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Welcome to issue 383 of the ukrecruiter newsletter. Looking for recruitment consultants, managers or directors, HR recruitment professionals or online recruitment professionals? Looking for great jobs (like this Sales Director - Banking Operations one)? Look no further; UKRecruiterJobs | 
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CONTENTS
Visit http://www.ukrecruiterjobs.co.uk for the latest recruitment industry jobs. |
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Article One: Job Search Engine Optimisation by Greig Harper Over the past year there's been a silent but seismic change in the way candidates search for jobs lead by the rise of the aggregate job search engine. In these days of tightening fees savvy recruiters can use these to reach a wider range of candidates at a lower cost. There are numerous job search engines out there. They all work in a similar fashion; reading job listings on job boards, employers sites and classified ads. They pool the listings which you can then search using a simple Google style interface. Job hunters can then search hundreds of ads in one go rather than hunt around a handful of job boards. The good news is that if you're posting your vacancies to a job board then you're likely to be already featuring in the job search engines. Alternatively with a little work you can post your vacancies direct to the search engines potentially bypassing the job boards. But surely if you're posting your jobs far and wide the quality of candidates will decrease? In reality most candidates gained via search engines are self selecting. Industry focused job boards allow candidates to apply for a range of roles at various levels. With a job search engine candidates will tend to stick to specific keywords related to their experience. Business development managers search for jobs for business development managers while call centre staff search for telesales roles. So how do you get featured in job search engines? First you need to post your jobs to your website. Then there's two ways to get your jobs listed on the search engines. The easiest way is simply send the link to your listings to the job search engines. They'll check your site regularly for any updates. This method has two main drawbacks. Firstly, unless you're a major job board you're going to find yourself at the back of a long queue of submissions. Secondly while the search engines are good at reading job listings they aren't perfect and you'll find they sometimes misinterpret information in your job listings. Still it's generally good enough to suit the needs of most recruiters and it's quick and easy. The second method involves a RSS feed which isn't as complicated as it sounds. It's a formatted blog of your latest posts which search engines can read. It's structured so there's no misunderstandings and most job search engines can add a formatted feed instantly. Most website software should already support this or be able to add it easily. If you're using custom software then it will be easy for your technical people to put in place. So you've got your jobs listings looking good and they're appearing in the job search engines. But there's a couple of things you can do to get ahead of the field. First, head to either www.indeed.co.uk/jobtrends or www.workhound.co.uk/trend. Here you'll find all manner of statistics on what jobs are being posted and what people are searching for. This can help you target your ads and understand what's happening in the market. Not surprisingly jobs in private equity have dropped but at the same time there's been a rise in insolvency roles. There's a lot of valuable data and trends on offer. Indeed.co.uk in particular has a lot of data and a special area for recruiters to monitor their advertising. As the market gets more competitive this type of information can give you the lead on your competitors. Secondly, don't forget Google. While it's not a job specific search engine it is used by a lot of candidates to job search. Google will by default index the job vacancies you post on your site but you can improve the visibility of your vacancies by buying keywords on Google. A lot of recruiters have probably experimented with Google adwords already and been disappointed with the results. There's a lot more detail on search optimisation than can be covered here but here's a big hint – be crafty. Every financial recruiter in the world would like to buy “accountancy jobs” with the result that it's incredibly expensive. But if you're after accountants in Bristol then go for the keywords, “accountancy jobs bristol”. You'll end up paying less and get more relevant candidates. Here's another big hint – be even more crafty. Think what you ideal candidate is going to be searching for on Google. Accountants will be searching for VAT information or help with Sage while IT staff will be searching for software updates and technical issues. These keywords will generally be cheap and heavily searched. Done right Google keywords can be an inexpensive way to find talented candidates. Assume you're paying a pound per click and thirty people click to visit your listing. Say a percentage apply and one of those is the ideal candidate. You've spent thirty pounds filling that role and got a handful of candidates for other roles. With all these techniques it's really down to experimenting to discover what works for your business. Hopefully these techniques have given you some ideas on how to spend less on sourcing quality candidates in the competitive environment of recruitment today.
