Welcome to issue 223 of the ukrecruiter newsletter.  Thanks to everyone who offered to responded to our request for newsletter contributors last week.  It's great to know so many of you are keen to share your knowledge and experience. Don't forget as well that we are always keen to hear your "favourites" for our weekly feature.

CONTENTS

Visit http://www.careersinrecruitment.com for the latest recruitment industry jobs.

My Favourites

http://www.newsnow.co.uk - This site is great for keeping up to date with the latest news from sources all across the internet. Whether you want to keep up to date with 'Education' or 'Scunthorpe Utd' you can do so here!

http://www.newitts.com - A great website for all things sporty. They are very competitive in their pricing and offer a broad range of products with next day delivery available.

http://viral.lycos.co.uk/ - The Lycos collection of the latest viral emails. Great for 'inspiring' your own ideas for successful email campaigns and just as good for entertaining yourself.

Submitted by Chris Lunn of Eteach.com 


Why not submit your 3 favourite web sites. See the guidelines at http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/articles.htm

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Advertisement

Professional Online Solutions for the Recruitment and Staffing sector
HotLizard is the premier supplier to the recruitment industry for online recruitment software and excellence in recruitment web site design, development and marketing. 

For more information, please contact Adele Poole, on 01635 527900 or email adele.poole@hotlizard.net.

You can also view further information on HotLizard products and services at http://www.hotlizard.net

 

Article One: Psychometric Product Review: CAL Online 

Company Name: Criterion Partnership Ltd
Product Name: CAL Online
Website Address: http://www.cal-online.co.uk

Description (provided by Criterion): A flexible library of 46 scales measuring a diverse range of personality dimensions. Users can choose scales from the library to create unique CAL personality questionnaires to meet their precise needs.

Cost: £100 for a starter pack of CAL Online credits. Individual reports cost from £8 to £39 depending on type.

Do you have to be qualified to interpret the questionnaires: Assessors must be British Psychological Society Level B trained or equivalent. No “conversion” training is required for users who are already Level B qualified but it is available.

Candidate Experience (guinea pig candidate was Linsey): This questionnaire took a very long time to complete (it can take between 10 and 60 minutes depending on the length of questionnaire selected). The instructions stated that it could be completed in 3 sections each section felt very long. The format of the questionnaire was that you had to rate statements from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Ideally you should try and answer the questions either by agreeing or disagreeing and not use the in between/average answer. The questions were quite difficult to answer and I found myself choosing in-between when I didn't really know what I thought on that question. 

In the middle of the questionnaire I was “kicked out” so I had to email CAL Online. They were very quick to get back to me and it took them a matter of minutes to tell me what to do. The system then worked without any further problems

The report came back to me within a couple of hours* of completing the questionnaire which I was impressed with. I liked the way that the report was laid out and overall I found the report easy to read and quite accurate.  *(nb reports are available for download instantly for users of the system)

Overview of Feedback Report: I received a feedback report (12 pages) and a set of suggested interview questions (15 pages). There are 5 key behaviour categories the questionnaire assesses (interpersonal style, thinking style, emotional style, motivation and culture fit) and 29 personality scales. The report is a mixture of profile charts giving a score for each personality scale and a narrative section on each behaviour category. The profile charts allow the trained user to extrapolate additional information from the report by looking at how a combination of two or more personality scales affect behaviour. This additional information is not brought out in the narrative as the narrative just describes each individual personality scale. On the one hand this is fine as a trained user would be able to pull out the additional information, on the other hand a trained user wouldn’t need the basic narrative as this is obvious from looking at the scores for each scale.

However, the interview questions are a very useful addition to the report. Some are a little unsophisticated but in the main they are a great way to probe a candidate more thoroughly around specific areas of personality. I’m sure these would be especially useful if given by HR or a Recruiter to a less skilled line manager interviewing. 

Summary
I very much liked the interview questions and liked the scope that the number of personality scales covered in the questionnaire would give a trained user. As mentioned I was disappointed that the narrative in the report wasn’t more thorough. Being computer generated it should be fairly easy to provide a more comprehensive feedback report talking about the impact of the different personality scales on each other. Overall though a useful tool.

