Sirona Says

Christmas crowdsourcing time please:) Can you provide me with just one idea, for the ultimate (fun) Christmas Gift List for HR and Recruiters?

For the last two years I have written two christmas posts that have been very popular with all of you. The posts were of a similar title; The Top 10 Christmas Gifts for a Recruiter. (Check out the Top 10 for 2007 as well).

I can of course come up with my own gadget laden list, but I thought it would be much more fun to ask you for your top gift for a recruiter or HR person, and then I will compile them all in a Recruiters and HR Christmas Gift List for 2009.

So what do you reckon, can you help me on this one?

Please email me your idea or (preferably) write a one liner in the comments below. Of course if you have more than one idea please feel free to share them all.

Let me get you started........

1. A case of Tequila - well it is the staple drink of all recruiters after all!!

So in the spirit of sharing, what do you think will make a great nerdy/geeky/funny/useless/trivial gift for a an HR person or Recruiter this Christmas?

Which is the Best UK Recruitment Blog of 2009?

Well it is that time of year again - it is the voting for the Best UK Recruitment Blog of 2009. Louise from UK Recruiter, who champions UK recruitment blogs (thanks Louise) has again put the decision out there to you, the blog reading folk, for you to decide, who you think has produced the best recruitment blog for this year.

So in a completely shameless request, if you are a reader of my blog, and you have enjoyed what I have had to say this year, then please make sure you vote for my blog today!!

It is a very easy process,>>>>>>>> click on this link here <<<<<<<<<< and vote for my blog Sirona Says.

Thanks in advance for your vote support !!

Should Companies use more or less recruitment agencies in a recession?

As we all know, the world has fallen apart, no one is hiring and the recruitment market is in total freefall, never to be seen again!  Well that is what the media would have us believe anyway!!

But the truth is really not as bad as it sounds. Companies ARE STILL recruiting and skill shortages are still very much in existence in certain sectors - education, engineering and science to name three.

So, we are in agreement, recruitment is still going on. There is one change however, and that is recruitment budgets have been effected - either reduced or totally frozen. That means organisations have had to look at their recruitment a little closer than they probably have over recent times.

But does having a reduced recruitment budget mean you reduce or increase the number of recruitment suppliers?

There are arguments to both sides of this equation (but only if you have some budget left, I guess!)

Using more agencies

These are some of the reasons I have had from companies this year, that I have spoken to who have justified this approach to me:

• It is success only recruitment, so by increasing the number of agencies, there is a better chance of finding the right people I need at no extra cost.
• The agencies are 'desperate' for business and they have offered 'really low' rates.
• Given up on the preferred supply list because so many good CV's were coming in speculatively from other agencies.
• They perceive the job market is so tight in certain areas, they 'need' to talk to anyone that can supply a 'suitable' CV!!  I get angry when someone says this to me - they obviously have no idea of recruitment!!
• Why have a supplier list? They believe it is a buyers market and they are in control!
  

Using less agencies

Here are some of the good responses from clients, on why they are going to use less agencies - these are exactly the things I like to hear - albeit less often at the moment:

• Reducing supplier lists, to only work with the few agencies that have consistently delivered results, because they understand the clients values and don't waste time with poor matching.
• They have negotiated lower rates, but they have also reigned in the supplier list. So the agencies get a better chance on the roles, but at a slightly lower margin.
• Value for money - actually working closer and giving the agencies more information to save any time wasting later in the process.
• Working with a small number of agencies that deliver value-add. They add value in giving advice, helping the interview process, advising on selection etc.
• Why would they want to waste time having to take all the calls, and fielding all the CV's that will undoubtedly arrive in the inbox? They are getting loads more calls already!
• The little budget that remains needs to be used correctly, avoiding any recruiting mistakes, so the trusted agencies who have delivered are the ones to work with.

These are obviously just some examples from my experience in 2009, during these tough times. I would really like to hear some of your feedback from your clients, as to how they justify using more or less recruitment agencies in this recession. Please let me know in the comments below.

IS this THE BEST job in the World? I dare you to argue!!

With all the doom and gloom around, I was amazed to see this fantastic job being that is currently being advertised on an aptly named website called Islandreefjob.com. Let me give you some of the details, and just see if you disagree with me, that this is THE BEST job in the world!

Tourism Queensland is seeking applicants for the best job in the world! The role of Island Caretaker is a six-month contract, based on luxurious Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef. It’s a live-in position with flexible working hours and key responsibilities include
exploring the islands of the Great Barrier Reef to discover what the area has to offer.
You’ll be required to report back on your adventures to Tourism Queensland headquarters in Brisbane (and the rest of the world) via weekly blogs, photo diary, video updates and ongoing media interviews. On offer is a unique opportunity to help promote the wondrous Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.

Other duties may include (but are not limited to)
Feed the fish - There are over 1,500 species of fish living in the Great Barrier Reef. Don’t worry – you won’t need to feed them all.
Clean the pool - The pool has an automatic filter, but if you happen to see a stray leaf floating on the surface it’s a great excuse to dive in and enjoy a few laps.
Collect the mail – During your explorations, why not join the aerial postal service for a day? It’s a great opportunity to get a bird’s eye view of the reef and islands.

