“The Cloud is the answer, it’s also the question”

This is the hook line on a new set of adverts run by ca.com. Recruiters are adopting the cloud quicker than other sectors, why and what does it really mean.

Gartner predicts that by 2012, a fifth of businesses will own no IT assets, instead will rely on cloud like managed services entirely. Businesses and IT departments will be able to acquire IT services with relative ease, the use of cloud based applications will mean that IT is “easy”.

It has taken a while for me to get into the Cloud and to realise that its NOT hard and it fits completely with my mantra that recruiters should not really get involved in IT and instead should leave it to the experts and outsource it just like they do with payroll, training and electricity!

A study by software company GFI found that 44 per cent of SME’s felt that the cloud services were too expensive. Recruitment companies are bucking the trend and moving to the cloud in droves, we have seen 7 new clients in the last 6 months and have a healthy order book.

Before you move, however you have to find out what it is you want to give to the cloud!
- Do you want to give flexibility to you entire workforce?
- Are you tired of PC and Servers costs?
- Do you need more office space and less staff that you cant manage?

If you do then go to into the Cloud, be willing to pay a little more than you would if you owned it outright but then get on with making money!

Linkedin valued at $30 per member!

Based on a article in Real Business today,



"LinkedIn is valued at over $2bn, following Tiger Global Management hedge fund's $20m investment in LinkedIn.

LinkedIn's valuation of $2.26bn was calculated by Bloomberg following Tiger Global's $20m investment, which gives it a one per cent stake in the professional networking site. These shares were acquired from an existing investor, rather than LinkedIn taking on new investment."

I for one am in for a bit of that, I was one of the first 1m users and I think I would be happy to get my share when it demutualises, just like the old banks. Existing customers/users could be in for a windfall, $2bn over 70m users or $30 each person!

Therefore the boys at iProfile must be happy as that makes them worth $150m!

Congratulations South Africa

In the run up to the World Cup, the press was full of stories of :-
- the stadiums wont be ready
- SA is not safe
- the thugs will be there
- you will be ripped off
- the infrastructure cant cope
- England have a chance of winning the World Cup

My wife and I and 5 friends spent 3 weeks in South Africa and it was really great, none of the above applied and we should give great credit to South Africa, its people and the organisers.

Our first game was Chile v Houndures in Nelspruit, we had a shocker getting parked and the busses too a while, the game was good but getting back took ages. Apart from that and the girl at the Argentina v Greece game who asked for 2 rand [20p] to get me through security quicker (to buy a cup of tea!!) was the only hassle I had.

The stadiums were ready (although there were cows grazing 200 yards from the stadium), we felt safe (apart from when I got stopped for speeding on the way to the Ivory Coast v North Korea game), we saw no thugs, we never got ripped off, the infrastructure was great and England were rubbish!!

I am sorry it is finished, the best team won and we will be in Brazil.

Bring on the next World Cup

Quality and Service the BMW way!

Driving along the M4 last Thursday night, the engine warning light comes on (not one of the best ones to have as the book says to drive slowly and have it looked at as soon as you can)
- Friday 0853 called BMW Swindon and got an appointment for 1130. It was explained that they would investigate and endevour to fix in one visit
- Arrived late due to a diversion, taken straight away and got a seat in the waiting area where I was able to set up with my netbook and work comfortably drinking Latte and eating shortbread
- At 1330 I ask how things are going as I have a meeting planned, not quiet ready yet but could they give me a lift. Perfect
- Arrive back from my meeting and car is ready, so what is the damage?
- The service team had found the fault, updated the software, fixed the back lights (didnt even know they were an issue) and replaced the Turbo. Oh and we have washed and cleaned you car too.
- The cost was £0.

If you aspire to offering a service that is BMW, in which ever sector you work in, this is what you have to live up too,

Kamanchi do and we will be discussing at our July board meeting.

Thank you Dick Lovett Swindon and I will be back

Blogging is back!

Hi All, its been a long time and I have felt guilty. We have been involved in a big integration project and it looks like it went well.

So not have time to get back to Blogging before I head to the World Cup

RP

Technological haves and have-nots - Which are you?

In an article on Staffing.com by David Earle entitled "Did 2009 really change anything?" there is a section is exactly what I have been saying for the last year and I thought I need to share with you and ask some questions.

In an extract from his article below on the changes in technology:-

"Nowhere is recruiting changing more rapidly than in technology. While the recession may have dampened sales, it did not dampen innovation. Technology vendors continue to pour out new products all over the HR spectrum: job posting, mobile, CRM, career portals, on-boarding, assessments, ATS, internal mobility, dynamic scheduling, social media, predictive analysis, workforce planning, succession planning, performance management, learning management and competency management.