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Article Two: Recession Proofing your Business by Mark Byrne Mark Byrne of Calverton Factors shares with you his experiences of maintaining the cash flow. After the tsunami in the financial markets now comes the aftermath. With credit tightening, house prices falling and confidence out the window, the ‘R’ word is on everybody lips. The technical definition of recession (two quarters of negative growth) is pretty meaningless but it becomes very real when people start losing their jobs and livelihoods, and businesses (especially small businesses) start to struggle. There are two things that become all important in this hostile business environment: CASH - Turnover and profitability should not be neglected, but during recession cash is king. If a business cannot generate sufficient cash then it will fail. BAD DEBTS – Businesses will fail in increasing numbers. This means that some of your customers will go to the wall leaving you facing a loss. So how do you protect yourself against these twin threats in a recession? CASHFLOW 1. Your Bank: Visit you bank manager now. You should take with you up to date accounts, forecasts (particularly a cashflow forecast) and aged debtor and creditor lists. Your aim should be to confirm your facilities for the next 12 months. Remember overdrafts are ‘on demand’ so if your overdraft is under pressure your manager may request that it is converted to a medium-term loan. If this is the case then make sure you have sufficient head-room in your revised overdraft facility. Your bank manager will be looking to significantly increase his charges – your counter negotiation should be to get him to commit facilities for the long term. Remember build in as much headroom as you can for the next 12 months. 2. Financial Information: The benefits of timely and accurate management accounts are more prevalent than ever. These should be produced not only for your benefit but for also for your bank, your suppliers and credit reference agencies. A cashflow forecast is essential and this should be your starting point for negotiations with your bank. You should also sit down every month and go through the month’s figures against your budgeting. 3. Credit: Begin to think of your cashflow as the most valuable part of your business. Every time you grant credit to your customers it is costing you cashflow (as well as real money). Every time you negotiate credit with your suppliers it improves your cashflow (and saves you money). So get all your customers to pay cash and don’t pay your suppliers unless they scream – now you know why supermarkets do well in a recession! This is obviously cashflow utopia and as such will be impossible to achieve. However, you should make it your goal to be stingy when granting credit to your customers and pushy when negotiating credit with your suppliers. For new customers ask them to pay on invoice, or in 14 days, before you go to 30 days – that’s from invoice date NOT end of month following. To help customers pay quickly offer them discounts for early settlement and consider penalties for late payment (you are legally entitled to do this – go to the Business Link website and search on ‘late payment’) . 4. Credit Control: A good credit controller is worth their weight in gold and, more than anything else, good credit control is about consistency. Most small companies allocate too little resource to proper credit control, often it will be the owner-manager who will chase for payment - probably the most unsuitable and least qualified person in the business to be doing that role. This means that credit control is sporadic and often panicky – e.g. the customer who hasn’t been contacted for 60 days gets a call threatening legal action! Good credit control works to a system of statements, letters, telephone calls and, only if very necessary, legal action. As CEO of Calverton Factors (we collect £120m of our clients’ sales turnover) it always amazes me how little legal action we take. But that’s because we implement a system of consistent and regular contact with the customer – most people want to pay, you need to make sure you are first on list. 5. Invoice Factoring: Invoice Factoring provides early payment against the value of a business’s invoices. It also provides immediate access to a highly experienced and capable credit control team. As well as providing upfront cash against the invoices, the Factors will credit check customers, chase for payment and if required insure the customers against non payment. In the current situation the sources of funding for working capital have shrunk. The high street banks are being more stringent on their overdraft lending and with property prices declining it is getting harder to remortgage to raise capital. The one valuable asset that remains on the balance sheet is the sales ledger and this makes factoring a highly attractive means of maintaining cashflow and protecting the business from the ravages of the recession. BAD DEBTS 1. Credit checks: This is a must but it is not foolproof. Credit checking agencies work on historic information which may be a year or more out of date. However it will give you a feel for the company and it will list County Court Judgements (CCJs) a real and immediate indicator of financial problems. Not just on new customers. Remember things change quickly in this market and if you can get regular updates from a credit agency on your customers then this will provide you with valuable information. If you do get negative information then act on it – chase harder, put the company on stop, take legal action if necessary. 2. Credit Control: A good credit controller will not only get your cash in quicker but will also save you from bad debts. They should pick up signs of problems very early; it may be an excuse they haven’t heard before, a delayed payment or just a different tone of voice. You should talk to them and value their opinion. Pay for the best, if they are good they will save you a lot more money than you will pay them. 3. Credit Insurance: ‘I don’t take out credit insurance because I don’t get many bad debts’ The only reason for not taking out credit insurance is if you are dealing with the Government. If banks can fail then your customers can fail. Credit insurance does not exist to pay for itself, it is there to protect one of the most valuable assets in your business – your debtors. Businesses will fail. If it is your customer make sure that you are covered. 4. Spread your risk: Better to have 50 customers owing you £1,000 each than 1 owing you £50,000. It is not always easy to spread your customer base, but if you are only dealing with a small number of customers then you must appreciate that your risk increases significantly. Doing 1,2 & 3 above becomes vital! The most important thing to do is NOT TO DO NOTHING. Your motto should be “ Act quickly, act strongly and believe that this recession will last twice as long as everyone thinks”.
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Online Recruitment Update (This section is sponsored by http://www.1Job.co.uk; "the leading UK job search engine") UKRecruiterJobs:
Traditional, On-line and Corporate HR Recruitment Job Board Hitwise top 10 Recruitment
Sites, week ending 6th December 2008 Louise's UK Recruiter blog Discussion Board Summary This section is sponsored by http://www.1Job.co.uk; "the leading UK job search engine" |
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Regards
Louise Triance
UK Recruiter http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk
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