Recruitment Advice

CV-Library, the online job site has announced that a record number of CVs have been uploaded to it’s databases. Over 100,000 CVs were added in October, which has increased the total to a massive 1.2million. The database has grown by 153% in the last 18 months.

The website is apparently receiving 25,000 CVs per week. The Director of the company, Lee Biggins, has said:

“We saw 5140 CVs uploaded in a single 24 hour period this month, which is a new record for CV-Library. With our strategic advertising campaigns now in place on over 50 targeted career related websites, we are generating high volumes of high quality CV’s from all industry sectors.”

With all the redundancies taking place at the moment and with many more to come, there will be plenty of CVs being uploaded onto sites like CV-Library.

I have recently been advertising for a number of positions in the company i work for and have seen a massive increase in the number of applications and CVs i have received compared to a couple of months ago.

It’s quite a sad state of affairs, but it looks like the future for a lot of employees is set to look quite bleak in the run up to Christmas.

During the current economic climate most businesses are looking at ways to save money but are still wanting to fill roles in their business. The need for competent staff is more important than ever with customers evaluating what they need to save money on. If you can provide high customer service your clients will still want to use your business’ services.

Internal recruitment is an effective way of looking at your business and deciding on what jobs need to be done and who internally can fill them.

The advantages of recruiting internally are:

• When internal staff are promoted into a role through internal recruitment methods it acts as a incentive to other staff members, as they can see a path of progression in the organisation and it acts as a morale and production boost

• The cost of recruiting a new staff member can be expensive so recruiting internally is cost saving

• The cost of inducting a new staff member into the business can also be expensive, internal recruitment will save on training and development cost as the employee already knows the business and processes.

• Recruiting internal staff saves time on completing person specifications, vetting C.V’s and interviewing candidates

I recently wrote a post about how online recruitment isn’t being halted by the credit crunch and one company that has turned to online recruitment is the high street fashion retailer River Island.

It is the first time that the company have decided to use online recruitment and are due to employ staff in 200 stores across the country.

Previously to this, River Island used application forms which had to go through a central recruitment team to then be forwarded on to stores to be short listed, which as you can image, is quite a time consuming process.

River Island are hoping that this new process with reduce the administration time and also make it fair for candidates, as they will all get processed in the same way.

The use of online recruitment is definitely on the up and Anders Jensen from ClickAJob thinks its due to increase even more.

“Instant turnaround is just one of the plusses that employers expect, particularly in staffing up for the festive season peak. With facilities like email alert, not only is a job online immediately, if the requirements match a previously entered request, the candidate looking for it is immediately informed too. Such same-day results make all the difference to a retailer who has to respond quickly.”

Other stores such as Woolworths are also going to try out the online recruitment method.

According to the Nursing Times, the NHS is failing to increase recruitment for its community nurses workforce.

The figures have not gathered momentum although the new strategy was announced almost three years ago.
Just the SHA of West Midlands seems to be considering shifting its workforce to meet the government intentions.

The majority are Read the rest of this entry »

There has been several announcements over the last couple of weeks over car manufacturers closing down plants in a short term measure to save jobs. Car maker Honda are shutting down there plant in Swindon for 50 days as part of a dramatic cutback in vehicle production. The shutdown will take place in February and during that period the car firm will produce its annual output by 21,000 cars.

Others companies such as Ford, Vauxhall and BMW will also be closing there plants in the UK for extended Christmas leave to halt production.

Negotiation with Unions are ongoing over the payment of staff during the shutdowns. Some companies are making deals with staff to negotiate payment at a later date when market conditions improve.

Other companies are asking staff to work a shorter week to avoid compulsory redundancies before the Christmas break. Last month workers at JCB agreed a 4 day week with a pay cut to save thousands of jobs.

Graduates are being forced to stay in education for longer as the hunt for a permanent job is getting harder. Fresh graduates are finding it very stressful and are often left having to accept jobs they do not want.

Research by Just IT found that seven out of ten graduates found it extremely stressful looking for work whilst 80% turned to friends and family or facebook for help. The research also found that 62% of students felt that their C.V or applications forms best reflected their ability, nearly 90% would have liked more tailored advice on the job application process before leaving university.

It is going to get harder for graduates who are looking for work as the unemployment rate is still rising and is estimated to hit a high of 3 million people by Christmas 2008.

Competency frameworks have been accepted as part of the recruitment process used by many companies a 2007 CIPD survey revealed that 60% of companies had a competency framework in place for recruitment

Competency based interviews can also be referred to as situational and behavioural based interviews, it is a style of interviewing that is used to score you on areas of competency that the employer has set at a level for you to demonstrate your ability and experience.

Employers typically use some of the following areas for competencies:

• Teamwork
• Problem Solving
• Leadership
• Decision Making
• Career Motivation
• Commercial Awareness
• Communication
• Trustworthiness and ethics

Employers that use competency based techniques believe that it is the way to distinguish a candidates potential future performance and to find examples from there previous experience. Structured interviews are more of a accurate predictor for those candidates that are honest and can prove there previous skills to those who simply try to bluff there way through the interview process.

Psychometric Testing is a tool designed to measure individual difference in a number of areas such as personality,  intelligence and ability, test are used for a number of purposes in various circumstances including:

• Recruitment and selection
• Personal,  team and leadership development
• Career coaching and management

Testing is used by recruiting businesses to assess the personalities of potential employees. This helps employers to decide if the person and the job fit together. There is no right and wrong answer when taking the test it is a measure of how you approach situations and your personality .

The test are structured personality questionnaires which require you to respond to a series of questions , your response gives the employer indication of things such as your attitude towards work, towards others, attention to detail, motivation, working styles, determination and social skills.

Employers will look to for patterns of reply in your answers which are considered to suit the characteristics of the role.

Employers are using this method of recruitment as it is becoming more important for staff to fit into the company culture, to have personality fit and be able to portray company values. Raymond Whalley Managing Director Success Dynamics says “Organisations tend to recruit people for their technical skills but fire them for their personalities”.

Recruitment during the economic turn down has received a boost as the Job Centre Plus and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation join forces to help fill the UK’s half a million job openings.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation members such as Blue Arrow, Adecco and Reed employment will sign a partnership agreement in which the private sector recruiters will provide support and back up for the public sector.

Kevin Green Chief Executive of the REC revealed that around 40% of jobs filled by the job centre have been passed onto them by recruitment companies. Specialist REC members will be able to help the job center fill higher level vacancies.

Employment Minister Tony Mcnulty explained that In the past the different sector companies have worked as competitors rather than working in partnership to get people back to work and it made sense to join forces and call on each others expertise.

What motivates you? A question that will probably rear its ugly head in any interview you attend. If you are applying for a job in a call centre for example and the thought of constantly picking up the phone all day isn’t something that is going to motivate you, then don’t say it will! There is no right and wrong answer for this question, it is just for the interviewer to find out and understand the key to you being successful in your new role.

Your response should be based on your background and experiences and is a chance for you to share what you liked best about your job.

Here are some examples for you to have a look at:

• I was responsible for a number of projects where i directed development teams. These teams achieved 100% on time delivery of our products. I was motivated by both the challenge of finishing all the projects ahead of schedule and by managing the teams that achieved their goals.
• I have always been motivated to do well in any job i have taken on. I want to excel in my role for both my satisfaction and my employers.
• I have spent my career in sales where i have been set targets and have been commission based. The targets and compensation have always been a strong factor in motivating me to be the top sales consultant in my team.

If you are due to attend an interview in the near future then make sure you take my advice on board. Good Luck!