Bonjour

Jetlag’s gone and my brain is returning to the home of the other side of sanity.  I’m in Paris and feeling the spirit of the place.  I even got asked directions from a French person yesterday.  She had mistaken me for one of her own:)

I’ve managed to uncover something interesting about the job scene here.  The lower class is big in France, much bigger than in Australia.  On the whole, this is not what you’d call an affluent country in that regard.  However, the average incomes seem to be pretty much on par.  What I mean by that is, the low income earner in Australia earns around 30 000, so too the low incomer here.  And likewise with the bigger incomes.  However - and here’s the sticking point.  If we work here as ex-pats, and earn Euros, we go back home almost doubling our cash when we convert it back into $A.  A tantalising proposition.

Jetsetting…

The blog might take on an international flavor over the next few weeks.  In the tradition of the middle-class male, I’m off on a European tour.  In between cups of cafe au lait, I’m gonna have a look at what’s going in Paris and a few other cities in Western Europe. There’s some pretty interesting stuff happening over there in regard to online communication and recruitment and I hope to bring you news about my many adventures.

Au Revoir!

Seek SARA Winners 2008

No real surprises here!

Australia’s recruitment industry celebrated in style last night, as the jobseeker’s favourites were honoured at the SEEK Annual Recruitment Awards (SARAs).The 2008 SARAs, supported by the RCSA and now in their 6th year, were presented at an exclusive cocktail event in Sydney where the value the recruitment industry provides to both clients and candidates was publicly acknowledged.Based on the votes of jobseekers, this year’s winners are:

Davidson Recruitment - Large Generalist Recruiter
Westaff Medium - Generalist Recruiter
Majer Recruitment - Small Generalist Recruiter
Hudson - Large Specialist Recruiter
Judd Farris - Medium Specialist Recruiter
Charterhouse Professional Support - Small Specialist Recruiter
Talent International - Large IT Recruiter
ITCOM Australia and I T Matters - Small IT Recruiter (Joint Winners)
Six Degrees Executive - Executive Recruiter

Two additions to the ‘SARA Legends’, which recognise recruiters who achieve consistent excellence in their respective categories, were also announced with  Davidson Recruitment and Majer Recruitment inducted into this exclusive group.

SEEK Sales and Service Director Joe Powell said that since launching in 2003, the SARAs have evolved from a popular choice award to a highly desired form of recognition within the recruitment industry:

“The jobseeking public and recruitment industry have well and truly embraced the SARAs with another record breaking number of votes received this year. Recruiters who deliver superior customer service deserve to be rewarded and the SARAs have helped set a benchmark in this area.”

“In a highly competitive employment market, points of difference are not only important to profits and attracting new business but crucial to attracting candidates who are increasingly putting greater value on personal service.”

Following a successful partnership in 2007, Pricewaterhouse Coopers was again part of the SARAs audit process, performing an independent vote count to verify the SARA winners and runners up.

Hulu Content Available Only In The USA

When the internet became public property, civil libertarians hailed this as a step towards freedom in the media.  And it’s true, the burgeoning of blog sites like this one have contributed to the dissemination of opinions and information that have not ever been seen before en masse.

However, things may be beginning to change.  Video-sharing site Hulu.com has taken the protective step of making its site’s content available only in the USA.

This is what I got when last visited and clicked on a video:

This is, no doubt, a response to the large amount of litigation surrounding copyright issues and public video sharing.

This blocking of content could impact the uploading of employment video content if it’s unable to be played in international cyber space. For example if Youtube decided to take this stance then the ability to ad video to Seek job ads via a Youtube link would disappear.  And into what other areas will this censorship seep?

Seek Gets A Brazilian…

Seek announced today that it has agreed to acquire a 30% interest at a cost of US$67.5m in two leading employment websites in Brasil. www.Catho.com.br and www.manager.com.br

James Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings will also invest alongside Seek to hold 5% of the Brasil Online Holdings business.

Better brush up on the Brazilian language ‘cos we know where the future Seek Christmas parties will be…

P.s. Think Seek needs to invest in a better server for Manager.com.br

Search Seek On Google

This Onrec blog has commented previously about Seek’s relative lack of search engine optimisation.  However, I s’pose this doesn’t matter if you get a job search box in Google’s organic search results.

Let’s say you type in ‘Accounting’ into this search box, you will then be presented with a list of jobs from Seek with the term ‘Accounting’ in them. Click away…

When you search MyCareer or other job boards they don’t get the same celebrity treatment??

Stress at work / Office stress COMPILATION!!!

Can’t get enough of these dummy spits. Enjoy.

MyCareer’s Search Results

Back in July, I reported on MyCareer’s search for excellence.  MyCareer were testing a new search box on their home page with keyword and category search versus keyword only.

Seems that the winner is the old keyword and category search. It would be interesting to see the A/B test results to see how the keyword-only search fared.

Update: 16/09/08

I don’t know what is going on at MyCareer now…the keyword-only box is back up.  Perhaps they’re still doing A/B testing?

Online Recruitment Industry Jobs

Monday morning’s  peak time for job-hunters, so I thought I’d start this week off by highlighting some of the available online recruitment industry jobs.  So, for those of you who can’t stand the thought of another week of the same old, same old, check these out:

Business Development / Sales Executive - JobsJobsJobs
We are on the search for a sales professional to join our team in Sydney.

Business Development Manager - LinkMe - Neutral Bay, NSW
$60,000 to $100,000; Full time; Neutral Bay NSW 2089

Graphic Designer - LinkMe - St Kilda, Vic
An exciting new role has been created to support both the Development and Marketing teams of LinkMe

Senior Strategy Analyst - Seek
Work for SEEK, an entrepreneurial, market leading company

Plenty more roles at Seek. Click here

Drop me a line if I have missed any. Email: gjennings(at)onrec.com.au

Back To The Future

For those of you who can’t be bothered watching this video, it’s a short film about Youtube in the mid-eighties. You remember those times? Big phones (bigger hair), beta and VHS tapes sent via snail mail, the person-to-person interaction required for any purchase…all that. This video speaks volumes about how many aspects of media have changed. Many aspects.

Then again - there are still a few media organisations running like this, and I’m referring particularly to print media. The way it operates is not unlike what is represented in this video…person-to-person interaction for every purchase, big phones, nonchalant telestaff who care more about their photos of Michael J. Fox than the customer. Well. Maybe not that last bit. Delete Michael J. Fox. replace with, say, Brad Pitt.

It’s an anarchic medium, print. And the sooner folks begin to direct more of their revenues, staffing contingencies and marketing into online, the more ready they will be for communication in the next decade.

I took this picture the other day while driving of a DeLorean. ( He wasn’t going 88 miles per hour yet).

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