Contact Details: Alan Redman is the contact at Criterion Partnership. He can be contacted on 01273 691199 or by email at letterbox@criterionpartnership.co.uk

 

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FREE UNLIMITED PSYCHOMETRIC ASSESSMENT – No Risk, No Catch
You may have heard about ERAS. We are one of the fastest growing providers of psychometric products and Level A/B training in the UK. 

As part of our campaign to promote our online personality questionnaire, we are offering you the opportunity to use our Quest Profilerä free of charge for selection/development purposes for three months. Whether you are an existing user of psychometrics or new to the benefits they bring, you can enhance your service to your clients at no cost. We are sure you will be pleasantly surprised.

or further information (such as a sample report) or to arrange to be set up with The Quest Profilerä, please contact Dawn Taylor on 01379 647817 or dawnt@eras.co.uk

Article Two: Survey Reveals Regional Press is the Best Source for Job Seekers

Recruitment advertising has been the regional press industry’s dominant advertising revenue driver for a decade The strong position of regional newspapers within their communities provides a highly effective and trusted environment for recruitment advertisers. 

In order to better understand the way that jobseekers use media channels, the Newspaper Society, the voice of Britain’s regional press, commissioned a major piece of research into the recruitment advertising market. With a sample of 8,000 adults, representative of the population as a whole, the study provides a robust and insightful overview of the recruitment market. 

The resulting report, Recruitment Choice by Human Capital demonstrates that over 54% of people are currently in the job market. When asked about attitudes to job seeking, 22% of people said they were actively seeking new employment, and 32% would consider another job. 

One quarter of adults had been in their current job for more than 10 years, and a further 18% had been with their employer for between five and 10 years. However almost half of all adults have applied for at least one job in the last two years, and a significant number of these (13%) have applied for six or more jobs in this period. 

The majority of people are not willing to relocate in order to find a new job. Only 24% of people questioned were willing to move, and 33% of people were unsure. This leaves 43% of people who are definitely unwilling to move to a new area for a new job. People said that they were willing to travel an average of 17.47 miles to work each day. This rose to 19.88 in Northern Ireland, and dropped to 15.54 miles in the North West. London sat close to the average at 17.95. 

With such a strong local focus to the job market, targeting recruitment advertising through local and regional newspapers is an option that makes sense to jobseekers and employers alike. Fifty-one per-cent of people turn to their local newspaper first when looking for a new job, nearly six times as many as second-placed Jobcentre Plus. And of those who use the internet, 42% named local newspaper websites as their first choice, way ahead of local authority websites which came in at 9%. 

Jobseekers turn to local newspapers and their websites because they trust them, and find them accessible and reliable. They were quoted as having the best selection of employers and the most up to date job descriptions. They were named as having the most interesting jobs and they provided the easiest methods of application. 

So the regional press is in a strong position in the recruitment advertising market, but the industry is far from complacent. Initiatives like Fish4jobs.co.uk demonstrate that regional press publishers are keen to stay ahead of the game and offer the most effective and usable solutions to jobseekers and advertisers. 


Robert Ray is Marketing Director of The Newspaper Society. He can be contacted via martha_lt@newspapersoc.org.uk or by phone at 020 7636 7014. 

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Don't Miss This

UK Recruiter Discussion Forum - Are you using it? 
Don't forget to visit http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum. Current topics on the site include "Assessing potential recruitment consultants", "The Great Cold Calling Debate..again" and "Software packages for startups". It is free to use the discussion board and you don't have to register to view messages. Visit the site; ask questions and share your knowledge

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Statistics

Hitwise top 10 Recruitment Sites, week ending 16th July 2005
The most visited UK recruitment sites last week, starting with the most popular, were www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk, www.jobsite.co.uk, www.totaljobs.com, www.reed.co.uk, www.monster.co.uk, www.jobs.nhs.uk, jobs.guardian.co.uk, www.jobserve.co.uk, www.jobsgopublic.com and www.jobs.ac.uk. For more information about Hitwise, visit http://www.hitwise.co.uk

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Regards
Louise Triance
UK Recruiter http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk - 01635 254881 (UK)

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