ukrecruiter newsletter

Welcome to issue 316 of the ukrecruiter newsletter.

Every week we publish the top 10 recruitment sites provided by Hitwise. However this week, in a new quarterly feature, we are publishing the top 20. You can view them here

CONTENTS

My Favourites (Charles St.Aubyn)
Article One (Employment and the Law – Recent Developments by Louise Fernandes)
Article Two (Recruitment Store’s Talent Express Course Review by Gemma Eggleton)
Don't Miss This (REC News Roundup - PR: The Outsourced Finance Department - PR: Source Candidates from the Mobile Internet)
Discussion Board Summary
Online Recruitment Update (Hitwise Top 10 Recruitment Sites - Louise's UK Recruiter Blog - PR: SECSinthecity.com goes mobile - PR: reed.co.uk calls for industry-wide auditing of job application figures - PR: Recruitment Agencies Ready to be Scored by Performance - PR: allexecutivejobs.com Expands Into Europe)
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Feedback & Advertising Information

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

My Favourites

www.theretailbulletin.com - Excellent daily news site to keep up with the rapid movements in the retail industry

www.personneltoday.com & www.peoplemanagement.co.uk - Key reading to understand what issues are being faced by the recruitment industry's principal customer base. What keeps an HR Director awake at night? Guess what, it isn't which recruitment company to use...

www.ebay.co.uk - fantastic for parents of children who forget two minutes after getting a present that it is not brand new - bikes, climbing frames, Xbox 360, you name it, we've bought it off eBay.

Provided by Charles St.Aubyn of Connaught Search Solutions Ltd

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

UK’s Largest contractor information resource for Recruiters launched

- 2 Minute guide for your candidates on how to contract through their own Ltd Co.
- How does the latest Budget really affect Recruiters and Contractors?
- FREE Step-by-step guides for candidates wanting to become Contractors.

The only National firm of Accountants recommended by the Professional Contractors Group. More qualified accountants than any other specialist firm, trusted by the UK’s top recruiters and over 5,500 contractors. SJD Accountancy – Contractor Specialists 0500 152 500 www.sjdaccountancy.com/recruiterresources1.html. Offices in all major cities.

Article One: Employment and the Law – Recent Developments by Louise Fernandes

Employment law rarely stands still, as the last few weeks have demonstrated. Louise Fernandes of Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP outlines some of the changes below.

Consultation on annual leave

The Government has this week published its response to the consultation on 'Increasing the holiday entitlement'.

The Working Time Regulations 1998 currently entitle workers to 4 weeks' paid annual leave in each leave year. A worker who normally works 5 days per week will therefore be entitled to 5 x 4 = 20 days' paid annual leave.

An initial consultation was conducted in June-September 2006, with a view to increasing the statutory minimum annual holiday entitlement for a full-time worker from 20 to 28 days, to reflect the number of permanent bank holidays. On the basis of the responses to the initial consultation, the Government launched a further consultation in January this year and sought views on the draft regulations.

As a result of the last round of consultation, some changes have been made to the draft regulations. These changes include:

delaying the introduction of the second increase from 4.8 to 5.6 weeks until 1 April 2009. The Government's preferred approach in the January 2007 consultation had been to introduce half of the additional holiday entitlement from October 2007, and the remaining half from October 2008. On further consideration of the cost pressures, in particular for the health and social care sector, the Government intends to delay the second increase in holiday entitlement from 1 October 2008 until 1 April 2009. The initial increase will come into effect on 1 October 2007, as originally proposed.
enabling payment in lieu of the additional holiday entitlement (the additional 0.8 weeks) to continue until 1 April 2009. This temporary measure is aimed at helping employers with transitional arrangements, such as recruiting and training any additional staff to cover the increased holiday entitlement.
providing an incentive for early compliance with the regulations, whereby employers that already meet the full requirements of the regulations as at 1 October 2007 (giving the equivalent of 28 days' holiday, without payment in lieu and any carryover for no more than one year) will be taken outside of the regulations, as long as they continue to meet those requirements.

Consultation on Single Equality Act

The Government has issued a consultation paper outlining its proposals for amendments to the law and the creation of a Single Equality Act, aimed at simplifying and improving existing legislation to modernise discrimination law. The consultation closes on 4 September 2007.

The proposals have been developed as part of the Discrimination Law Review, which was launched by the Government in February 2005 in order to undertake a fundamental review of discrimination legislation in Great Britain. In the employment field, views are sought on a number of wide-ranging issues, including the following:

whether to retain the existing requirement for a comparator in direct discrimination claims;
whether there should be a single definition of disability discrimination;
whether the definition of indirect discrimination should be harmonised;
whether to broaden the concept of "reasonable adjustment" beyond disability discrimination; and
promoting the use of alternative dispute resolution.

Project to protect vulnerable workers

The Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling has outlined plans for a Vulnerable Worker Enforcement Forum, to bring together experts from unions, business, enforcement and advice bodies, to look at the best way to protect the vulnerable in the workforce.

