JobRich

My recruitment year 2012

2012-01-04T14:57:00.000Z

The only ones left in the Quality Street tin are the hard toffee ones.
The batteries have worn down and the helium slowly escaping from my Air Swimmer, it's slowly loosing the will to live, becoming shrivelled and tired.
Well, that was Christmas and the end of 2011. "Good riddance" I say.

What happened in 2011?

2011 was for me a Social Media year. It was the year where I found myself hopping from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn. Trying to be everything to everyone (and not really doing any good at all) Commenting but not being heard. Retweeting till I was tweeted out. Reading so much that my eyes popped but not really taking anything in.
Empire Avenue had me in its grasp for a while. God! What a waste of time.

On the positive side, I now have a plethora of Social Media accounts. Take a look over to the right hand side of this page under "Creating direct encounters" for the list. I guess a good starting point for 2012.

So what's in store for me and recruitment in 2012?

These are my predictions for my businesses for 2012, so please feel free to comment (or shout or scream!)

Ba Recruitment

I will be more quality conscious on which assignments to take on.
I will get more temporary workers out on assignment.
I will become a better recruiter! Meaning that I will listen to my clients more. I will service them better than I have done over the past year. React quickly and find really good people.
I will leave the paperwork (which I love so much) and concentrate on the things that are important.
I will get more commitment from my clients.
I will make more profit.

Job Affair

I will give Employers a simple and effective way of attracting better and more qualified Jobseekers. I will give Jobseekers a simple method of searching and applying for their jobs.
I will increase SEO and find more partners to advertise jobs with.
I will come up with a better way to market the Great Jobseekers that register with our JobBoards, see GreatBritishCVs
I will generate more from advertising revenues than last year (which was our best to date)
Project 98, From a standing start in 2012, I will make sure that we capitalise on these sites.
CareerTown will be published.

In general, I will allocate my time better between my two businesses. Giving the amount of time and attention that they both need so much.

I will spend less time on Social Media and more time servicing my customers.

I am in the very fortunate and I would think unique position in as much as I have more recruitment tools at my fingertips than the average recruiter.
I have a great Recruitment Agency and a successful JobBoard business. By combing the two, I have the tools to reach more jobseekers, generate the best applications and deliver the best service.

Here's to 2012. Let's get cracking!

A nearly end of year update

2011-12-06T11:07:00.000Z

I have been so busy with various projects and really don't have any of the major updates I have been expecting (and to let you know about)
Perhaps (like they say in Dale Carnegie) I should salami up the issues and make them into smaller bite sized pieces. (I'll never learn)

So, as a little update...
Ba Recruitment - traditional recruitment has slowed a little in the lead up to Christmas. Derbyshire companies are still recruiting and our knowledge of the local accounts environment has certainly helped recently.

Job Affair - is currently undergoing a website revamp, about time too.

Just4Medical - We linked with another major jobboard and started to receive many 1,000's of new jobs onto the site (around 40k) Upon hindsight, we felt that the quality of the job listings was not in line with our site so after around 1 week, we decided to take them all off. We are currently advertising around 2k live jobs.

GreatBritishJobs - continues to make excellent progress. Listing around 4,500 live UK jobs. Our biggest obstacle here is how to market the great candidates that register and apply on our site. We think the idea is so simple in as much as we market candidates via our social media feeds and employers notice the updates, come back to the site and search the database. It is totally free to upload jobs on the site and to search our CV Database. I still think this is a simple but brilliant idea.

East Midlands Jobs - again continues to increase traffic numbers, we show good quality jobs. Lots more marketing on our part is needed here.

Project 98 -This is my pet project as we enter 2012. I have a plethora of job related UK domain names and have finally found a use for them. I will be creating a series of mini-jobsites that will be informative yet simple on the area concerned. Career In Accounts is the latest in the series.

Career Town - We have now started in earnest with the site graphics and database. When I went looking for link exchanges from other job related sites, I felt that the time involved was very costly. Not knowing if a site would accept my link, not knowing if that site would provide a reciprocal link back to one of my various sites. So we have come up with simple idea of having a free UK Recruitment Services Directory.

We aim to keep our operations simple and useable for everyone. We may not have the newest technology and the zippiest graphics but what we do provide an easy way to search and apply for UK jobs and recruitment information.

UK Recruitment - What is temp to perm?

2011-11-02T15:49:00.000Z

In the UK recruitment sector, temp to perm or temporary to permanent is the way we (UK Recruitment Agencies) describe the situation where a person is working in a temporary capacity in a business and then gets offered a permanent position. Sometimes this situation is planned for and all parties are aware before the assignment takes place. Other times a worker will start with a business and after a certain period of time and usually when the worker has proved themselves to a business a permanent job is identified and subsequently offered to the temporary worker.

In the current UK economic climate more companies are looking at the temp to perm option. The reason is two-fold. There are more people available for the temporary assignments due to redundancies and lay-offs and businesses are not prepared to invest in permanent members of staff, who, in the longer term may prove to be unsuitable.

Temporary work is a great way to get into any organisation. You will be able to prove to employers that you are flexible and versatile in the workplace. You will be able to learn news ways of working and new I.T. platforms to experience.

Let’s face it; if you are being paid to do the work, it’s your chance to be able to suss out the company. Not all companies have rigid interview processes. That first interview may have been impressive but does the company actually come up with the goods that they have promised.

At Ba Recruitment, we have jobs that are temporary, temporary to permanent and permanent. If you are looking for a job in the Accountancy or Administration fields, in the Derbyshire or North Nottinghamshire areas, get in touch with us today.

The origins of the Interview

2011-10-21T13:41:00.000+01:00

Found this on YouTube. It should give you a little giggle on a Friday afternoon,

5 top tips to guide you through the interview

2011-10-20T10:51:00.000+01:00

Preparation
Find out all you can about the organisation by ringing for an informal discussion, surfing the web, requesting brochures or ask your consultant at Ba Recruitment

Presentation
Dress smart. Make an effort. Suits for both men and women are best and always smile. You never get the chance to make a good first impression.

Punctual
Always be early and be sure you know how to get there. Always contact the interviewer / consultant if you are going to be late.

Predetermine
Asking questions is always an opportunity to impress. Predetermine a few questions and write them down to take to the interview.

Positive
Stay positive throughout. If you have any doubts try to ask questions in a positive manner.

Enjoy the interview and good luck! :)

Ba Recruitment network poem

2011-10-19T11:10:00.000+01:00

I used to use this when I stood up at network meetings for Ba Recruitment.

