A Pennie for his ... .

Predictions for 2012

2011-12-23T12:38:00.000Z

It seems to be the time for predictions of 2012 and no one seems to do any for the UK recruitment technology market

So here are mine:-

A recruitment specific version of Data.com will emerge for UK based recruitment business, like an iProfile for Contacts!
The Cloud (or IaaS) will be treated just like any other application, you will be able to move you business from provider to provider based on the rate and the service the offer.
Groups of applications that work well together will form stronger ties and more things like the Bullhorn Marketplace will emerge
Someone will master the art of reverse IP look ups for Hot Candidates and Consultants will immediate alerts when a candidate has looked at a Job or one of you pages on your website. Salesforce.com sales teams are spookily good at this!
Someone will crack Predictive analytics for the Recruitment Sector like Insight Squared are trying to do, it could be Cube19
Nothing will be more important that our data connection, where ever you are. Our ability to deal with lost connections (be it Office data lines, Wireless access or 3G coverage) will get worse and worse and business connections will be critical. What do you do when you loose connections?
Look out for Job Science getting a foothold in the UK market, Bullhorn will continue to thrive and other databases will make integration easier
LinkedIn will restrict access unless you are paying for it and no one will be ready for it
Drag and Tag v2 will do clever stuff (so Guy keeps telling me!)
No recruiter will buy any servers ever again!

LinkedIn prepares for IPO - what does it mean for us?

2011-01-28T10:03:00.007Z

In today's CityAM, tucked on Page 2 is a piece about the business networking site Linkedin planning to raise finance via an IPO valuing it at $3bn on sales of $161m and profits of $1.8m.

That in my head means that they are values at 1500 times profit and about $33 a member!

How does it attract that value on such low sales numbers and where are the future profits going to come from to make the valuation stick! Looking the Sales split and you find that

41% from hiring solutions -so about $40m
32% from marketing solutions
27% from premium subscribers

The Recruitment industry must learn from what has happened with their relations with Job boards and each business must have its own Strategy on how it works with LI, and not fall into being dependant on it at the consultant level whilst the board think it is just like the old days! There are new risks to consider and below is a sample of things any Owner or Director should consider :-

Do you know how much time is spent each day on LinkedIn in your business? (you should know by now?)
How much do you pay currently for the LinkedIn directly or indirectly? (might be via expenses for the upgraded package or RPS)
Where do you Headhunt candidates come from? (how good is you source tracking?)
Where do you clients look when you cold call (What is your profile look like? and that of you business?)
What other Social Media sites do you use?

How will LI make more revenue? Here are some ideas? Are you ready for them? Do you like them?

Allow for Profile downloads at a cost per Profile? at £10 per download
Allow for a better personal profile at £3 per month?
Allow for the price per Job posted to rise and be £200 an ad delivered personally to a target list done by them
Allow for them charging per introduction! but don't know how they could do this yet!

How else do you think LI can make money from the Recruitment Sector and are you willing to pay?

Blogging is hard!

2011-01-25T09:39:00.004Z

I have complete respect to those who can manage their time to blog on a regular basis. For me it is like my golf I love it when I do it and I miss it when I am writing, however I know it is going to take a chunk of time to do it properly and (like my golf) if I am going to do it I want to be good at it!

So for the next 3 months I am going to be back on it and do it on a Tuesday and a Friday and keep what I write to less than 600 words and try to make it worth while to read for those of you who own a recruitment business and know you need IT but don't want to get too involved in it.

I will try and answer some of the standard statements and questions I face when I am meeting recruitment business owners:-
- My IT should just work all the time!
- IT should make me more money like the sales guy said!
- Why does it cost me so much?
- How do I compare with others?
- Which of the new products should I have?
- How do I train my people to use my systems at all or better?

So for the next 3 months I will write, comment, explain and tease about how IT should work in recruitment and at the end I will judge by the comments on my posts if anyone cares about my blogs and whether it is worth the effort.

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

2010-10-18T20:29:00.003+01:00

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!

2010-07-30T15:51:00.003+01:00

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

2010-07-13T22:41:00.000+01:00

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!

2010-07-05T08:38:00.002+01:00

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!

2010-06-01T18:50:00.001+01:00

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?

2010-04-08T20:59:00.004+01:00

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.....

2010-04-07T19:45:00.006+01:00

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

2010-03-31T10:25:00.005+01:00

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?