About the job package
Living above the Great Barrier Reef is a pretty unique benefit, but the successful candidate will also be paid a salary package of AUD $150,000 (approx £70k) for the six-month contract. You’ll receive return airfares from your nearest capital city (in your home country), accommodation and transport on Hamilton Island, travel insurance for the contract period, computer, internet, digital video and stills cameras access, plus travel to a number of the other Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The six-month contract commences 1st July 2009.

About the location
Stretching for 2,600 kilometres, and composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands, the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia is the world’s largest coral reef system. The World Heritage Listed area supports a diversity of wildlife including whales, dolphins, sea turtles and more than 1,500 species of fish. The reef is an extremely popular destination.

It is no surprise to see that demand has been awesome!! They have advertise this in 18 countries, and surprise, surprise it crashed the website last week!!

Now someone tell me how this isn't the best job in the world currently!!

My Top 10 Tips for Job Seeking Generation Y Graduates

There is no question that 2010 is going to be a very tough year for many generation Y graduates in the employment market.
There has been a sustained expansion in encouraging students to attend universities and prolong their education, and this is something that the Government are committed to continue. Many of 2009's entry level jobs just haven't materialised, meaning many of the gen y class of 2009 are still looking for full time jobs. Then factor in the fact that since the recession kicked in, graduate vacancies for 2010 have been substantially reduced, it is then a scenario that many gen y'ers are totally unaccustomed to.

These gen Y'ers were, after all, "told" that they would be the next 'saviour' of the employment world, and that employers would be flocking to them to offer them work. They weren't just expecting the one job offer, they were expecting multiple offers, with excellent salaries to choose from!!

So what are these gen y graduates supposed to do now? How are they going to get a job and find meaningful work?

Here are my Top 10 tips for Job Seeking Generation Y Graduates:

1. Don't believe the hype!! Whatever you do, you must remain positive with the whole process of looking for a job. The media industry has now seemingly turned into a daily job loss count! They seem to derive sadistic pleasure in reminding people how bad everything is, in the job world. When did you last here about good news in the job market?
   
   There are many companies out there looking for new staff, but it is of course not publicised!! In fact even with the recession taken hold, my experiences so far in 2009, tell me that many more companies than people realise, are actually hiring thi year!!
   
   What is the case though, is that organisations are trying to do this recruiting on reduced recruitment budgets. So they are not using their normal, traditional routes of recruitment (ie agencies etc) as they simply have no budget for it.
   
   So, stop believing the media, and start to 'believe' in yourself (again)!
2. Decide what you don't want to do. You will I know, have sat down with many 'career' people over the last few months, with them asking you what you want to do for a career / job. Correct?
   
   Well, I invert this approach, and ask the opposite - what career/jobs DON'T you want to do? So why do I come from this angle?
   Unless you have studied a very specific degree / qualification, which automatically leads into a specific industry (ie Law, Teaching etc), then you probably do not have any fixed ideas on what career path you want to follow. So asking you what you want to do, when you have no real experience of the employment market is a little naive.
   
   What you can do, is to start to build a profile of companies that you don't want to work for. This immediately starts to provide focus and thought on a potential career direction. More importantly, it actually starts to get your 'grey matter' focused on why you would like certain companies, and not like others.
   Write down these criteria, from your own decision making process, to return to later.
   
   So, start to limit your choices, by deciding what you don't want to do!
   
   

Does Your Business need a Recruitment Pinch Hitter now?

I am sure that many of you are not fans of Baseball, so first let me explain what a pinch hitter actually is:

They are simply defined as a substitute for another person, especially in an emergency or a moment of need.  This expression comes from baseball, where it is used for a player substituting for another at bat at a critical point or in a tight situation.

So to put into a business context, it would be someone with specialist skills being called upon to go into a company and solve specific needs of that company, for problems or issues they are experiencing.

Yes it's not brilliant out there, but it's NOT THAT BAD

We all know the state of the economy, it is something that everyday the media seem to taking great pleasure in telling us because they think people want to hear about it!
But what is more significant, is that all this bad news and the continual overkill of doom and gloom  (in my opinion, anyway) that comes out of the British Chamber of Commerce is ever-shrinking the confidence of recruitment and employment in UK businesses.

But let me be clear here, yes there is alot of bad news out there, but it is not effecting every company in the same way, as many are still recruiting staff at all levels. There are still big recruitment problems out there for some companies, as the quality and availability of candidates is becoming very limited.

A large retailer I spoke to last week, told me that their usage of recruitment agencies has actually increased since the credit crunch took hold!! Is that so surprising?
They now receive ten times more CV's, and the quality has dropped dramatically, so for this retailer to get to speak to the skilled individuals they need in their business, they are needing to use agencies to source them.

Good News! Don't believe the Media - Recruitment isn't dead !