An Accountancy Recruitment service straight from the heart,
Give us your requirements right at the start,
We interview Ledger Clerks, FDs FCs and more,
Credit Controllers Bookkeepers and Accountants by the score,
Trainees, Data Input qualified or not,
What do you want? We've got the lot.
We interview, analyse grade and assess,
People from us are always the best.
For a passionate, ethical and cost effective appraoch,
We know our subject better than most,
So come to a business that makes you number one,
Ba Recruitment - Richard Johnson.

New website plugins for our Job Affair jobboards

2011-10-05T19:20:00.000+01:00

I met with my developer this afternoon and he has showed me a recently completed project. I'm really excited about this (I get like that! LOL)
So we'd like to announce our jobboard plugin... Taadaa!!
Job Affair job plugins have now made it easy for you to access live, relevant jobs onto your community site, job information site, website, blog and smart phone.
It's easy to modify the settings to show the most relevant content. That might be location, job category and even the colour to suit your own site.
So, why have done it? Well. We've been approached about this in the past for school and university associated sites, local community sites and personal blogs.
Click on the applicable icon below to see the simple step-by-step installation instructions.

Get our job plugin now for your East Midlands related site

Get our job plugin now for your Great British related site

Get our job plugin now for your Medical and Healthcare related site

Our most popular UK Jobsites

2011-09-30T10:09:00.002+01:00

We are in the process of moving our jobsites to a bigger, faster server this morning.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused but as time goes on, you will see that we are becoming smoother and slicker.
The jobsites in question are;

www.GreatBritishJobs.co.uk
A free to advertise jobsite with free access to our jobseekers. Great choice of UK jobs, social media broadcast of jobseekers and simple upgrade options.

www.EastMidlandsJobs.co.uk
A free to advertise jobsite with free access to our jobseekers. Great choice of jobs around the East Midlands area, UK, simple upgrade options.

www.Just4Medical.co.uk
A free to advertise jobsite with free access to our jobseekers. Great choice of Healthcare and Medical Jobs around the UK, simple upgrade options.

We apologise for any inconvenience this morning.

2011-09-22T22:42:00.001+01:00

Testing from Ping.fm

Sliding Scale Fee or Fixed Fee?

2011-09-21T10:42:00.000+01:00

A very quick survey!
In your experience (wether you are a recruiter or a HR person) do traditional recruitment agencies charge on a sliding scale basis or fixed fee?

Twitter Name Squatting and how to claim an unused Twitter account

2011-09-14T11:01:00.000+01:00

I recently had another brainstorm regarding a new online recruitment related business idea! **eyes roll**

This one is for a recruitment directory called Career Town. (No link yet as the website isn't operational)

I have held the .co.uk for a number of years and felt ready to embark on this venture with the help of a very good web developer.
One of the first things I wanted to do was to make sure that I could register the name on Twitter and Facebook to allow me to post relevant news and information on the top social media sites.
Facebook wasn't a problem, I'm still amazed that their are lots of usernames still available. I created the http://Facebook.com/CareerTown with ease and currently have 46 Likes so I was able to quickly claim the username.
Twitter on the other hand was a little more difficult. I searched and found that someone had been Twitter Squatting (I think that's the correct term!)
Anyhow, I registered the name http://Twitter.com/CareerTownUK
After a few days and a fair bit of reading, I enquired with Twitter about this and they referred me to their section on Name Squatting Policy There were a lot of big scary words like "Brand Impersonation" and "Trademark Infringement" Well, I thought, I have the website, I have the idea so in a sense I was right to enquire.
I was really quite astounded that Twitter took a total of 8 days (not working days) to assist me in making my claim. I now have the Twitter account that I wanted http://Twitter.com/CareerTown
So thank you Twitter, your customer service is far superior than that of Facebook (that's another story)

National Minimum Wage increase

2011-09-14T09:49:00.000+01:00

Did you know that the National Minimum Wage will be increased from 1st October 2011?
The rates as taken from the Direct.gov site are;

Rates from 1 October 2011

The NMW rates are reviewed each year by the Low Pay Commission and from 1 October 2011:

the main rate for workers aged 21 and over will increase to £6.08
the 18-20 rate will increase to £4.98
the 16-17 rate for workers above school leaving age but under 18 will increase to £3.68
the apprentice rate, for apprentices under 19 or 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship will increase to £2.60

All temporary staff that we have out on assignment will be receiving the increase. Will your staff?

Free Job Advertising in the UK

2011-09-06T16:32:00.000+01:00

We are pleased to announce that our portfolio of UK JobBoards are now FREE OF CHARGE!

We are offering each and every hiring company and recruitment agency access to our system to be able to advertise unlimited jobs and search our CV database for FREE. That's zip! Nada! Niente! Niets! :)

You will need to register and choose the free plan. Start advertising for FREE today!

The following site descriptions may help you in making your choice of JobBoard;
www.GreatBritishJobs.co.uk - Great UK Jobs, Great CV
www.EastMidlandsJobs.co.uk - only local jobs - the regions recruiter
www.Just4Medical.co.uk - UK Medical and Healthcare Jobs

For Jobseekers, now is a perfect time to search and apply for all vacancies as we have already seen a marked increase in job postings.

My ten top reasons why applicants fail at the CV stage

2011-08-09T14:19:00.000+01:00

In no particular order;

• No dates on employment history.
• Spelling errors.
• Poor school grades.
• Unexplained gaps in work history.
• Living outside of job “catchments” area with no explanation.
• Having no relevant experience for the job applied for.
• Too many colours or fonts.
• Delivered in unrecognizable format
• CVs delivered by post
• Recently completed a degree in an arts subject

I will not bore you with explaining each bullet point, suffice to say that without accurate clear information, delivered in a professional manner; your CV might be falling on recruiters desks and be immediately discarded.

If you need help with your CV, I can help. Get in touch via Ba Recruitment website.

My first LinkedIn poll, please answer

2011-08-03T14:27:00.000+01:00

Just a quick poll, what with the FTSE languishing around the mid 5000 at present. So, where do you think it'll be by the end of the year?

How much is a Facebook Page “Like” worth?

2011-06-21T15:52:00.000+01:00

Like most Recruitment Agencies that are involved in Social Media, I run various Facebook Fan Pages.

Once the idea for the Page was created I set it out and included all the details about the business, location, opening hours etc

I linked my Twitter feeds into the Page, added a cool “Welcome” tab (see my previous post on Welcome tabs), then I invited all my friends to “like” my Page. I do run a number of Pages and you can only ask your friends so much.

So how to attract more “Likes”?

I tried two options at the same time to compare.

1. Facebook adverts.

I put in the measly sum of £32.00 to get the ball rolling, the design an Ad feature was very easy, giving me the ability to use a picture and wording, also (which I thought was good) I could identify my target counties to advertise into.

