Social Networks Are Not Just About Having Fun.
July 4, 2009 by Geoff Jennings · 1 Comment
I’ve been banging on about the importance of social networking to recruitment and my job networks on Twitter are gaining a considerable following @JobsAustralia @Jobseen @GamerJobs @ITJobsSydney as an example. Check out this article from the weekend Courier Mail by Amanda Horswill. Read article here. You’d have to be an ostrich not to notice the level of media coverage social networks receive these days. “These networks won’t work”, “It’ll take years before social networks are vital to recruiting”, said the critics. I say the critics need a rethink on these claims. I say, social networking is already integral. If you don’t believe me, read in this article what Iggy Pintado has to say about my ideas…
Ah. I love it when a plan comes together.
Other adaptations of social networking techniques create new takes on a traditional job board. Online Recruitment owner Geoff Jennings says he runs a number of different Twitter accounts that “feed” (provide updates to) “followers” (people who agree to receive his messages) a one-line description of particular categories of jobs, followed by a weblink to the job ad on a different website such as Careerone.com.au. The information he uses is collated by a third party, a website called an aggregator (www.recruit.net), which “scrapes” information off a number of websites and collates it into a single-line description called a “news feed”. Jennings takes this news feed, combines it with an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed from other sites than ban aggregation, and mixes in a few of his client’s positions that he is contracted to fill. He then broadcasts the jobs on Twitter, under account names such as ITjobsbris and ITjobssydney and gamerjobs.
“At this stage I am just testing the service. My company is not yet big enough to draw a large following on Twitter if I only put the jobs my company was recruiting for. But if I put many jobs on I can feed to a broader audience,” he says.
“That’s my strategy, anyway. I am very up-front about it (on those accounts).”
He maintains a personal account under his own name: “I don’t flog jobs in there, it’s to brand me as a recruiter. But on the other accounts, people don’t want to see me in there among the jobs.”
He says while he doesn’t get a large number of inquiries from Twitter to his company’s positions, the response so far is promising.
“I do get a lot of people ‘re-Twitting’. That’s when people pick up my Tweet and put a RT in front of it and send it out to their network. Then you get that community-based thing going. From that, I have had emails saying ‘I am interested, tell me more’.”
Social networking expert and author of Connection Generation Iggy Pintado says Jennings could possibly represent the future direction of Twitter.
OMG – No Investor Support
May 31, 2009 by Geoff Jennings · Comments Off
Fairfax’s MyCareer.com.au number of ads stands at 25,000+. Seek’s – 105,000+.
And it’s no wonder. Even the folks who should be supporting MyCareer aren’t advertising with them.
Fairfax NZ is advertising for a Acquisitions and Retentions Manager . Where did they place their ad? Seek.
Then there’s Online Marketing Group, the folks who boast in their job ad that “Fairfax Digital is a strategic investor in our company”, have posted a job for a Online Account Executive position. Guess they don’t have much faith in their investor. They chose to advertise exclusively on Seek.
Adlogic – The Recruiter
February 19, 2009 by Geoff Jennings · 3 Comments
AdLogic is a multi-post and recruitment management solution provider. It powers several recruiters and employers.
You can imagine my surprise then, to see that they are now turning their hand to recruiting. C++ Analyst/Programmer .
Hang on (double take), that’s our job as recruiters.
Latest Jobs
February 16, 2009 by Geoff Jennings · Comments Off
Seek.com.au
Strategy Analyst – Melbourne
Onrec.com.au
Senior Interactive Producer – Melbourne
Producer – Games Industry – Melbourne
Senior Character Artist – Sydney
Recruitment
Consultant – Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne
3D Artist – Sydney
Experienced Games Programmer – Melbourne/Brisbane
It’s ZaaBiz…
February 3, 2009 by Geoff Jennings · Comments Off
- Another shouts, “Vee look like Frrreeaks!
There’s viskers growing on our cheeks!”
A boy who vos extremely tall
Cries out, “Vot’s wrong. I’m growing small!”