2010-03-16T18:56:00.003Z

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!

2010-03-12T09:01:00.006Z

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?

2010-03-02T13:41:00.004Z

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!

2010-02-25T13:59:00.010Z

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

2010-02-24T08:00:00.005Z

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!

2010-02-21T16:40:00.002Z

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!

2010-02-02T17:40:00.004Z

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.

Going on Holiday!

2009-12-21T12:56:00.001Z

No more blogs till the new year for everyone who has read and commented on them in 2009, thank you and I will try and write more in the 2010

2010 is going to be a big year

Are you a Social Recruitment wanker?

2009-12-17T08:56:00.003Z

If you haven't read the article by the Australian blogger Thomas Shaw you should today!

Its a great summary of the world right now in the UK recruitment, which I was reminded of last night when pitching some new ideas to an existing client.

In 2009 the only people you have made money out of the Social Recruiting "thing" are the people who speak about it, either conferences or consultants or web companies.
Evidence of it working (however you define that!) is really hard to find but are we looking in the correct place?
It uses up time in a recruiters day that we cant track any more (or can we?)

Every time there is a shift in Technology there are opportunities to leap frog your competitors or to create a new product that doesn't exist yet. Social networking/recruiting/sourcing and how it works with recruitment is just one of those shifts! Like

the posting of cv's moving to faxing cv's
calling candidates at home at night to calling on the mobile
faxing cv's machines moving to emailing cv's
candidates seeing you adverts in the local paper to you website
email cv's moving to cv portals
job boards to free aggregation sites
cv portals moving to direct XML feeds
contacting candidates on IM to using Facebook

It is just another way of getting finding a candidate, putting them in touch with a hiring manager and then doing you job!

However you cannot avoid it as don't be the last people to get a fax machine!!!

Return On Time Employed in Social Networks

2009-12-03T08:51:00.003Z

I attended and presented at the launch of the new iProfile search tool where I was talking about the Social Media in Recruitment. Whilst time was short I was only able to touch a litte on many areas there were a couple of themes I thought worth expanding upon.

Which Social networks are worth the effort? [I mean only for being used as a candidate sourcing pool not about which you enjoy to be part of] And how do you measure this? I suggest two methods
- Data quality - what is the data you can see that are added to these sites (ie Twitter very low quality and LinkedIn is high)
- Search ability - what tools do you have to search the data on the site (ie Facebook very poor and LinkedIn is high and getting higher)

The combination of these two then allow for you to get a feel for where resourcer's could spend their time more effectively this increasing their Return On Time Employed (ROTE).

Now how do you measure it and what is good and what is too low?

What is your strategy?

2009-11-21T10:25:00.003Z

Reading a Post from Peter Gold this morning where he discusses the issue I have been struggling with since last Tuesday when I got the demo of LinkedIn RPS and a client meeting the previous Friday.

Where does the recruitment work flow start and how many options do you need to find CV's and candidates as there are loads (ie Daxtra SS2, iProfile, Broadbean Stream, Actonomy, CV Job Databases, LinkedIn RPS, Google, Broadlook and that is just the popular stuff...)

All the cloud based services just make it easier to find candidates but that is not a recordable recruitment activity, Long listing is! So at the point you move from Finding to Talking you need to start the tracking!

Which database will be the first to make it easy to store all this activities OR is it important at all!

You decide

LinkedIn RPS

2009-11-18T09:22:00.000Z

Are you going to go for it? Did you see it last night and will it be worth the money?

What am I speaking about? The LinkedIn Recruiter Professional Services!

If you haven’t heard of it you will soon and the sales boys and girls from LinkedIn who never wanted to know you will now be knocking you doors down looking for money per user per year, from what I hear the number will be high (but lots less than a placement, the sales people will tell you!)

What does it do?

Each recruiter get a dashboard, a desktop and 50 Inmails to anyone in the entire 50 million members of LinkedIn, in what I think are batches of 20 at a time (but I may have misheard that). Teams can share project folders and see candidates and Searches they are working on.

I worry as a user of LinkedIn but it was always too good to be true, if you post you details on line and don’t control them then someone will sell the rights to them!

I am still trying to work out how this will fit into many companies but more when I have thought it through, if you haven’t seen it have a look and I would love to hear you opinions.