The Advert has now lasted 3 weeks and I have gained 37 “Likes” and 37 "Click Thru’s”

Cost of Facebook Adverts “Likes” has been 0.86p

2. www.LikeSocialMedia.com

A friend of mine put me onto to this site.

You register through Facebook login and let them know the Pages that you want to advertise. (You must be the Administrator for the Pages you want to gain likes for)

You are shown a long list of other Pages to like.

I started to like things like a fast food company in Singapore and a dental practice in North Carolina, I just liked and liked and liked other Pages!

For each Page that you like, you receive 1 credit. You are allowed to like a maximum of 25 Pages per day, therefore you gain 25 credits.

In turn, when someone else registers on the site, your Pages show up and they click on the like feature until your credits run out.

Quite a nifty site and it certainly "does what it says it'll do". I have secured 3 vanity URLs and have had a total of 164 new likes from this exercise.

However, I am not sure about the “quality” of the likes. From my own point of view, I have hidden a lot of Pages that I have liked, therefore this site should be used purely to gain your 25 likes to secure your vanity URL only. IMHO.

Cost of www.LikeSocialMedia.com “Likes” has been £0.00

If I then were to add the two exercises together

Total likes = 201, total cost £32.00 = 0.16p

And now it’s all about engagement!

4 things you probably never knew your mobile phone could do!

2011-06-07T11:18:00.000+01:00

FIRST
Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for all Mobile Phones is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and your mobile will search any existing network in your area to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialled even if the keypad is locked. This works on all phones worldwide and is free. It is the equivalent of 000.

SECOND
Have you locked your keys in the car?

Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone:
If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone.

Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end.
Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be thousands of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
Editor's Note: I didn’t believe this when I heard about it! I rang my daughter in Sydney from Perth when we went on holiday. She had the spare car key. We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a mobile phone!'

THIRD
Hidden Battery Power

To activate, press the keys *3370# (remember the asterisk). Do this when the phone is almost dead.
Your mobile will restart in a special way with this new reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery life. This reserve will get re charged when you charge your mobile next time.
This secret is in the fine print in most phone manuals. Most people however skip this information without realising.

FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # Ensure you put an asterisk BEFORE the #06# sequence.

A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. If your phone ever get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless.
You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody done this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.
This secret is also in the fine print of most mobile phone manuals. It was created for the very purpose of trying to prevent phones from being stolen.

Also -ATM PIN Number Reversal - Good to Know !!

If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse. For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321. The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location.
All ATM’s carry this emergency sequencer by law.

This information was recently broadcast on by Crime Stoppers however it is seldom used because people just don't know about it.

Please pass this along to everyone.

What is Empire Avenue?

2011-05-27T11:43:00.002+01:00

It’s a game!

It’s a Social Media site!

It’s a waste of time!

There has been a lot of buzz over the last couple of months about this new Social Media site. You probably have a Facebook account, maybe a Facebook Page for your business, then there’s Twitter, LinkedIn, in fact so many social media sites are out there, it’s a wonder any of us get any commercial work done at all! @Jerry_Albright :)

I have heard that Empire Avenue is similar to Klout but with more bells and whistles.

But you have to ask yourself. What’s in it for me?

So! What’s it all about?

Login in with either Facebook Login or email address. This is great for me as I have two accounts. One for my Recruitment Business (BaRecruitment) and the other for me (JobRich)
Link your social media accounts. These include; Twitter, Facebook (Profile and Page) Flikr, YouTube and LinkedIn and Blogs.
Your active social media accounts count towards your share price.
You start off with 10,000 Eaves (their virtual currency)
You buy other people / businesses shares with your Eaves. When their share price increases so does your portfolio value.
You can buy luxury items, anything from a raft to a mansion. For each luxury item you are paid a daily dividend.
You can buy Influencer Advertsing space. 140 characters. You pay for how many times you want your advert to display (similar to the Facebook model) I have created a number of adverts to find out which is best. Viewers can Like or Dislike an advert and also click through to your profile.
You can buy extras with money also.
You are able to join community groups and interest groups.
When you have enough Eaves, you can start off your own personal Community Group. I have one for Recruitment UK, 7 members so far, so if you are looking to join, consider that one!
You are able to join Indexes, this is one of the parts I really like. There is an index for "Human Resources and Recruiting" So I set myself the goal of becoming CEO of the group. I thought: "More exposure, more people are going to click on my links and buy my shares BUT also they will check out my profile and click on some of my JobBoard links"
At present I am the President, so only a little way to go (although Gene Leshinsky is hot on my heals! :)
The more involvement you put into the #EmpireAvenue site the more you are rewarded.
I have also gained an extra 17 Likes for my Facebook Page

What I do like about the site is the information you can get out of it. Not being a social media professional, I am always looking for guidance. Empire Avenue gives me that by way of the social media”scores” this tells me which platforms I am involved in and which areas may need more attention.

I think that sites like #EmpireAvenue allow us all to have a level playing field to market our brands and services. I share the same spot as some of the big hitters in our industry (for how long, I’m not sure!) This type of exposure for me is very valuable.

So, with some big name brands getting involved also with the likes of Nokia, Google, Intel, AT&T, Leeds Metropolitan University, Utility Warehouse and many more, you have to ask yourself if it’s good enough for them…

It is fun! Social Media is meant to have an element of fun, isn't it?
Happy Investing
p.s. Buy my shares ! :) Empire Avenue-JobRich

5 Top Ti‘P’s to guide you through an interview

2011-05-10T15:49:00.000+01:00

PREPARATION

Find out all you can about the organisation by ringing for an informal discussion, surfing the web, requesting brochures, or ask your consultant at your recruitment agency for more information.

PRESENTATION

Dress smart. Make an effort!

Suits for both men and women are best and always SMILE!

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

PUNCTUAL

Always be early and be sure you know how to get there.

Always contact the interviewer/consultant if you are lost.

PREDETERMINE

Asking questions is always an opportunity to impress.

Predetermine a few questions and write them down to take into the interview.

POSITIVE

Stay positive throughout. If you have any doubts, try to ask questions in a positive manner

ENJOY THE INTERVIEW AND GOOD LUCK!

Facebook - How to “Like” other pages whilst using your page.

2011-05-05T12:34:00.000+01:00

Have you ever had the situation where you want to like a company’s (or person's) Page but you don’t want that Page cluttering up your own personal News Feed stream?

Well, there is a way that you can interact with other Pages whilst being in your own (Company or Personal) Page.

How?