The Forum will:

consider evidence from unions, advice bodies, business groups and others about the problems faced by vulnerable workers, including migrant workers, to establish the nature and extent of abuse of workplace rights and legislation;
consider whether these workplace abuses can be tackled effectively through existing enforcement and support mechanisms or whether improvements to existing mechanisms, or new approaches, are needed; and
identify options for improving the effectiveness of the enforcement regime, and raising overall levels of compliance in ways which do not increase burdens for good employers.

Mr Darling also announced two pilot projects in Birmingham and London, which will last for two years, and identify ways that vulnerable workers and their employers can better understand their rights and access help, advice and information.

UK tops the list for working longer hours

One quarter of UK employees work more than 48 hours a week, more than any other developed nation, according to a recent study published by the International Labour Office (ILO).

The study focuses on working time in over 50 countries, and explores the implications for working time policies in developing and transition countries. The ILO estimates that one in five workers around the world - over 600 million persons - are still working more than 48 hours a week. Amongst the developed countries, the UK was followed by Israel, Australia, Switzerland and the USA for working excessive hours.

Louise Fernandes is the Professional Support Lawyer in the Employment Department at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP and can be contacted at louise.fernandes@ffw.com.

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Article Two: Recruitment Store’s Talent Express Course Review by Gemma Eggleton

This two day training course is designed for people who are new to the recruitment industry. The course was held in a well presented building right next door to the beach in beautiful Hove near Brighton. On arrival on both training days we were offered Coffee, Tea, biscuits and Croissants to start the day off, we had a coffee break both days in the morning and in the afternoon and were provided with a choice of freshly cooked meals or handmade sandwiches at lunchtimes. The course was presented by Andy Partridge of Recruitment Store.

There were eight of us on the course. We were all from different recruitment backgrounds so it was very interesting to learn of the different sectors within this diverse industry. The people on the course had either no experience or very little experience of the Recruitment industry so we were all in the same boat, the age range varied from ages of 20-40. A few of the attendees specialised in placing graduates, a couple of them were from “high street” agencies and a Financial Services Consultant had even traveled over from Germany for the course. I didn’t meet anyone who specialised in a similar area to mine, but that didn’t really bother me.

Andy Partridge is one of Recruitment Store’s Principal Trainers and started in the Recruitment Industry in 1986 and has worked both the Permanent and Temporary market sectors in London and Sydney, launching and developing several successful divisions.

Andy presented this course with huge amounts of energy and passion. There wasn’t a dull moment over the two day course. As a group we all got on famously which made the experience even more memorable.

Course Objectives

Recruitment Store promised that I would be able to:
· Demonstrate questioning and listening skills, understand the importance of planning and preparation
· Know how to source and qualify clients and candidates
· Know how to take a complete job order/booking
· Sell opportunities to candidates and sell candidates to clients
· Manage the client / candidate interview and placement process
· Maximize success ratios throughout the replacement process.

What I wanted to get out of the course:

I personally wanted
· to have a better understanding of the recruitment process from start to finish.
· to be able to feel more confident calling candidates
· to be able to qualify a candidate whilst being in control throughout the conversation

Here are a few highlights of the course:

We were handed out full colour workbooks that were identical to the presentation, they were very professional and practical to use. As Andy advanced through the presentation we could make relevant notes and fill out the missing spaces, so we had to pay attention.

The course took us through the 12 vital stages of the recruitment process giving us the simplest route to making a placement.

The course also covered what can go wrong in the placement process and what we can do to prevent these things going wrong. Andy got us into two groups of four for this exercise and made us brainstorm ideas. It was a very useful exercise to get to know everybody a bit better.

Did the Recruitment Store deliver their promise?

I think they over delivered; Andy kept coming off the Motorway onto little back roads….so to say. He went into enough detail to make sure we understood everything, but not enough detail to put you off. He used his own personal life experiences to demonstrate situations and used the attendee’s names when explaining things too, which was a good knack to grab our attention and to keep us focused.

Did the Recruitment Store meet my expectations?

Yes, it did. I feel that I have learnt so much from this course. I feel confident that I know the process from start to finish quite well and am now so much more in control of conversations with candidates and clients.

Andy’s favourite phrase:

“Oh I love this course!!!”

Favourite training skill learnt:

The favourite skill I learnt was “STAR”. If I could identify a relevant STAR quality in a candidate then I could assess if the candidate was suitable for the role and could sell the candidate better to the Client.

S – Situation – Identify an example or scenario
T – Task – Outlining the task objectives
A – Action – Assessing what actions were taken to achieve objective
R – Result – Probing the outcome

What I got out of the training course:

To be successful I have to do something scary (challenging) within the work place every day!

For more information on the course visit http://www.recruitmentstore.com/.

Gemma Eggleton is a consultant working within the Contact Centre division of Mobilus Ltd. Mobilus is a client focused recruitment consultancy specialising in Marketing Services and IT industries. Gemma can be contacted by e-mail geggleton@mobilus.co.uk.