Very few companies have the expertise within HR to understand so much change, much less effectively manage it. Nor do they have the budget or management clout to insist on all the necessary upgrades. Layer this on top of the financial constraints imposed by the recession and we see a 2010 world of technology haves and have-nots.

Technology did not power the 20th century staffing model, although all of its early- stage developments grew up around and because of it. The result has been a relentless parade of spot solutions that grew and combined into ever more sophisticated solutions. The typical upgrade cycle was 6-9 months, while the typical corporate adoption cycle was 2-3 years. It was easy for the market to splinter. The result is now a marketplace filled with all sorts of products, some of them quite dated.

2009, with its endless debates over the recruiting value of social media, nicely illustrates the problem. Some companies already have several years of experience with it and are reporting success, while others haven’t even decided it’s a good idea. Meanwhile some vendors are selling early, stripped-down, standalone versions of the necessary software, while others are offering robust, third-generation, turnkey solutions accessed through the cloud.

The 21st century staffing model is grounded in technology. Every aspect from workforce modeling on the front end to video interviewing on the back end harnesses its power to identify staffing needs, and locate, engage and persuade the right talent to sign up. The clear message of this recession is that staffing technology is now a performance differentiator and must become a staffing priority."

If you are struggling with the IT choices in the UK, you need to look for what your own best in class solutions are to create you own performance differentiators.

Whatever you think of Jobsite.....

No matter what you think of Jobsite and what it has done to the recruitment industry with inflated prices and their CV database being sold to direct employers etc

I cant help but like some of their staff, particularly Felix Wetzel, their Marketing Director. I have now shared a stage with him twice on the Recruitment Consultant IT and Technology Conference (London and Manchester) and both times I have come away learning stuff.

Today was no exception and I would urge you all to read his blog on the story of sponsoring a Premiership football team.

The thing that interests me most is Pixal Tagging or Web Beacons and what it does is really quite clever but scary really.

So go to Jobsite and search for a Job, I did a Project Accountant and look at the Job then go somewhere else. I went to Portsmouth FC as they need all the help they can get! And then I got served an advert for a Demand Forecast Analyst (what ever that is!) but it is an accountancy job on about the same salary!

This is the same area as Facebook had issues with but it is all very very clever

Adapt v9.3 coming soon

I remember the AUG (Adapt User Group) when Mark H stood up and told us all about the features that were coming in the next release v9.3. I was really happy that we had a release coming that with some really positive new features in it, it had reasons to recommend it and I would encourage our clients to move to it.

In today's newsletter we now have a date for the beta release being Q2 of 2010.

The two things that I like most are:-

hyperlinks, giving the ability to embed hyperlinks into emails and reports providing the recipient to select a hyperlink and invoke a process in Adapt. I immediately thought of sending the Credit Control team a link to the company that needs to be credit checked, the credit control manager has never liked Adapt so doesn't log in or remember it, one click and they have authorised the client following their review of Experian.

Tool Windows have been extended to document library preview and multi monitor support. This means we can push ahead where all consultants have the opportunity to work off double screens with email and CV's showing on one screen and run actions from the record on the other screen. This is something that once you start it is hard to change back.

How else do you plan to use the new features?

Searching is easy, even a machine can do it?

I didn't make it to SourceCon 2010, Kamanchi aren't that loaded I am afraid but I would have loved to hear from Boolean Black Belt Glen Cathey in his keynote speech, his slides are up on Slideshare already and are here for you to see.

It is obvious to anyone who has done the job properly that none of the applications that use AI can do the job of a top class resourcer, however I have only met 3 in my time (you know who you are!). Therefore the applications like Daxtra SS2, iProfile, Broadbean Stream and Actonomy will always have a place for the normal consultant to find people quickly.

Therefore they all have a place in the market but the hard stuff needs a Top Class Resourcer and they are worth their weight in Truffles!

Any other ideas on how to measure value?

Are Corporate recruiters jumping the Shark!

What am I talking about? Well Wiki says Jumping the Shark is when TV programs that were once iconic reach a tipping point and start the grab around for poorer story lines and therefore lose why they were good! This has been widely accepted in the Internet world for applications or trends have lost their fashion.

Speaking at yesterdays Recruitment Consultant Technology conference I majored on how do recruitment agencies get placements back from In house recruitment teams. Currently in house teams have the Technology advantage over some recruitment consultancies because their tools are more adaptable to using the current applications on the web.

However are corporate recruiters getting close to the tipping point! As volumes increase for difficult skills in the City, the in house teams wont be able to cope/deliver and the line managers will start to consider recruitment consultancies again at better margins.

Bring on the water skis!

What we now need is an In house Recruiters strength index which I would start at 85 our of a 100.