Let me explain…

Firstly, you will need to have administrator rights for your own Page.
Log into Facebook.com
At the top right of your screen click on the “Account” link, a drop down list appears.
Click “Use Facebook as Page”
Decide which Page you would like to be.
You'll now be able to interact with other pages as your page.
Whe you Like a new Page, this Like (and it's News Stream) will only appear when you use that Page again.

I have a Page http://Facebook.com/GreatBritishJobs and I often like other businesses through it.

To revert back to your own profile, follow these points;

At the top right of your screen click on the “Account” link, a drop down list appears.
Just underneath your name, click on the link “Switch back to [your name]”

Hope that helps :)

Follow up on #Facebook questions

2011-04-18T11:06:00.001+01:00

Last Thursday 14th April 2011, I started to experiment with questions on Facebook
Just a quick update.
We have had a very healthy 123 votes, sure 13 were from friends but that means another 110 that may, just may have seen our link (here's a screen shot of the question)

On our Facebook page for Great British Jobs today, I am asking the question What is the best County to live and work in the UK? I am hoping that this one will prove to be even more popular.

Posted up about 10am on Monday 18th April 2011.

I'll let you know the results in a week or so.

Questions on Facebook Pages

2011-04-14T12:02:00.002+01:00

I run a number of Pages on Facebook and I'm always looking for ways to engage with my audiences. Different pages require different engagement methods.

I also have my own profile on Facebook and I often answer the random questions that my friends have answered. Recently these questions have been about "Do you like Marmite?" "What do you call it, a cob or a roll or a bap?" I don't find these questions intrusive and I am happy to answer them.

I have often looked at the source of the question and more often than not they are individuals (as far as I can see)

So, I thought to myself, maybe I could link these questions and build a bigger audience.

Recently, I have asked two questions from two of my Facebook pages.

The first was posted on Tuesday 12th April 2011 for my Facebook Page Great British Jobs (followers 36), where I asked the question "Where do you usually look for a job?" I have received 5 responses.

The second was posted this morning Wednesday 14th April 2011 for my Facebook Page for Ba Recruitment (followers 86), where I asked the question "What is the best breakfast in the world?" so far I have received 15 votes.

I really don't want to alienate my audience with meaningless drivle but now it's a case of what do I do with this information and how can I use it?

Announcing the launch of Great British Jobs

2011-04-06T12:25:00.001+01:00

Leading online jobboard developer Job affair Ltd announces a jobsite with unique social media links. www.GreatBritishJobs.co.uk

Derbyshire - April 2011

Job Affair Ltd announces that its’ most recent jobsite development; www.GreatBritishJobs.co.uk has recently been published.

Commenting on the recent development Managing Director of Job Affair Ltd, Richard Johnson, explained “We are constantly looking at ways of promoting jobseekers to a wider audience. Through our unique social media channels jobseekers now enjoy the benefit of being able to broadcast their details across many different platforms including Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. The site went live over the last weekend and we have enjoyed a fantastic number of hits from a standing start.

The site is currently listing around 9,000 live vacancies.

About
GreatBritishJobs:

Great British Jobs is becoming the new way to promote jobseekers through social media channels. The UK’s newest and fastest growing online job advertising service specialising in sourcing jobs in the UK. Jobseekers, promote yourself. Employers, attract top talent and enjoy Value Added Job Advertising.

Additional
information is available at www.GreatBritishJobs.co.uk and www.JobAffair.co.uk

Feedback on my long URL experiment

2011-02-25T11:39:00.000Z

I recently wrote a post about organising my own SEO for Ba Recruitment
So, one month has gone past and I guess you are wondering "So, how has he done then?"

This information is hot of the press this morning, so as I'm writing this, I'm also pumping the information into Google and writing down the results. Here goes...

So, before the experiment my main search results (from Google) went like like;
Purchase Ledger Clerk jobs in Derbyshire (search result No 48) (New search result No 73)
Credit Control jobs in Derbyshire (search result No 56) (New search result No 14)
Accountant Jobs in Derbyshire (search result No 6) (New search result No 6)
Accountancy Recruitment Agency in Derbyshire (search result No 112) (New search result No 5)
Fixed Fee Recruitment East Midlands (search result No 1) (New search result No 1)
(Google sends me approx 50% of total search traffic)

So, what has this told me?

Well, for my Accountancy Recruitment Agency in Derbyshire and the search term

"Accountancy Recruitment Agency in Derbyshire" our previous search result was No 112, whereas now we have zoomed up the rankings to No 5. Excellent news!

Our Fixed Fee Recruitment East Midlands link is still performing excellently, still ranked No 1.

However, I am a little disappointed with the search "Purchase Ledger Clerk Jobs in Derbyshire" going from position 48 to this months 73. However "Credit Control jobs in Derbyshire" has gone up 42 search results to position No 14

Purchase Ledger and Credit Control jobs are our bread and butter and the whole purpose of this experiment was to see if by changing to the long URLs would increase our rankings.

So, does changing your job listings from short to long URLs help with listings?
In this experiment the jury is still out.

How to make your own Facebook Page tabs (free)

2011-02-10T14:37:00.005Z

As some of you already know me, you'll know that I don't like to spend money willynilly!

As part of my "education" into the jobboard / internet market I recently went looking for some ideas on how to jazz up my Facebook pages. I run 5 in total.

Naturally I went onto Twitter and asked the question "Who knows where I can get free pages for my Facebook account" along with many suggestions I decided to investigate the one mentioned by Bill Boorman
Well, thanks to Bill who suggested Pagemodo

Remember! I'm not a web developer, I'm a recruiter, so all this html code and tags (and ting) doesn't wash with me. I needed something that even I could fathom out.
I decided on a Welcome tab for our Great British Jobs mainly because we haven't yet pushed this page and the website is currently being finalised (soon people! Soon!)
I found pagemodo's login and sign up very straight forward.

If you opt for the free version there are some caveats. You will need to carry their logo and link at the top right of your page and you have the option to upgrade (surprise)
You can't see a large "like" button as I have liked it already. You do get a large "share" button once liked towards the bottom of the page.
Here is the screen shot

Now that I was steaming along, I thought I would tackle my Recruitment Agency - Ba Recruitment I decided on an outfit called hy.ly Here they run a "points" system. If you opt for the free version you need to gather Hypoints by either logging into their site (25 points daily) Tweeting about your new tab (25 points each tweet) Emailing friends etc. Quite a nifty program! I ran into a few issues where my tabs weren't publishing correctly. With there being no contact details on the site, I found them on Twitter and asked for their help. They were very good at responding and sorted out the issue very quickly (they also gave me some extra Hypoints) Thank you Guys.

Nice big "like" button, you have to carry the logo and link but a good neat job.
Here is the screen shot.

