Tuesday 15 September 2009

Online Job Boards

Hello again, how are you this week? As promised, this time we are looking at online job boards.

How Recruiters Work

Picture More have had a lot of candidates to search for recently and we look in many places. It maybe in our mobile phones, on our database or in Linkedin; we advertise and we get referrals but one of the key places any recruiter will look is on the job boards. Companies like Picture More pay to access these sites as it gives us a great source of immediately searchable CVs.

Candidate Search

We always tell our candidates where we found them but how do you make sure you get found? It’s not rocket science. Putting a good CV together is essential but what about the job board profile? Please don’t ignore it, when recruiters search the boards these profiles are the first place they look. It’s also the first place the job board’s search engine looks. Some recruiters can be unsophisticated in their searching techniques so help them to help you. The more detail the better. Here are some of the headings:

Please include...

Preferred location: If you put RG12 you are limiting yourself. If a recruiter does a specific search you stay invisible. Sites like jobsite and monster feature a “within x miles” function but give yourself the best chance. Putting RG12 (no offence to Bracknell) makes you look inflexible. Put one or more location names.

Job Type: It’s hard to move from contract to permanent roles in the current market. If you do want to make that switch you need to have a convincing reason why.

Main Skills: If you are a Marketing Manager don’t put Powerpoint and Excel as your skills. Put marketing, branding, e-commerce, B2B, B2C, direct marketing or whatever you see fit, but keep it relevant, not peripheral. If you are a developer put your main languages. Try and avoid unnecessary abbreviations. If you’re a Business Analyst take the extra half second to type that instead of BA. (If you are an Object Oriented Programmer it would be best not to abbreviate it to “POO” like one recent candidate did).

Job Title: Nobody’s going to search for something generic like Associate Director or IT Professional. Make sure the title describes the role you want. It’s a wise move to enter several different titles here e.g. Web Developer, Web Programmer, Software Developer, .net Developer, Solutions Developer etc. Many recruiters will only look for one title at a time.

Availability: Try to keep this one current. If you put your CV online in May with redundancy looming 3 months down the line you may get missed in August when someone needs an immediate starter.

Salary range: A recruiter will be searching on this field so put something sensible in. Some boards let you put in a wide range like £35-90k, this is not a good idea as it’s hard for the recruiter to work out what level you are really at and it will probably put them off. If you are in work start the range from just below your current salary to 15% above it. If you’ve been out of work for a while you can use the same system but it will hard to negotiate a better salary than you had in your last role.

Be Contactable

· If you hide your name you’ll have to be brilliant to get called.

· If you hide or omit your phone numbers you won’t get called anyway.

If you miss a call and your CV looks great the recruiter may choose to email you. Your address is probably on the CV but put it in the profile too, maybe a private address that you can view at your leisure.

"See CV" - the wrong approach

When you go for a second interview you’ll sometimes be asked to fill out a profile form in reception. Would you ever think it was a good idea to write “See CV” in one of the boxes? No you wouldn’t, because it would look unhelpful, inflexible and lazy. I know it’s a pain to be asked for the same information more than once but please try and avoid doing this on the job board profile because not only will it have that same effect but you won’t come up in so many searches either.

Be Prepared to Talk

I think that covers the main problem areas for people who want to be found. When we call some people it seems like being found is the last thing they wanted. If you leave your CV on line you may get called. Please take it as a compliment and be polite; you may need this person’s help in the future!

I hope that helps. See you again soon!

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