- Extract from The Witches by Roald Dahl
Ve’re all speaking vith an accent here at the office. Been having a look at ZaaBiz, a new Biz networking site that offers social referral recruiting (SRR) tools. (see my profile) Nothing new, I can hear you all shout, 2Vouch and Hoojano are also chucking their hats into the ring where this is concerned. The difference with the team at ZaaBiz, though, is that their service is free, and leveraging the growing numbers of Tweeters on Twitter. And being free, their concept is a little more subtle than the referral service offered by its monetised competitors.
I’ve put a few of my jobs on there…testing the waters.
I vill keep you posted about zaa results.
Mycareer – Playing Games
January 29, 2009 by Geoff Jennings · 6 Comments
Okay, so MyCareer has this new promotion for Headhunter. Deal is, you set up a store and earn money for the business by “recruiting” employees to your store – kinda like a virtual popularity contest. The shopkeeper earning the most money at the end of the day gets “a trophy of the character”. Woot. Woot. I think, and I’m not really certain although I’ve read the competition outline a coupla times now, that when you register you go into the draw to win fifty grand.
Considering the hiding I’ve given MyCareer lately, I reckon if they pull my name out of the barrel, they’ll look around to see who was watching, pretend to cough, and poke the bit of paper with my name on it into their mouth. Then they’ll redraw.
The prospect of devoting a good part of my day setting up my shop, and sending pathetic emails to my friends and family, asking for virtual support in this enterprise isn’t exactly compensated by the prospect of winning a trophy of my avatar (check him out, he’s the cruddy old guy behind the counter in my “shop” – the one who looks a bit bored, kinda like he’d rather shoot himself then deal with yet another complaint about the economic crisis). And it’s not as though I’m beyond having a muck around in my virtual universe. It’s just, well, if I’m gonna enter a competition, I don’t want it to be like some kinda high maintenance friend who’s just, like, take, take, take – and very little give-back.
And isn’t it slightly ironic that the results for this are published in The Australian – a News publication? I’m not holding my breath about winning…
Print Classifieds – A Case for Euthanasia
January 14, 2009 by Geoff Jennings · 2 Comments
When I was a kid, I had a dog. Dog’s name was Jimmy. Each afternoon, he’d hear me coming up the driveway home from school, and he’d race out the front to meet me, scraping his wet old tongue all over my face. Sniffing my crotch. Some days, that old guy’d get so excited on account of me being home, he’d pee all over the exposed aggregate driveway.
One afternoon, Jimmy wasn’t in the driveway to meet me. Mum and I, we ran all over the goddam house, looking for him. Was me who found Jimmy, rolled on his back in the garden, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, phlegm and blood pouring from his nose and eyes.
Jimmy had eaten rat poison some bright nut of a neighbor had decided to put out a little too close to our fence line.
The vet tugged up the legs of his flared trousers and bent down to talk to me, so as we were on eye level. “Jimmy’s got some problems with his brain, Geoffrey, and even if we can save his life, the hopes of him ever being like the Jimmy you love are slim. Probably best, son, if we stop Jimmy’s struggle and let him rest peacefully.”
My little guy fists were red raw that night because I banged them so hard on the lino floor of the surgery. I never saw Jimmy again.
And it’s funny how things that happen to you when you’re a kid can fashion the way you view all sorts of things when you’re a man.
While I was eating my Coco Pops this morning, something I read on Crikey, Fairfax classifieds in freefall. What next? reminded me of old Jimmy. Like Jimmy, print is dying. It’s put its curious, whiskered snout too far under the fence and sucked back a truckload of rat poison. And it’s never going to be the same: “media analysts Goldman Sachs JB Were claiming dramatic falls in classified advertising in Fairfax’s traditional metro papers for December.” Falls were reported in all of Fairfax’s classifieds including motor, real estate and employment.
Problem is, unlike my sage and compassionate vet with the flares and lino, those with the say-so in media empires like Fairfax are not prepared to put print gently to sleep. They’ve whacked it on a respirator, and pumped a bunch of chemicals in its bloodstream in the hope of its survival. Problem is, even if it manages to live, it’s gonna have major spasticity in its arms and legs and it won’t be able to control its need to defecate. It’ll never be like the print we once loved.
It should be laid to rest peacefully.