Fantastic!! So now I'm feeling like a web developer - woohoo!! I thought "I can tackle anything"
By sheer coincidence one of my newest followers was Short Stack Labs, reading their bio, I thought I would go and have a look.
Just the ticket, I've been looking around for a way of adjusting my tabs and including more information that is pertinent to me and my business. I advertise jobs and wanted a tab just for this purpose that said just that "Jobs"
Easy to use system, you can use on multiple Facebook pages. The free version does have a limit of up to 100 followers so a great place to start your campaign. You can always upgrade if you feel the need.
Here is the screen shot

So, all in all, I've demonstrated that YOU can do it! It doesn't have to cost the earth and it'll get you and your company producing good quality Facebook pages (for free)

My next project will be to build a carousel for www.jobaffair.co.uk Watch this space!

Experiment into long URLs

2011-01-28T11:20:00.001Z

Lot's of my time is spent optimising my jobsites.
I would consider myself as raw talent when it comes to SEO and optimization of sites in general but I seem to spend an lot of time tweeking and updating the various sites.

I thought it was time to have a look at my Accountancy Recruitment website and see what I could do to enhance its search results.
So the test is; creating long URLs for my job postings from short non descriptive ones.
My job URLs used to look something like this;
http://www.barecruitment.co.uk/256/jobs.html which doesn't really tell Google or any other search engine anything much.
We are now trailling this type of URL http://www.barecruitment.co.uk/260/derbyshire/accounts/jobs/permanent/finance-manager.html Hopefully a lot more creative and user friendly.

So, before the experiement my main search results (from Google) went like like;
Purchase Ledger Clerk jobs in Derbyshire (search result No 48)
Credit Control jobs in Derbyshire (search result No 56)
Accountant Jobs in Derbyshire (search result No 6)
Accountancy Recruitment Agency in Derbyshire (search result No 112)
Fixed Fee Recruitment East Midlands (search result No 1)
(I'm a little biased as to what I search for. Do you have any other ideas for me)

I will leave the new URLs in for one month and update this page then.
Wish me luck :)

2010 - A summary.

2010-12-31T10:58:00.000Z

What the bloody hell was that all about?

Like most people in the UK, I have had an up and down year, by good fortune and perseverence (and some good luck) we have ended the year on a positive note.

I would like to extend my best wishes to anyone who has had the misfortune to lose their job during the past year. I know many people myself who have lost their jobs, retrained and have taken on a temporary role just to makes end meet. Some people that I have come into contact with have not had to have an interview in many years. This is a very tough time for all. Let's hope that 2011 brings you all a little more good fortune.

2010 marked my ten year anniversary with my Recruitment business Ba Recruitment and my first year in the UK JobBoard business.

With Ba Recruitment, we started the year on a note of optimism. I employed more staff thinking that we were immune to the economic cycle. The year started off positively and the permanent placements started to come in well. Around May / June I could see that the types of companies that we were in contact with just weren't recruiting in the numbers that we were used to. August and September (usually good times for the recruitment market) were not positive. We rapidly introduced various initiatives within the business and have been very pleased with the response to our unique Fixed Fee Recruitment option. Unique has I have intimate access to various UK based jobsites. The end of the year has again turned more positive with placements confirmed for the New Year. See what our Clients and Candidates think about our service here

Onto the jobsites.
I have been building up a sizable stable of UK job related domain names for many years now. Wondering how I can get them published and with what content (let's face it, unique content is king!)
I started the JobBoard business with our Medical Job Site. From day one, we had a great response with thousands of vacancies being advertised and many applications through the site. This gave me the enthusiasm to continue. Next came the publishing of our first geographical UK site with East Midlands Jobs. Here we introduced a fantastic bit of kit the #JobMap, a geotagging system for our jobs. Now extended to both sites.

Early in 2011, we will be introducing our most exciting venture yet. Great British Jobs. Can't say an awful lot about this but apart from it being a national JobBoard, we will be introducing features relating to Candidate Marketing and Social Media linking. The site will be run in conjunction with Great British CVs.
A very big thank you goes to my business partner and webmaster for continuing to build upgrade and maintain the sites

I'm sure that I'm not the only business owner in the UK that has found this year hard work. Hard work in finding jobs. Hard work in finding the best candidates for the jobs. Hard work in communicating with unsucessful candidates throughout the year. Hard work in keeping up with the applications (on average 22 applications per day, every day of the year) Hard work in getting up to speed with analysing the streams of figures that get pumped out of Google Analytics. Hard work in categorysing the many categories within the JobBoards.
However, I wouldn't change a thing. I love being my own boss. I love getting people jobs. I love sorting out personnel and recruitment issues with my clients. I love the potential that my JobBoard business has. I love being involved in recruitment.

My New Years resolution will be to make a supreme effort in 2011 to go the extra mile in getting people jobs that they are looking for and finding great candidates for my clients. I will listen to my customers on what they want from my JobBoards and deliver a great and cost effective service whilst keeping a tight reign on costs.
Have a great 2011 everyone. Let's hope it's a great one.

Quick update

2010-11-16T12:17:00.000Z

Wow, how time flies...:)
So, a quick update then.

Ba Recruitment - Going very strong, good level of repeat customers coming back to us recently. Fixed Fee Recruitment, is a great success; although I never realised how much "extra" work would be involved. I have taken heed of comments that I have enjoyed reading snippets from Greg Savage about not discounting your services - Right on Greg!

East Midlands Jobs - recently added the #JobMap element, getting some great feedback from clients and jobseekers alike. Category sponsorship now available, again great to give advetisers a little extra advertising boost :)

Just4Medical - This one keeps me amazed at the levels of user interactions, again have enhanced this site with #JobMap and category sponsorship.

Great British Jobs - I don't mean to big this one up sooo much but this is our new project and will be a little (read...a lot) different from many same ol, same ol jobsites. I am having to learn a lot of technical bits to allow us to do this site but it's all fun :o)

Please remember that the jobboard side of my business is completed with NO external funding. Everything is out there on the 'net for people like me (and you) to be able to deliver a top quality product that saves people time!

Ask The Recruitment Consultant

2010-10-14T12:07:00.003+01:00

To enhance our jobseeker services we have introduced a special feature on our Facebook page called #AskTheRecruitmentConsultant
We will be actively monitoring our Facebook account for an hour each morning between 10.30am and 11.30am Monday, Wednesday and Fridays to answer your questions regarding the job market in the Derbyshire, East Midlands area.
We have a lot of resources that we can help with; companies currently recruiting, websites that may be of interest, CV assistance and interview help.
Ask away :)

National Minimum Wage to increase from 1st October 2010

2010-09-14T11:33:00.001+01:00

The National Minimum Wage (NMW) was first introduced to give
Employers a minimum hourly rate which Employees should expect to
receive.