Last year I asked for your assistance in a brief survey. It was obviously related to the credit crunch / recession / downturn (delete as appropriate!!) and how it was starting to effect companies recruitment strategies going forward.
I was getting certain feedback from my clients with regards to recruitment, and whether they were putting everything on hold or were actually still recruiting, and wanted to know if  everyone else was getting the same.
Yes, there is bad news everywhere with big job losses, that seem to be a common source of news for the doom and gloom merchants in the media!! Even the Government have become a cog in the doom machine with their shocking approach to the current job losses!!

Wasn't it great to see space aliens taking the news headlines just for one day yesterday - it did make a change!!

So the results of the survey - What did you  think are causing companies the most pain with regards to recruitment at the moment?

1. Recruiting with a reduced budget ----------------------- 56.76% - (42)
2. Demotivation in the workforce ---------------------------- 35.14% - (26)
3. There is no recruitment due to redundancies ------- 35.14% - (26)
4. Recruitment agencies are too expensive to use ----31.08% - (23)
5. Still can't find the skills needed----------------------------28.38% - (21)
6. Inundated with speculative job seekers-----------------27.01% - (20)
7. Not enough recruitment expertise------------------------16.22% - (12)
8. Higher instances of sick leave------------------------------9.50% -  (7)
9. Recruiting with no recruitment budget-------------------8.11% -  (6)
10. Staff are leaving for better salaries elsewhere----------8.11% -  (6)

Total responses - 74

I know it is only a very small survey, but the top answer does echo feedback I am getting from clients - many are still recruiting, but they are are having to be very careful with their recruiting budgets.

So the message from my "important" survey is clear - don't believe the hype and the bad news, companies are still recruiting out there. Yes they may have less money to spend on recruitment,  yes they will want value for their money and yes, they may well do some of the recruitment themselves.

BUT there is still a market out there - companies are still recruiting, so all you recruiters - corporate and agency -  don't give up just yet!!  And for all you companies out there, who have had their budgets cut, start to think about your recruitment a little better - there are ways that you can still recruit cost effectively!!

Why don't the Government understand what Job Centres are really there for?

It is funny what gets your blood to boil isn't it? - especially while on holiday and supposedly 'chilling out'!
Well for me it happened a couple of days ago, while reading The Times with a very nice fresh espresso coffee. So what was the cause of the anger?

Strangely, I was getting annoyed by simple agreeing with an article written by a journalist called Melanie Reid, entitled 'Close encounter with planet Jobcentre.'

Here are some of the highlights:

• Gill was one of six directors recently made redundant by a well-known UK consortium. Once she'd recovered from the initial shock of losing a post that she had held for 18 years, Gill set out to find another. She knew it would take time and someone advised her to register as unemployed so that her national insurance contributions would be paid.

• She was given an interview slot at a local centre and told not to be late.

• There follows a tale of such humiliation, misunderstanding and Stalinist bureaucracy

• The young woman who interviewed her was ignorant but condescending in manner and kept asking Gill why she was there. She was told that in order to get her national insurance paid, she would have to apply for job seeker's allowance, which she did not want.

• The official asked Gill what she used to earn, and then - unbelievably - repeated the figure to nearby colleagues, exclaiming: “Hey, I've never had anyone in here with that salary!”

• Gill's circumstances did not fit any of the boxes on the official's computer screen. And if she defied classification she could not exist. “Tell me what your job was and I'll do a job search for you,” said the official. “Operations director for a Footsie plc,” said Gill. “It's not coming up with anything. What about ‘area manager'?” “Yes,” sighed my friend, by this time a broken woman, “area manager will do.”

• “Then she told me that she couldn't really do anything for me and I was told to report back ten days hence,” said Gill.

This is something that I have experienced first hand a six years ago, following a redundancy. At the time I just needed to register with the Job Centre to be able to trigger my insurance payments on my mortgage for a couple of months, before I found a new role. But the process I went through six years ago, was exactly as described above - it just shows they way behind the times!
The woman that was my 'contact' in the Job Centre, had no recruitment experience, no understanding of the job market, and absolutely no commercial experience at all!! She told me she had been drafted in to that team from admin because someone had gone on maternity leave!

Let me be crystal clear with my argument here. I am not criticising the whole benefits piece ( I don't need to - there are plenty that are going that!), I am specifically referring to the jobs piece of the jigsaw - as in the name of the service - the 'job centre'.
Why do the government think that unskilled, uncaring and totally unmotivated people are actually going to be able to give support, confidence and help to people who have been made redundant and simply want to get back to work??

Some great job advice from Martin Luther King

Over the last few days when getting a chance to catch up on some reading I came across a great quote from Martin Luther King. It seemed very poignant to me, with all the talk of job losses and people having to accept jobs that are maybe different to what they would like to do - you know the sort, needs must when you have bills to pay!
If you also factor in the immigrants returning to their home countries, then what Martin Luther King says below is even more appropriate because the immigrants were doing jobs that many Brits just didn't want to do!

This is what he says......

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

I thought this was a really good, particularly for 2009, with many people going to have to do some jobs that they wouldn't normally consider!!