Whats your views?

How much should you spend on IT per person in recruitment?

We recently carried out a survey of recruiters to find out how much the average recruitment company pays for its IT, the results were diverse is the only way to put it ranging from less than £100 per head per month to over £500 per head per month and a whole lot of people who didnt know?

Then a couple of weeks ago at the APSCo Technology Leadership Forum we were looking at Futurology one of the contributors (me) suggested that one day we will give the RecCons a monthly allowance for their sales systems to cover their pre sales systems, their cv databases, their job posting software, their upgraded LI accounts and their favourite search tools.

How much should this be?

My starter for ten is £315 with £60 for Pre Sales, £115 CV database, £25 for job posting, £20 for LI and £95 per month for search tools.

This debate I want to get peoples opinion on! So please can I have comments?

Someone elses database!

I am listening to Socialnomics (again, tried to read it but the book was too big) by Erik Qualmann

... and apart from doing the usual stuff on about new media and what it is and the same old stories about Dell Hell and the Huffington Post etc - they hit upon something that is really made me think and especially about how the traditional recruitment owner treat their databases and the interactions with new media.

In the old days when I was running business development for Spherion (FSS and Crone Corkhill) one of the core questions on any tender or RFI was what was the size of you database. It was one that you always answered differently depending on what you thought the client wanted to hear. And I am trying to work out what would I write now! I can think of 2 options

Option 1

"Our database encompasses all the candidates that we have worked with on assignments in the past 2 years. Our candidate search methodologies involve searching the whole internet and job board databases via sophisticated search tools. Therefore the size of the database is irrelevant!"

Option 2

"We have invested heavily in building our reputation within our niche market using all the new media sources to create our own networks of skilled XX professionals. By engaging in new media conversations in the social networks we are able to reach the complete population of XX talent."

Option 2 means we you have need to have done your homework and created our own pools in someone elses databases. Then you need to work it and and advertise it and then SELL it.

Software Showcase for APSCo SME

I attended the APSCo SME Forum last night where the topic was a Technology Showcase.



The products on display were

- FLR Spectron - who do phone stuff and will save you money

- Broadbean Stream - who search accross CV databases and the web at the same time

- iProfile - who make searching an updated version of you own database look easy



No I am normally a tough judge but I think that the Stream may have finally come of age and is now in a position to fit well into the workflow process for recruiters. I also have had a very strong reference on how well it works in one instance, from someone whose opinion I hold highly that it has made a difference in a very short time to his business.



No longer will a consultant be able to say, I covered the market! and XX competitor found them somewhere else!

Worth a serious look

Leading recruitment leaders should blog our way to recovery!

I attended the Recruitment Unconference last week and it is like nothing I have seen since the days of First Tuesday back in 1999/2000. Its totally different and not for everyone but there are loads of take aways for me to share over time.

It was amazing the people that Bill Boorman had brought into one place in the UK, I am sure over half the people there were from overseas, including Jim Stroud, Peter Gold, Rayanne Thorn, Matt Alder, Alan Headworth and Laurie Reuttman and many many others famous on line who I had never heard of

It was full of converts and highly committed people who have made Social Media work for them and therefore are full of the biggest and best ideas and things that we should all be doing.

For me it was hard as I play in a different world that anyone else there (maybe 2 other real recruiters from UK companies there). The bridge from this conference to talking you MD or Ops directors into spending money is too far at the moment. There is no ROI and it is a new toy for the Marketing department or a reason to give Social Consultants some money.

HOWEVER - every consultancy who thinks that they are leaders in their niche need to prove it by BLOGGING about it and showing why the are what they claim to be!

So where have I been!

Sorry for taking so long to come back, I had a great holiday in Australia, Borneo and Singapore

They were interesting places

Australia didn't have a recession and it was really expensive thanks to the exchange rate. Compared to when I was last there in 1994 it has moved on but remains only two cities with any real volume. A friend of mine moved there to do IT recruitment last March and when I met him under Sydney harbour bridge for lunch he explained that 25% margin was still available and the RPO's haven't made it there yet. A good market to be in and Ozzy money is worth more if you already have an office there.

Borneo in the rainforest was the hottest place I have ever been, the Orang utans are great, there were elephants the height of me! The issue they have is everyone is on the fiddle with a second less legal income. The sort of thing was guides who climbed for birds nests and park wardens who shot the animals at night. The islands in Sabah are magic and I really want it to work as it is a great place in the making.

Singapore is the west in the east. It is very wealthy (unless you are Malaysian) and everyone has a maid from Indonesia. From a recruitment view everyone is on a fixed term contract!

Now I am back I will keep you up to date with the recruitment world from an IT application view.

Glad to be back.