However, although initially applicable to only a few age and
job groups, this has developed to now include workers under the age of
18 (no longer of compulsory school age) and those undertaking
apprenticeships.

Rates (Current)

£5.80 the main rate for workers aged 22 and over
£4.83 the 18 – 21 rate
£3.57 the 16-17 rate for workers above school leaving age but under 18
For those of compulsory school age, there is currently no specified NMW and some other employment rights are also different.

Rates (as of 1st October 2010)

£5.93 the rate for workers aged 21 and over
£4.92 the 18 – 21 rate
£3.64 the 16 – 17 rate
£2.50 the rate for apprenticeships who are either under 19 or in their first year of their apprenticeship

For more help and assistance get in touch here www.barecruitment.co.uk

Facebook and LinkedIn

2010-08-20T09:40:00.000+01:00

To offer our clients, both jobseekers and employers better access to our services and opportunities we have enhanced our social media offerring to include a Facebook account and a LinkedIn account. Now you can access our services wherever you are browsing. Our Twitter accounts are showing that more and more people are wishing to connect with us also. Currently on Twitter @JobRich 2557 followers, @BaRecruitment 323 followers, @JobsEastMids 1641 followers and @UK_Medical_Jobs 736 followers. We have a number of other Twitter accounts with followers but these are for future projects with both Job Affair Ltd and Ba Recruitment. Watch this space.

Ba Recruitment and Fixed Fee Recruitment

2010-07-21T14:43:00.001+01:00

Through our Recruitment agency (Ba Recruitment) we have decided to be innovative!

Our Employers are telling us that they want a great recruitment agency service but very few are willing to pay the costs involved, sometimes in the region of 30% of starting salary. (you can see why!)

So, with all the economic turmoil in the UK at present, we thought that we would jump the gun and offer more services to our Employers.

Introducing our Fixed Recruitment Fee model, incorporating our network of job sites.

Still lots to do but the end result will mean more informative job advertising for jobseekers, more filtering of CV's for our clients and more people getting the right type of job.

Just4Medical announces Medical Job Description page.

2010-05-28T13:54:00.002+01:00

Medical Job Description page announced
Date: 05/28/2010

Just4Medical announces Medical Job Description page.

Derbyshire - May 2010

Leading online job advertiser Job Affair Ltd announces that its most recent jobsite development; Just4Medical has launched a Medical Job Description page on their site.

Commenting on the recent development Managing Director of Job Affair Ltd, Richard Johnson, explained “We are listening to our audience of medical professionals of both jobseekers, recruiters and employers and are introducing more user related content to assist all parties when looking for their next role. Jobseekers will be able to research medical jobs and employers will be able to use these resources for their job descriptions or as extra resource. This process will be ongoing as we are searching for the best and most relevant Medical Job Descriptions related to the UK market.
We currently advertise around 2,900 UK Medical related jobs, an increase of 45% compared to April 2010, from some of the biggest names in Medical and Healthcare recruitment within the UK. We continue to generate a high number of applications for such a new venture. It is important for us to be able to enhance our jobseeker / employer experience, this new resource will assist all professional Medical and Healthcare jobseekers to research their ideal job so much quicker and easier.

About Just4Medical:

Just4Medical is a leading UK based online job advertising service specialising in advertising UK based medical jobs, positions, careers and medical related links; allowing professional Medical and Healthcare jobseekers a simple yet effective environment to apply for relevant jobs. Currently advertising 2,921 live jobs across 22 Medical and Healthcare sectors from 470 of the UK’s largest recruiters.

Additional information is available at www.Just4Medical.co.uk and www.JobAffair.co.uk

Our accounts on Twitter

2010-05-19T14:34:00.000+01:00

Bringing you up to date with regards to our Twitter exposure, we have drafted a short list of our Twitter accounts and their purpose;
http://Twitter.com/JobRich - Complete customer services for Ba Recruitment Ltd and Job Affair Ltd. Plus news, views and comments from JobRich followers 2,514

· http://Twitter.com/JobsEastMids - Job listings from Recruiters in the East Midlands area from www.EastMidlandsJobs.co.uk, followers 1,538

· http://twitter.com/UK_Medical_Jobs - Job listings for Medical Jobs in the United Kingdom from www.Just4Medical.co.uk, followers 663

· http://twitter.com/BARecruitment – Job listings for Accounts and Administration jobs in Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire from www.BARecruitment.co.uk – followers 140

· http://twitter.com/UKAccounts_Jobs - Job listings for our U.K. Accountancy jobsite (still in development) – followers 38

So, with a total of nearly 5,000 individual people following our jobs and comments, we would like to think that we are starting to have something for everyone. We have more Twitter accounts ready specifically for our jobboard business and will let you know as and when they become live.

If you know of anyone who is looking for a job in the United Kingdom, please pass on this list to them, thank you.

Ba Recruitment - announces new "Jobs by Email" service

2010-05-07T09:56:00.001+01:00

BaRecruitment announces "Jobs by Email" facility.

Derbyshire - May 2010

Leading regional Accountancy and Administration recruitment business Ba Recruitment Ltd announces the launch of a "Jobs by Email" facility to allow Candidates to automatically receive Email alerts on relevant jobs in the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire areas.

Commenting on the recent development Managing Director of Ba Recruitment Ltd, Richard Johnson commented “We are very happy with our new offering and believe it will save a lot of time for both the active and passive Candidate. We have already received great feedback from local Candidates and Clients alike. We are constantly looking at ways of improving what we have to offer and this most recent service enhancement fits well with our job descriptions, local job listings, interview assistance and CV preparation.

About Ba Recruitment:

Ba Recruitment is the leading Accountancy and Administration recruitment business covering the Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire markets. Operating since 2000 in these niche markets, servicing the local community, Ba Recruitment is constantly reviewing all services offered and would be happy to hear any feedback on any part of their services. Testimonials can be found here.

Facebook page created

2010-04-16T15:53:00.002+01:00

We are pleased to announce that our holding company; Job Affair Ltd has recently launched a Facebook Fanpage. We would love you to join! Have a look by clicking here. If you have any questions, please let us know.
On the Fanpage, you will find;

Regular company updates
Streaming of our Just4Medical Jobs
Automatic Twitter updates. Go direct to Twitter
and much much more...

For Customer Services on Twitter, please click on this link

New Facebook page created

2010-04-15T13:37:00.000+01:00

Job Affair

Promote your Page too

We need some support! Join our new Facebook page, jobsite developments, general job information, CV assistance, Interview help,

JobSeeker tips when working with your Recruitment Agency

2010-04-13T15:14:00.002+01:00

As the Managing Director of a highly successful, regional recruitment agency, I am often asked about how many applications I receive and the quality of those applications. If the following can be taken on board by just a few, it will make the life of jobseekers easier when working with their local Recruitment agency.