Bullhorn Live

2009-11-17T12:15:00.001Z

I have now been quiet on the Bullhorn implementation for 3 weeks deliberately as we are dealing with the go live issues, I will detail them all in summary soon.

Suffice to say it has been as much fun as every other system I have changed in my 10 years

Bullhorn implementation in the UK - The Final Week

2009-10-27T08:06:00.004Z

The last few days have been a blur and it never stops amazing me that it is the little things that catch you out in any Project Go Live. Thanks to the team involved, you know who you are and I am proud of you all.

So now the diary of the Go Live week, boring but true!

Monday T-7 days and Training Begins
- Start face to face training, everyone is getting at least 8 hours of training in 3 or 4 sessions covering Navigation, Resourcing, Perm or Contract work flow

Tuesday T-6 days and Training continues, Data cut off day
- The client made its last changes to their existing system on Tuesday night at 5pm, their existing server is was so slow and the files were 14Gb so we had to take a server on site, copy the data and take it to Kamanchi Towers
- We could run some data cleaning scripts on the system before we initiated the data extraction. We cut back on companies, contacts, jobs and candidates to raise the quality of the data.
- We took about a third of the data out and left the scripts running over night.

Wednesday T-5 days and Training continues and Data checked and sent to Bullhorn - We started the extraction routines at 10 in the morning and by 2pm we had uploaded the data to the Bullhorn ftp site.
- A sanity check by Clint shows that the CV extraction had missed about 38k records.
- A really good spot and with the time working in our favour we sorted it by 1800 and still on track for our upload slot.

Thursday T-4 days and its the last day of training
- The contract work flow in Bullhorn is its weak spot, it doesn't flow well and the teams don?t like it, it didn't help as we didn't have the Contract documents ready in time, so not a good finish to the training. Kamanchi are working with Bullhorn to improve this for the UK market.
- Hand over the system to Clint to extract the data. Issue identified at 22.01 with the Jobs files sent, new version sent over by 22.19 (result)

Friday T-3 days and its training test day and data checking day
- We receive an email at 3am to say the data load is finished and we are good to check it.
- First look only shows 58 records (only 45k short) Oh my god lets wait till Clint gets in, I am sure it is something easy.
- The training test is finalised and then pass mark set at 80% (I only got 50% in the first draft, some words and answers need to be checked). Well done AN for getting the top mark 86%.
- Clint gets in to the office and reruns an index, now we have 45k candidates and the data testing can begin a day earlier than planned.
- By Close of Play we are done and everyone who was going to work the weekend is stood down (except me), the data looks good, the record counts work and it just needs sense checking.
- The biggest issue is with candidate cv's that we cant do anything about where they haven?t populated the preview window in the candidate overview. The document is there and it can be searched fine.
- The PST files from Outlook fail to move over the wire and we have missed our slot, so no email on Monday then.

Saturday T-2 day and no rest for the wicked
- The morning is spent organising offices to be opened, drives to be carried and uploaded to the Bullhorn ftp site so we still have a chance of getting the mail in for Live
- Our UAT at the client is having problems with his Internet connections so, sign off is on the phone. I love a client who trusts us enough to say go.
- Ready for the system to move in to live tomorrow, good job

Sunday T-1 day and a quiet Sunday until....
- I try the live site at 12.43, errors at login! And a candidate search returns no results!
- It is going to be one of those days, its at times like this we all earn our money and at 23.06 on Sunday we are good to go in live.

From Kick off to Live in 12 weeks, from agreed Scope to Live in 7 weeks.

Now we just have to get the client to remember how to use it!

Video job adverts to the masses!

2009-10-16T22:22:00.004+01:00

Have you been looking at Broadbean lately? Just the same as normal and the same as it has always been well you are wrong!

When doing some testing on the Bullhorn to Broadbean, there was a new field which looked like I hadnt seen it before the

Paste the URL to your video clip here

So that 3d job advert to the masses has taken a step closer and everyone now has the chance to make their recruitment consultants famous!

Pity as I have the perfect face for audioboo....

Bullhorn implementation in the UK Part2/6

2009-10-14T23:29:00.004+01:00

The Planning phase is an interesting time as it is where the Sales agreement meets the Analysis phase and where the extras can appear.

Hank is keen to get the Statement of Work signed off and create a Project Plan, whilst I am keen to work out where this fits in the overall project. You can guess there were a lot of versions of the document before it was agreed and signed off.