Moral of the story is that, a few months after Jimmy passed away, Mum and Dad bought me a new dog. Name was Taffy. Truth is, I actually liked Taffy a bit more than Jimmy. Taffy was energetic, and a bit brighter. I taught him to beg and sit and he even managed to catch the mice that came into our kitchen through a crack in the wall in winter. Plus, Taffy still met me in the driveway each arvo – but he never once sniffed my crotch or pissed on the exposed aggregate.
Latest Jobs
November 15, 2008 by Geoff Jennings · Comments Off
OnlineRecruitment.com.au
Lead Programmer – Games, Brisbane/Melbourne
Texture Artist – Games, Brisbane/Melbourne
Recruitment Consultant, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne
Seek.com.au
Online Media Sales Representative – 12 month maternity cover, Sydney
National Credit Manager – Melbourne
Linkme.com.au
Business Development Manager – NSW
MyCareer.com.au
Client Relationship Manager, Brisbane
Sales Coordinator, Melbourne
Employment Market Shake-up.
November 10, 2008 by Geoff Jennings · 4 Comments
I’m an optimist. Can’t help it. It’s part of my make-up. I don’t hold a high regard on always being happy, though. I reckon you need bad times to challenge your strength, just like the immune system needs the odd germ to strengthen it.
There is a fair amount of talk at present about the state of global financial health. Most of it’s pretty dire. As a result, companies are getting nervous about their economic well-being. Staff are lying low and getting on with the job. There are lots of stats, not facts. I’m going to regurgitate a few, and would ask that you decide of your own reading of them. I’ll give you my opinion at the end. But as I warned you…I’m an optimist:
According to Seek.com.au the Australian employment market has eased further in October.
Despite much speculation however, there were no signs of an abrupt response to the deepening global financial crisis that might signify a developing recession.
Nationally the SEEK Employment Index (SEI), which measures the ratio of new job ads on seek.com.au to job applications via the site, fell by 4% in seasonally adjusted terms, suggesting jobseekers may have witnessed increased competition for fewer available jobs.
However, despite the global financial crisis deepening, this rate was consistent with the average rate of decline seen since December 2007 (4.5%).
However, Seek Ltd themselves have downgraded their forecast for profit growth to zero. Net profit after tax, which last year saw a 37.4% rise to $76.3 million, is now forecast to be flat.
News Corp has flagged job cuts, after reporting a 29.6 per cent drop in first quarter profit and it’s likely that Fairfax is also felling the pinch…
So what does this all mean for the online recruitment market. Here’s what I reckon…Seek will have to make some changes they might not otherwise have considered. Strategies must change, even if a little. Will this open up opportunities for niche job boards to gain a foothold in the market? Possibly. And if this happens, what a great opportunity is a recession (no Keating comparisons, please).
Point is, sometimes nothing beats a good old dose of the flu.
Classifind.com.au Tackling Jobs, Cars And Real Estate…
November 3, 2008 by Geoff Jennings · Comments Off
Thomas Shaw referred me to a new vertical search engine, so I thought I would would give it a road test.
Although not fully functional, I like the fact that they are pioneering the aggregation of the three classified categories, Jobs, Cars and Real Estate. Cars and Real Estate have received little attention from the aggregators and I wonder if the market leaders, Carsales.com.au and Realestate.com.au will apply the same ‘Don’t scrape us’ policy that Seek have?
On the surface, Classifind looks simple enough to use, opting to go with a full search box for each vertical on their home page. Most other aggregators use keyword only searches. However beware the results may take a while to appear – if at all.
Search results contain jobs by the usual suspects, CareerOne, Mycareer, Jobx e.t.c and redirect to the chosen site through another window.
You can also set up alerts for all the verticals. These notify the recipient via email or sms when a listing matches their saved profile.
That’s all great but where’s the advertising? How will Classifind survive without Adsense?
Site owner, Matt Ford, ex White Agency and Yahoo, seems to be relying on performance only for his revenue.
“Classifind is proud to offer a performance based marketing opportunity through an aggregated search site. If you would like to include listings from your job, car or property board on the classifind site please contact us below”.
As previously discussed, this service needs a mega amount of traffic and participation to generate any type of decent revenue. It’ll be fascinating to watch the progress of this progressive company.