•Research local Recruitment agencies websites. Type in the search “ Recruitment Agencies in[enter place name] You will first of all notice that there are a lot of aggregator sites, then jobboards, then Recruitment Agency directories and the like. Keep looking and the Recruitment Agencies will start appearing. (They don’t spend as much time and money on getting the main search engines to find them) Check the website. Do they have jobs? Do they have a testimonial page? (How often is it updated?) Is there a contact us page.
•Prepare you CV, (a whole other blog entry here!) there is no excuse nowadays not to have a well laid out informative and eye catching CV. Look on the internet, it’s all there. Free of charge.
•Contact Recruitment agencies and listen carefully to their responses to you. Are they professional and knowledgeable? Do they listen to what you are looking for? Would you want them to work on your behalf? If the answer is yes, let them know that you will be sending in your CV and get a contact name for future reference.
•Send your CV when you say you will. Include a short cover note explaining who you have spoken to and a brief idea of the job that you are looking for. Where and approx what sort of salary you will be looking for. Follow up with a phone call (24 hours after sending it) ask about going in to see them and get registered. Be prepared to go in and see the various agencies.
•Arrive 5-10 minutes early. Dressed for an interview.
•Be prepared to answer questions, fill in forms, complete psychometric tests. Allow around I - 2 hours per visit. Some Recruitment agencies may ask you to make a short video of your interview with them.
•Have an idea of what you want to do in the future or with your career and tell your consultant. I meet many people that say “I don’t mind” What we as recruiters hear is “I don’t care”.
•Ask how they market their candidates. It’ll give you an idea of what to expect.
•Follow up call after one week and weekly thereafter. Ask what the market place is doing, more jobs less jobs. At this point Recruitment Consultants may want to get you off the phone – PERSEVERE!! You deserve to be listened too.
•If you can, pick up to 3 local recruitment agencies that you feel that you can work with and keep on at them (weekly)
•Send Recruitment agencies an up to date CV (if you have changed it)
•Don’t ever be rude. Plain good manners are expected from you as well as your recruitment consultant.
•Working with Recruitment agencies in the United Kingdom is totally free of charge for JobSeekers. Make us work for you!

Just4Medical.co.uk New Location Search announced

2010-04-07T12:29:00.000+01:00

www.Just4Medical.co.uk announces new location search facility.

Derbyshire - April 2010

Leading online job advertiser Job Affair Ltd announces that its most recent jobsite development; www.Just4Medical.co.uk has launched a “Location” search facility on their site.

Commenting on the recent development Managing Director of Job Affair Ltd Richard Johnson said “From a standing start to a well performing jobsite in under 2 months is an extraordinary accomplishment, we currently have around 2,000 live UK based Healthcare and Medical jobs from some of the biggest names in Healthcare recruitment within the UK. We are also generating a surprisingly high number of applications for such a new venture. As more jobs are getting posted onto the site it is important for us to be able to enhance our jobseeker experience, this new search facility will assist all professional healthcare jobseekers to find their ideal job so much quicker and easier. Currently performing very well within the searches are the areas such as; London, Nottingham, Hampshire and Glasgow.”

About Just4Medical:

Just4Medical is a leading UK based online job advertising service specialising in advertising UK based medical jobs, positions and careers; allowing professional healthcare jobseekers a simple yet effective environment to apply for relevant jobs. Advertising 1,917 live jobs across 22 medical and healthcare sectors from 150 of the UK’s largest recruiters.

Additional information is available at www.Just4medical.co.uk and www.JobAffair.co.uk

Recruitment UK Group formed

2010-04-04T11:04:00.000+01:00

New Google group listed, please join if you are involved in Recruitment in the UK.
Thank you

Recruitment UK

Visit this group

Subscribe to Recruitment UK

Email:

Visit this group

3 Birthdays this year; 1, 10 and 45 - Hurray!

2010-03-16T09:41:00.000Z

Imagine the scene, a crisp chilly spring morning on 17th March 2009. The banks have recently disclosed their nasty secrets and the country is bleeding jobs like back in the 70’s. There is a feeling of doom, gloom and total hesitation. A business limbo as I seem to remember.

I’d recently invested in new premises but I had to half my workforce, which left my very faithful part-time administrator and me. Luckily, I had treated my clients well over the last 10 years (Birthday No 3, April 19th 2000(another story)) and they, in turn, were being fantastic with me. I continued in business through 2009, mainly from the temporary market.

With ideas floating crazily around my mind and a little extra time on my hands I stumbled across Twitter. I think it was Chris Moyles from Radio One that said that Stephen Fry was tweetting about his journey whilst in the Far East.. Sounded good to me!

I logged on. (Birthday No 2, 17th March 2009)

I picked the name @JobRich, I wanted something that would sum me up quickly. My name is Richard and I have a passion about jobs. That seemed to make sense.

Wow, what to do first? I think Stephen Fry was the first person I followed. I remember asking him a question and being a little disappointed that he never answered. LOL! I followed a couple of local people as well as generally interesting people and had some amazing in-depth conversations.

I had started networking! This was great! Never having been a comfortable networker in the past I was now instigating conversations. I was learning about things that I had never had access to in the past. I had found an audience along with a true learning source and all things were equal.
As I was here for business! I starting noticing the correlation of using Twitter for business purposes and looked into web tools that others had been Retweeted.

I used / use the following and have put my comments on also. They are in no order.

·    PowerTwitter http://powertwitter.me/ - Runs nicely with Firefox (they’re working on Chrome), user friendly, shows pictures automatically, allows you to copy and paste a shortened url to a weblink, Reweet button.
·    Tweetspinner http://tweetspinner.com/ - Allows (to some level) the management of your account. Purge up to 40 people at a time that don’t follow back (we’ve all been there!) Revolving Bio and url, great if you want to manage a few ideas at a time)
·    TwitterVision http://beta.twittervision.com/ - I could watch this for hours!
·    TwitterCounter http://twittercounter.com/ - Graphs are easy to understand and make you feel good. Compare followers and following, most popular Tweeters.
·    TwitterFeed http://twitterfeed.com/ - My saviour! Having many RSS links that need to be uploaded, these guys come highly recommended.
·    TwitterGrader http://twitter.grader.com/ An excellent tool for finding people in your geographical location.
·    WebsiteGrader http://WebsiteGrader.com As a newbie on the block with regards to SEO and web business in general, this has been a great source of information that is easy to understand and gives you a tick list for important things to be looked at on your web design.
·    Twitt(url)s http://twitturls.com/ A great tool for some light-hearted fun on a Friday afternoon
·    WhatsYourTweetWorth http://www.whatsyourtweetworth.com/ How sad! And always depressing.
·    Twibbon http://twibbon.com/ - Nice App for sharing causes, you can join one or create one, I did http://twibbon.com/join/Ba-Recruitment-10th-Bday

There are a few more but most of them are not superstars, they just seem worthwhile to link with for some inane reason. Time will tell.
So as I’m being so honest with you, please let me know if you have other tools that you find useful. Please use the comments box below. Thank you.

