ITCRA Backs New CV Database

I read an interesting article on iTWire (read here) about an online CV system invented in the UK that is rumored to become the standard here. A few big name IT recruitment agencies including Ambition and Paxus have thrown some dollars at it.

What is iProfile?
iProfile are the creators of the dynamic profile for professionals, which is replacing the tradtional CV by unleashing the potential of both jobseekers and recruiters. We help recruiters make placements, faster, and for candidates it means more control and feedback when job seeking.

I got pretty excited about the prospect of the standardisation of the CV. Imagine a site which houses everyone’s electronic CVs…how convenient, how streamlined, what an advantage to job seekers!

Unfortunately, my excitement dwindled soon after entering the site.

The option is given to re-do a CV or to upload your current one. Who’s gonna re-do it? I uploaded mine. It turned out to have major formatting issues and looked ridiculous. Basically a lot of fiddling around for little results. Any candidate worth hiring would not have the time for this.

Once you’ve uploaded your CV, it quickly becomes apparent that raison d’etre of the site is not to give you a new standardised CV, but to collect your data for recruiters to access. In other words, it’s nothing more than a resume database.

I can’t imagine any candidates worth their salt spending the time to do what a recruiter would do anyway and input all of their details so they can be listed and solicited.

I will stick with my Visual CV…

Welcome To The New Facebook

This is not an audition for the television show, “Grumpy Old Men”, believe me. But, I logged onto my Facebook page (as you do while at work) and discovered they have revamped the whole thing. Just when I was starting to get used to the way it works…

Why don’t they do like Seek and adopt the ‘don’t fix it if it ain’t broke’ policy?

Your thoughts?

MyCareer’s Search For Excellence

Past Fairfax Digital CTO Seth Yates has covered the update to MyCareer’s search functionality here already.

Here’s my view. (since I took this home page search box snap shot, they have rolled back to include the sector/sub sector, location e.t.c drop down menus again) MyCareer have informed me that they are running a Test A and Test B search box.

They have gone with the new search suggest keyword technology. Yahoo are using this tool successfully.

Once you make your way to the search results page, you can’t help but notice the new ‘refine your search’ column. With such a nice simple keyword search box on the home page they let themselves down here. Should have kept it slick and given the advertisers the spot light with their job listings.

May I suggest MyCareer, that you keep up the innovation.

Seek And You Shall Find

Seek are the clear market leaders in Australia on all measures.

However this status also makes them a target for those misleading or undesirable ads that seem to get through the filters.

Take this example. A general search on Seek Executive Brisbane shows:

1. This is meant to be for $100k + jobs.

2. This isn’t the first time this has been flagged with Seek.

3. A search on the other job boards revealed no presence of these types of ads.

Surely as the market leaders, Seek can take measures to avoid this, especially in the executive section, where ads are fewer and advertisers could easily be monitored manually.

Positions Vacant And Out-dated

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that my major gripe is unsubstantiated or out- dated claims.

Well, PositionsVacant have given me some fresh fodder. I saw this when arriving at their home page…

And:

First up, who cares what your ranking was back in ’06? One year in the online world is equivalent to seven years in the offline world – things move fast. Some days I get motion sickness with how quickly things are moving. According to this calculation, the claim made by Positions Vacant is fourteen-years-old. Just to give you some perspective, it’s kinda like Los Del Rio trying to get free drinks at the local club because they were number one on the Billboards for The Macarena in 1996.

Their second statement, that for June, July and August they were the largest audited privately owned job board in Australia, seems a bit more credible, until you click on the link to find out more. This claim regards data from ’07!

Can we start bragging about stats that are at least remotely current??

I never could quite do that Macarena dance…

CareerOne Into AFL…

Nice to see CareerOne learning something from the Seek advertising success story and spending some cash over at the AFL.com.au site.

You know the song, “football, meat pies, kangaroos and a new job…”

Go the cats!

Death Of Paid Classified Listings

I have been having some interesting discussions recently regarding the potential of Google Maps in job listings. The jury is still out on that one…

However Google Maps is clearly trying to muscle in on the paid classified listings market for local business owner dollars. Compared to the current offerings out there (Yellow Pages/Sensis) it’s a free service (unless you use Adwords) but that will come at a cost. Don’t expect any great personal service or phone calls asking you to update your business details. Log in an error if you or your customers can’t find your location. Don’t expect it be a major priority of the search giant to fix straight away either.

Additionally, other online free options are available through networks like LinkedIn. (click on this link and join my network) They are pushing the fact that the first point of call if you are in need of some professional services should be your LinkedIn network of contacts asking for suggestions or introductions.

Time will tell if these free services will be the death of the traditional business listing including job listings…

Seek’s SARA Awards – 22 Days To Go…

The Seek SARA (prom queen) recruitment awards are off and running for the sixth time. With only 22 days to go for voting you’d better get your good suit or frock out from the mothballs in anticipation of that victory speech.

I remember the first time this was presented at the Brisbane RCSA conference way back by Matthew Rockman. I remember this because we (Fairfax/MyCareer) were the major sponsors of the conference and Seek set up the stage right in front, blocking our stand. Cheeky…

One to watch this year will be serial runner-up (small specialist recruiter) Retailworld Resourcing. They are sporting a bright orange web site with little space ships flying around and aliens with signs saying “Vote Now”. If you were from the USA and saw this site for the first time you would think that SARA was running for President.

Good luck and had a laugh at the video jobcast. Gotta love Kerrie-Anne…

CapitalJobs – Suburb By Suburb

  

Canberra is not being left out of the race in the localised job board space with CapitalJobs.com.au recently launching their offering.  

Already known for their real estate site AllHomes.com.au, and classifieds site AllClassifieds.com.au, they hope this new site will become the place to go when looking for jobs in Canberra, Queanbeyan, south-eastern New South Wales and the Illawarra Region.   

Time will tell if the locally grown job boards, with the ability to search by suburb, can capture a significant enough following to truly compete with the major job boards…

.Asia Update #2

In case you missed my last update, I have been keeping an eye on the MyCareer.asia auction and have some news.

Either the folks at Fairfax haven’t seen the value in this new domain or they got out bid (which I find difficult to believe) but it has gone to a Melbourne-based company Jtec Corporation Pty Ltd. (Whois look up)

I hope they don’t try and use this domain in Australia and New Zealand in the employment space as it will make the Fairfax lawyers very happy…

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