Our project has the inclusion of Broadbean integration as part of the commitment and this formed part of the spec. Like may systems very few (and I mean very few, you know who you are) actually track the responses against the advert and the source truly. Most add the candidates against the Job and Bullhorn is no different.

Another part of this phase is the pre implementation training, our recruitment application team jumped on a plane to Boston to get the training face to face. Our 3 staff were very well looked after and a big thank you to Barry and his team for looking after them.

It was at this stage I came across my first ?that will be extra moment? and it was handled very professionally by the European Sales Director and we all learned from it. For anyone else implementing make sure you know how many documents you create from the system and which fields are used to merge into them, as this done by engineers with Bullhorn.

Dealing with contractors professional service companies in CRM systems has never been easy and we spent loads of time at Spring getting this correct, it doesn't exist in Bullhorn really so we worked out a work round till we could design it together after the Go Live and before the Sage integration.

At version 4, we had a signed Statement of Work and a Project plan, we have 7 weeks to go live and we were going to learn a lot together. Roll on 26th October.

How much data should I transfer when changing systems?

2009-10-05T17:41:00.004+01:00

Just catching on some of my regular blogs and I came up with a beauty by Booleanblackbelt

The topic covers really well from a very simplistic manner the difference between

Recruitment by just posting a job to a job board
Recruitment using you head

Everyone involved in the industry should remind their consultants that only 14 - 20% of candidates are actively looking at any point and will therefore be looking at the job posting and that everyone thinks they can do a better job than they can!

However as BooleanBlackBelt says today's active candidate is in 18 months a passive job seeker with new skills, so your CRM/ATS has lots of passive candidates in it that already know who you company is.

"I like job boards because they have current candidates in it, I only look for the most recent ones" is something I hear over and over again when I speak to clients about moving data to a new system.

My point is buy the best searching tools your money can find and make sure everyone knows how to use them, then train them again and again. In the market iProfile has changed its model, Burning Glass over Lens Match, Daxtra offer Search Station 2, Broadbean uses Burning Glass in Talent Pod and Actonomy has its own match tools.

Pick the best one for you and train and train again, Linkedin may not always be so open!

Bullhorn implementation in the UK - Part 1/6

2009-10-01T23:11:00.004+01:00

We are now at the Testing phase with our Bullhorn implementation, so time to update on the process so far

Bullhorn follow a 6 phase project methodology

[1] Analysis
[2] Planning
[3] Configuration
[4] Data Migration and Build
[5]Testing
[6] Go Live

All seems really simple and you are issued with your implementation consultant, I will call him Hank to protect the innocent and have some fun. I will cover each stage over the next few days.

The Analysis phase kicked off with a whole host of people in Boston on the phone, most of whom, I have not heard from again! The Project Manager/Implementation consultant, the Delivery Manager, the Software Engineer, Business systems analyst (I had forgotten they were there!) a Training coordinator and the link to the UK Manager Sales Engineering.

Had I not been a thick skinned, war torn system implementer this would have been a tough meeting. You could tell you were out of Pre Sales and now the clock was running and everything was budgeted for by the hour. So watch out as its hours not days you are being quoted for.

The first output of this phase is a Business Analysis or Workflow Questionairre, which is a collection of questions that range from the obvious to difficult detail. A good question was

- Is commission information currently tracked in your system? If so, who has access to view and edit that information? Please detail your commission structure/plan.

Now that?s a cracker and I have not in my years come across a CRM/ATS that did this but my hopes were high.

The Second output is a Terminology Mapping document, and this was a difficult stage as Mapping Adapt to Bullhorn is not a like for like match, this document needs thought and allow enough time for it in your planning!

This done we were ready for the Planning Phase!

The Firm - Inhouse recruiters to be scared of!

2009-09-25T08:33:00.002+01:00

Yesterdays APSCo members meeting was a panel session with the Firm - Forum of In house Recruitment Managers chaired by the Ann Swain and attended by well over a hundred members of APSCo.

It was a compelling listen, where the panelists representing Barclays Cap, Tesco, Pepsi and Symantec gave us recruiters a view from their world. It was not good news, they can do what we can do and probably better.