Bringing you up to date with my Twitter progress, I have recently been on a mass de-following project. I have looked through nearly 2,000 accounts and have parted company with people that either haven’t tweeted; for 3 months plus, people that love and #ff people too much (it’s all nice but I really don’t have time) people with job streams, (however there are a few choice ones! LOL), automatic streams where you can really tell that these people aren’t really saying those things.

I’ve started to look for quality.

I have lots to give (in my own way) and I have an awful lot to learn still. I have truly thoroughly enjoyed my first year on Twitter and would highly recommend people to enjoy it. But remember it’s not the only tool we have.

Oh and Birthday No 1 was me arriving at a very mature and extremely fun 45.

A recent survey – Do Job Seekers want to see agency and employer jobs on East Midlands Jobs?

2010-03-01T22:36:00.002Z

With my fledgling UK based Jobboard Empire being added to a few weeks ago with the successful launch of Just4Medical, I found myself looking back to my first venture, East Midlands Jobs. I had a few questions that I needed answering regarding the purpose of this Jobboard. Published in early 2008. I needed to know whether this Jobboard was fit for purpose.
Since its inception nearly two years ago I have been marketing the Jobboard as Employers Only and not allowing agencies to post their vacancies.
I’m glad to say that from the launch there has been many job postings on the site and from some high profile East Midlands based businesses, namely; Next, Punch Taverns, Harlon Laboratories to name a few, but not in the amount that I had been expecting.
Had I been wrong in wanting to create an Employers Only geographically specific Jobboard?
Well, with a fantastic source of information on my door-step, I asked my audience what they wanted.

Of the 541 registered* employers asked, 51% said that they would like to see agency jobs and 49% said that they wanted the Jobboard to themselves. I must note here that 74% of employers, who said that they wanted the Jobboard without agency jobs, had only used the site to post a job once.

The same question was asked of our 2529 registered* Job Seekers.

*Of the total employers questioned 35% responded, of the total job seekers 74% responded.

I also asked my Twitter audience. Of the 19 people (I find it amazing that out of 3100 followers 19 gave me their time, to you I am most humbly thankful) who answered the question, 12 people stated that the Jobboard should have agency jobs and 7 said that there should be a mixture of agency and employer jobs. Unfortunately, I am not 100% sure what or rather who was answering the question and also I had posed a slightly different question to them. Apologises if you took part in the Twitter survey but your input has been a valuable learning curve, thank you.

So, with all this information; what am I to do?

1. I am being told that Jobseekers want more choice; they want to see as many suitable jobs in their local area as possible.

2. Employers can live with agencies sharing their Jobboard.

I think I might know what I need to do for East Midlands Jobs! I can almost hear some Jobboard owners thinking this is old information. All I can say is that I’m prepared to share this information and more as I go through my business trials and tribulations.

It is not having the information that is important, it what we do with the information that is far more important!

What qualifies you to do that?

2010-02-22T22:21:00.007Z

Last week marked an important step in my journey to create a viable business in the field of UK focused job boards, with the launching of the site www.Just4Medical.co.uk being the first in a series of industry and UK geographically specific job boards.

So, what qualifies me to do this?

It’s a frightening question! I know, as it is usually the one I’m posing to the candidates that come and register with us at Ba Recruitment.

Well, I’ve been running my own recruitment business since 2000 and I need to ask the same question with this business, what qualifies me to do this?
I had been working in the accountancy field, mainly for hotels overseas for many years until I decided to change my “life options”. My son was born, (now nearly 13) I decided to give up work and look after him. I did this without too much hesitation, as I had never really enjoyed working in the corporate environment.
After about 3 years I started temping a few days a week to keep my brain up to speed (I have a great deal of empathy for mothers returning to work). Whilst I was temping I saw the invoices for me and was flabbergasted about the amount of mark-up being made and a thought struck me. I knew accounts and I have always been interested in business, it dawned on me, “I could do that!”
In 2000, the birth of my daughter offered a window of opportunity for me to be able to realise my goal. My partner started looking after the children whilst I had three months to prove my worth. With a steep learning curve, which saw me fluffing my way through many obstacles in the early days, I have created a business that is quality and process driven, I have learnt the importance of the self- appraisal. Although not a natural net worker, I have embraced social networking sites including Twitter and LinkedIn, which I have found suits me well. I have been able to create and maintain and prosper in my business by also building a team around me who are well educated supportive, and have passion for what they do.

So what qualifies me for the job ahead?

Well, as it was and still is with Ba Recruitment; Drive, enthusiasm, determination, energy, continual learning, stubbornness, being open to suggestions, getting the right team on board, being aware of costs, pride and inspiration.
There is a quote that I really love and also fits in well with the recruitment sector “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, whereas talent instantly recognises genius”

I understand that there is a long, difficult road ahead with the Job boards but knowing this is the case, makes me strive even harder than ever to keep my focus on delivering the best. That and the absolute self-belief that I can create and maintain a no-nonsense, direct service for both job advertisers and job seekers is what keeps me going.

Maybe it’s a good time to ask yourself “What qualifies you to do what you do?”

An introduction

2010-02-15T22:29:00.000Z

Hello and thank you for finding my blog here.
It's high time I started to document my education and learning and development within my businesses.
So, first of all an introduction. (http://Twitter.com/JobRich)

I am the Managing Director of Ba Recruitment, a Derbyshire based recruitment business for professional accounts and administration staff.
I am also the Managing Director of Job Affair Ltd, hosting a suite of UK based job boards.

The first trial for the jobboard business is www.EastMidlandsJobs.co.uk (http://Twitter.com/JobsEastMids) this site was built with the idea of allowing employers only to post up their jobs in the local area.

www.JobAffair.co.uk is the vehicle that I have created to set-up, develop and manage my portfolio of job related websites, examples of these working websites now include; www.EastMidlandsJobs.co.uk an Employer only job advertising site and
www.Just4Medical.co.uk (http://Twitter.com/UK_Medical_Jobs) an exciting UK based job advertising platform for all manner of Medical jobs in the UK.

There at least I've made myself accessible.