real life good people) - we then had periods of high activity but also a couple of months when the phones did not ring and we wondered how bad was it going to get...
So we now have had a solid 5 months of growth - an increase in margin on that revenue and some very stressed people including the MD. Also my major concern that when things are busy the new business generation goes v quiet and we concentrate on looking after our current customers (which is 100% how it should be).
So we should recruit at account manager level - yes? freeing up Directors to grow the business.
But...do we want to increase our fixed cost base? do we want to put ourselves in a position that we have to look at numbers again -as the market is very delicate?
I think 1 thing - my fellow directors think something different - i am sure we will make the right decision - as long as we all ending up agreeing with me.
Our head count maxed out in June 2008 and we trimmed back by 2 over the next quarter (sounds a bit cold as these were real life good people) - we then had periods of high activity but also a couple of months when the phones did not ring and we wondered how bad was it going to get...
So we now have had a solid 5 months of growth - an increase in margin on that revenue and some very stressed people including the MD. Also my major concern that when things are busy the new business generation goes v quiet and we concentrate on looking after our current customers (which is 100% how it should be).
So we should recruit at account manager level - yes? freeing up Directors to grow the business.
But...do we want to increase our fixed cost base? do we want to put ourselves in a position that we have to look at numbers again -as the market is very delicate?
I think 1 thing - my fellow directors think something different - i am sure we will make the right decision - as long as we all ending up agreeing with me.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Penna/Barkers - bad times but what next
There is no point in try to summarise this story here - the Ri5 press releases and comments section gives the full picture but i really believe that it has long term seismic repercussions for the way the client/media/agency relationship works in the future. So my views and associated comments below
1. Its proof that the bad guys are not just the bankers/MPs etc. The actions of the Barkers board have to be highly questionable - the act of giving people redundancy payments and paying up notice when you had absolutely zero intention of fulfilling these promises takes some doing. I would like to think most of us would have struggled with those actions if we were ever in a similar position. Still they appear to have kept jobs/pay offs so that's OK then. Oh - and everyone has lost their pensions. Don't think its right to attach significant blame to Penna here but lets hope they can help.
2. The media have taken a bath - i have had figures quoted to me of £1million + from 2 media owners and many £100,000s with at least 10 others. The small media owners who have relied on this money coming in will be absolutely devastated - lets hope there is not a knock on effect. History tells us that there will be nothing left in the pot from the administrators when taxman/banks have had their money.
3. So why give agencies media commission? This is a little counter productive for OME (as we make income from this) but i am really not sure what the media get from offering agencies this discount. The reasons historically were
- Guarantee that you are going to be paid (NPA recognition and most agencies have insurance if clients go bust) - that guarantee is not looking too good after last week.
- Agencies are a channel sell - gives media the ability to sell to many clients via one point. OK - Stop Press - having worked on both media and agency side - i can confirm that most agencies cannot sell there way out a wet paper bag. Sure they could sell a Sunday Times advert for the last 20 years (but not now) but they have been useless at selling online or indeed any innovative launch - so i really do not believe the channel sell argument (unless you are must use/habit bought media).
4. The old agency model is dead. Media commissions wont ever again fund big teams of managers without revenue responsibility - everything an agency does and adds value to a client needs to be charged for and billed. The old model was horrible as it hid all the charges for the brilliant creative work/account mgmt/planning and buying and gave these away as free or nearly free as the cash could be made by over the table and under the table media deals.
The new model can work - sorry to blow our own trumpet but we are up year on year - our billing is completely transparent and i am proud that in some areas we are stupidly cheap and in some expensive to use (depending on how much work is involved).
But best to end this by sending best wishes to the ex Barkers staff and the media owners affected.
1. Its proof that the bad guys are not just the bankers/MPs etc. The actions of the Barkers board have to be highly questionable - the act of giving people redundancy payments and paying up notice when you had absolutely zero intention of fulfilling these promises takes some doing. I would like to think most of us would have struggled with those actions if we were ever in a similar position. Still they appear to have kept jobs/pay offs so that's OK then. Oh - and everyone has lost their pensions. Don't think its right to attach significant blame to Penna here but lets hope they can help.
2. The media have taken a bath - i have had figures quoted to me of £1million + from 2 media owners and many £100,000s with at least 10 others. The small media owners who have relied on this money coming in will be absolutely devastated - lets hope there is not a knock on effect. History tells us that there will be nothing left in the pot from the administrators when taxman/banks have had their money.
3. So why give agencies media commission? This is a little counter productive for OME (as we make income from this) but i am really not sure what the media get from offering agencies this discount. The reasons historically were
- Guarantee that you are going to be paid (NPA recognition and most agencies have insurance if clients go bust) - that guarantee is not looking too good after last week.