- Social networks has made Social Recruiting very easy and clients are using it extensively
- In house teams have large databases which they either do or don't manage in line with the DPA
- In house teams have ATS (applicant tracking systems) and will use them to save money
- In house value research (mapping of competitors) more highly than the recruitment service

What the industry needs is a way to be able to pitch a candidate to a client, knowing that they have not approached that candidate for that job, knowing that they wont then come back and say we already have that candidate (rotting) in their ATS or (unkept) in their Talent pool (linkedin group, Twitter followers or Facebook group)

Enter IT and our challenge is to make this happen!

PS I wonder who In house recruiters use to find their next job and how they stop research companies mapping their teams!

IT Challenges in the Recruitment Sector, Bond v11 and Bullhorn

2009-09-16T12:58:00.003+01:00

I stumbled accross a very interesting new blog yesterday who seem to specialises in Adapt v11 and has lively discussions at a very detailed level on the good and less good of Adapt v11. Only disappointment is that the blog is unattributed, so either a clever customer or even an employee. If it you please say hi!

Topics covered so far major on the speed of searching and quick finds and get very detailed level. What we need to remember is that v11 is new and working OK on a large number of small ASP clients for Adapt and is now being installed locally at more.

My point here is every system has its issues and every techie would do it differently but in the whole the good survive and flurrish and the less good stuggle.

Interesting today to see Bullhorn at 67 in the US fastest growing companies. an update on my Bullhorn project will come tomorrow as we are now in the guts of it.

Baby Boomer or Echo Boomer in Social Recruiting

2009-09-11T08:58:00.006+01:00

The day after McKinsey&Company issued a report on "How companies are benefiting from Web 2.0" where the findings were respondents reported measurable benefits

.... have Web 2.0 interactions with 35 percent of their customers

...similar web ties with 48 percent of their suppliers, partners and outside experts

and the biggest issue in managing the adoption of Web 2.o technologies was "that the use of these tools be integrated into the flow of users work"

In my opinion recruitment companies fall into 2 camps

"Echo Boomer Recruitment" - You get and an are embracing it, punching above you weight and making money but you don't know how!
"Baby Boomer recruitment" - You need a business case or have you head in the sand, think it is a passing fad, are creating policies to deal with it on the candidate side without thinking about the client side

At APSCo Technology forum, the topic was Social Recruiting and what you need to ready for? If you have never seen Paul Harrison from Carve Consulting, then he is worth the entry money!

We had 23 technology leaders in the room and Paul and he barely go to slide 3 before the discussion took off, and I mean took off. As usual Linkedin became the topic with such views as

we are very hard line on Linkedin, everything belongs to the agency if the network was set up in company time
we only allow company email addresses to be used
when a consultant leaves we call Linkedin, change the password and trash the connections
our policy's don't allow it

Baby boomer recruiters are the establishment and have succeeded, have the money, the policies and the procedures to manage Social recruiting.

Echo boomers are new, ambitious and get it. Don't have the business case, don't need one but will become celebratory recruiters, the "Jerry McGuire" of the sector, will be the best connected and the A Lister's for parties

Which do you want to be? Who is making the decision for you? and it is a Strategy or just an accident? You decide?

Get to know your software supplier!

2009-09-03T12:16:00.003+01:00

A great way to kick of a project is to bring all the interested stakeholders together at a high level to eat and drink. I think that champagne is best avoided until you have something to celebrate, so a Breakfast is best.

Our clients MD, the Founder of Bullhorn, the MD of Saber Analytics and us met near Euston station for bacon rolls, danishes and coffee one Thursday morning in August.

The discussion was lively and recruitment is a truly small world, issues are the same everywhere and getting return from your investment is always the goal. Project objectives were agreed, timetables explained and business goals understood. Everyone looked each other in the eye and explained that they would do everything they could to make this project a success that we can be proud of.

I have always found that you need to get beyond the sales chat and get to the leaders in all your providers organisation. I remember sitting in with the MD of Safe Tempest in my Milton Keynes reception finishing the details of the Tempest contract. That contact has been really important ever since, I have twice implemented Tempest since and the MD has always taken my calls.

If you aim to work in partnership with your suppliers, spend the time getting to know them early not when something has gone wrong!

Candidates > Clients > Agencies

2009-08-28T16:35:00.002+01:00

I love travelling time in the morning, it clears the mind and some of my best ideas come before 8am on a train/plane or automobile!