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Don't Miss This (sponsored by http://www.alljobsUK.com "The UK’s Jobs Portal")

REC News Roundup
These are links to a selection of press releases the Recruitment Employment Confederation (REC) have produced since the newsletter was last sent.

Press Release: The Outsourced Finance Department
"Essex-based Insight Associates – one of the leading Financial Management, Corporate Renewal and Strategic Business Development specialists in the South East – has launched a new service which will provide recruitment businesses with a complete financial management service on an outsourced basis. With the slogan: “While you’re growing your business, who’s watching the kitty?”, The Outsourced Finance Department is aimed at recruitment and other small and fast -growing businesses, helping them to play to their strengths while it takes on the finance department function on their behalf. More information about The Outsourced Finance Department is available from www.TOFD.net or by calling 0800 180 4265".

Press Release: Source candidates from the mobile internet
“Vodafone launched their new mobile web services this week which offers Vodafone subscribers advanced web access on their phones and a one off price of £7.50 per month for pretty much unlimited content. So how can the recruitment industry capitalise on the mobile generation? asap.mobi Plc, a company specialising in mobile classified search recommend taking a hybrid approach. They have developed a ‘jobs by mobile’ service that enables job seekers to review and apply for jobs seamlessly from their mobile device and enables recruiters to accurately track the activity of candidates on mobile. Not to be confused with SMS and MMS messaging, the ‘jobs by mobile’ solution provides job seekers with the same user experience and functionality as the fixed web but in a much more private, convenient and readily available format. For more information Peter can be contacted at pgh@asapplc.com.”

This section is sponsored by http://www.alljobsUK.com "The UK’s Jobs Portal"

Discussion Board Summary

Don't forget to visit The Discussion Board. Current topics on the site include:

More debate on Monster Job Board - How to break the Contract? and the quality of recent Monster Advertising Response. In a similar area Garry asks about the Cost Of Posting.
Steve wonders if Referral reward sites are a cash cow or time sow?!
Richard would like some Fee Split TOB's
Samantha asks for help in Developing a Client List
The usual postings about Software and Recruitment Software Needed
Matthew talking about setting up a Recruitment Directory

Any postings you or anyone else makes will be included in the weekly digest. Sign up for the free digest here or hit reply to ask me to include your email address

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

Online Recruitment Update (sponsored by http://www.broadbean.co.uk for "the UK's favourite job posting system")

Hitwise top 20 Recruitment Sites, week ending 23rd June 2007
Normally we only publish the top 10 recruitment sites, however, in a new feature, once a quarter we'll publish the top 20. The most visited UK recruitment sites last week, starting with the most popular, were

Hitwise don't aggregate data from sites who form part of a network such as fish4.co.uk For more information about Hitwise, visit http://www.hitwise.co.uk

Louise's UK Recruiter blog
Since the last newsletter I've posted the following:

You can read Louise's UK Recruiter blog at http://ukrecruiter.typepad.com You can keep up to date with other the recruitment blogs from the UK via the UK Recruiter - blog watch page at http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/blogs.htm.

Press Release: SECSinthecity.com goes mobile
"SecsintheCity.com, one of the UK’s leading PA, secretarial and commercial job boards, has launched a new site for mobile users. Secsinthecity.mobi will allow job seekers to browse online, register for alerts plus request monthly newsletters all via their mobile phones. For more information contact Simon Prince, Marketing Manager at www.SECSinthecity.com on 020 7228 9000"

Press Release: reed.co.uk calls for industry-wide auditing of job application figures
"reed.co.uk is calling upon the UK’s online recruitment industry to adopt standard auditing of job application figures in order to provide recruiters with simple and effective comparability between services. The call comes as reed.co.uk announces an independent ABC ELECTRONIC (ABCE) audited figure of over 1 million online job applications for the month of February 2007. This is the highest number of audited applications made available by a job site."

Press Release: Recruitment Agencies Ready to be Scored by Performance
"People looking to find their new job have been given a timely boost by the launch of the world’s first recruitment agency scoring website formed by a leading global human resources director. With finding a new job or career being one of the most stressful experiences in life HireScores.com allows prospective employees to log on and give feedback on their experiences of finding work via a recruitment agency. Already over 6 thousand people have visited the site with many leaving feedback on some of the biggest names in the recruitment agency industry, from Reed and Adecco through to Manpower and Hays. Candidates and employers are asked to score recruitment companies on a number of set criteria and from this the performance league tables are formed. www.hirescores.com"

Press Release: allexecutivejobs.com Expands Into Europe
"allexecutivejobs.com, the UK's largest executive jobs site for positions starting at £50,000+, is now providing job advertising for senior appointments across Europe. In addition to hosting over 1,800+ executive jobs in the UK, the site is now publishing £50,000+ senior vacancies across Europe from over 550 executive recruitment firms and employers. Candidates can now search for senior appointments in all European countries and executive recruiters are able to easily post their European vacancies onto the site. The site includes senior vacancies from all industry sectors. www.allexecutivejobs.com"

This section is sponsored by http://www.broadbean.co.uk; "the UK's favourite job posting system".

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Regards
Louise Triance
UK Recruiter http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk

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