- Agencies are a channel sell - gives media the ability to sell to many clients via one point. OK - Stop Press - having worked on both media and agency side - i can confirm that most agencies cannot sell there way out a wet paper bag. Sure they could sell a Sunday Times advert for the last 20 years (but not now) but they have been useless at selling online or indeed any innovative launch - so i really do not believe the channel sell argument (unless you are must use/habit bought media).
4. The old agency model is dead. Media commissions wont ever again fund big teams of managers without revenue responsibility - everything an agency does and adds value to a client needs to be charged for and billed. The old model was horrible as it hid all the charges for the brilliant creative work/account mgmt/planning and buying and gave these away as free or nearly free as the cash could be made by over the table and under the table media deals.
The new model can work - sorry to blow our own trumpet but we are up year on year - our billing is completely transparent and i am proud that in some areas we are stupidly cheap and in some expensive to use (depending on how much work is involved).
But best to end this by sending best wishes to the ex Barkers staff and the media owners affected.
Friday, 19 June 2009
Jobsite's Twitter App
Praise to the marketing team at Jobsite (with some technical support!) for their entry onto the Twitter platform http://twitter.com/Jobsitejobs - Why do i think its good?
- Its clever
- Its logical
- It is not pretending to be something - its not. Its just fast neat realtime way of delivering jobs - like a souped up jobs by email
- Its innovative
- they appear to have got it done pretty quickly and will no doubt learn how to improve and enhance it in future
Clearly the job matching technology to the your Twitter profile is flawed and is not going to deliver perfect (indeed anywhere near perfect) jobs but its a start - and i think its a pretty darn good start!
Monday, 15 June 2009
International Media Planning and Buying
This part of our business has grown every year since launch and its one of those rare things that is actually much easier than clients think (we even tell them this!) - Why is this the case? (Warning - i am about to make some wild generalisations but basic principle does apply)
1. UK digital marketplace is about 10 times more complex than virtually any other territory we book in. More sites more sectors - no other country has about 15 sites claiming to be the nation's leading IT Job board for instance
2. In other territories the general boards (Monster/Stepstone/Seek/Careerbuilder etc) are much more dominant over the vertical players than the UK
3. With all tracking and tagging done correctly - you have confidence that the campaign is set up and is running as it should be consistently across all territories (in olden times - there was always a fear of whether adverts ever appeared)
4. Time differences are no longer much of a problem - as people work more flexibly and can email acknowledge react at times above and beyond 930-530 local time.
Anyway an example of one of those things in life that is getting easier not harder
1. UK digital marketplace is about 10 times more complex than virtually any other territory we book in. More sites more sectors - no other country has about 15 sites claiming to be the nation's leading IT Job board for instance
2. In other territories the general boards (Monster/Stepstone/Seek/Careerbuilder etc) are much more dominant over the vertical players than the UK
3. With all tracking and tagging done correctly - you have confidence that the campaign is set up and is running as it should be consistently across all territories (in olden times - there was always a fear of whether adverts ever appeared)
4. Time differences are no longer much of a problem - as people work more flexibly and can email acknowledge react at times above and beyond 930-530 local time.
Anyway an example of one of those things in life that is getting easier not harder
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Things I am not going to do this week
1. Set up a paid for event as a social networking recruitment expert - i think its fair to say NOBODY is a social networking recruitment expert
2. Launch a product for charging candidates to access jobs that are freely available elsewhere
3. Get depressed that everyone on Twitter seems to lead a more interesting life than me full of holidays, 30 mile bike rides and blissful family days out while i fall asleep in front of Britain's Got Talent having realised i need to purchase some new "naughty steps"
4. support a bunch of foreigners when i should be supporting OUR bunch of foreigners tomorrow night - i will be a once a year Man U supporter
5. finish the copy for OME website redesign (again...)
6. Pay too much for 2 contract renewals we have - the times are hard and prices for our clients will need to reflect that. May go down to the wire....
2. Launch a product for charging candidates to access jobs that are freely available elsewhere
3. Get depressed that everyone on Twitter seems to lead a more interesting life than me full of holidays, 30 mile bike rides and blissful family days out while i fall asleep in front of Britain's Got Talent having realised i need to purchase some new "naughty steps"
4. support a bunch of foreigners when i should be supporting OUR bunch of foreigners tomorrow night - i will be a once a year Man U supporter
5. finish the copy for OME website redesign (again...)
6. Pay too much for 2 contract renewals we have - the times are hard and prices for our clients will need to reflect that. May go down to the wire....
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