Interesting in the FT this morning, where in an article about media agencies the Head of Marketing for Kraft said "Now...clients are ahead of agencies - and the consumer is ahead of all of us" which got me thinking about the use of Social recruiting and other online sourcing options.

Largely thanks to Peter Gold the client is being educated to use these sources (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Xing, Ning, Google adwords) better than recruitment agencies. Right now I believe Candidates are using these well (as part of life!) and Clients are using these (because they are under pressure to cut recruitment costs) and Agencies are struggling with pockets of poor knowledge therefore the equation Candidates > Clients > Agencies.

Agencies are in the wrong place, we are meant to be in the middle.

We all need to get ourselves sorted and work out how to build the use of Social networks and Direct ads into our standard recruitment processes. How many people could live without Linkedin? I watched a client search the jobs on Linkedin, then search Linkedin for candidates and headhunt them for the Job that he had just found, then spec the candidate into that job! All very good work but all off system and with no activity tracked (so his manager should be saying what were you doing during that 2 hour process).

A cheery discussion for a Friday afternoon

Linkedin job applications

2009-08-25T22:55:00.003+01:00

Earlier this year at a recruitment conference, I asked the European MD of Linkedin if they were trying to become a fully functioning recruitment database.

Todays blog from Linkedin shows how to integrate applications from Linkedin into the client's own applicant tracking system or their website which is a positive sign, I think!

Implementing Bullhorn in the UK

2009-08-25T13:40:00.003+01:00

I am currently project managing a Bullhorn implementation for one of our clients, an early adopter of Bullhorn in the UK. Part of the commercials was that we blog the project so others can see it as it develops, both good or bad.

Bullhorn were selected from a shortlist of 7 suppliers, beating eploy in a very close thing. It was the built in email and electronic timesheets that won the client over in the end.

The project began in August and is scheduled to go live in late October. The timetable includes time for Bullhorn to get its platform ready for the UK with dates, currency, post code searching and Broadbean being added. This project will include the integration of Bullhorn with Saber Analytics using web services as part of the go live too.

The Kamanchi team are in Boston this week, so look out for weekly updates and feel free to comment on this with questions

Targeting on Linkedin and Facebook

2009-08-18T09:22:00.005+01:00

I visited a client yesterday that reminded me of my old days of mail shotting candidates and clients, they send about 50k mailshots to either clients or candidates each week, each consultant is targeted with 2 a day! (I remember having a stuffer and piles of paper being sent out in my FSS days)

Which brings me to modern day, the social media version as blogged about by Peter Gold today and some assumptions that are no longer the case

Client Mail shotting needs a database! or does it - NO not with linkedin, the Linkedin DirectAd offer a whole new world of pay per click modern mailshots.

Candidate Mail shotting needs a database! or does in - NO Not with Facebook the Facebook advertising offer a whole new world of pay per click candidate advertising

I am not aware of anyone making them work totally yet in the recruitment sector, but Kamanchi are giving it a go, I will keep you updated

2009-08-17T22:47:00.001+01:00

Look out for the new Kamanchi website

2009-08-16T22:19:00.001+01:00

Just joined ping.fm and seeing what it does, what do you think?

Another step closer for Linkedin

2009-07-28T13:54:00.005+01:00

My common belief is that Linkedin are creating the biggest and best recruitment database in the world and every recruiter will have to use it and pay for the privilege. I came across the Linkedin Company enhanced Profile, and this moves us even closer.

The enhanced company page is a only a short step away from being the careers page for you company and will allow passive candidates to find out more and communicate with the company directly.

Another tool for the in house recruiter, long live Ning!

Exciting times for IT Suppliers in the Recruitment Industry

2009-07-23T08:53:00.005+01:00

In times of recession, it is when the great companies make the changes that allow them to out perform when the upturn comes. So rather than see today's conditions as a bad time, I consider it a time where recruitment companies are making changes that I have not seen since the introduction of Job boards and CV parsing.

Every recruitment consultancy should be challenging their suppliers to become partners, to understand what they do and how IT systems and suppliers must improve to give the consultancy the efficiencies they need to represent.

Social media is also changing what recruiters will do, how they will interact with clients and candidates and the current IT systems that recruiters have isn't built to deal with it.

Every supplier needs to step up to the plate and offer value to their clients, those clients (the recruitment consultancies) must also show its clients how it adds value in the recruitment process ahead of Linkedin and dealing with Ad responses.

Exciting time............