|
Welcome to issue 384 of the ukrecruiter newsletter. This is the last issue of the newsletter for 2008. Thank you to all our fabulous readers (there are now over 16,000 of you!) for your support this year. We look forward to providing you with another year's worth of newsletters starting on 7th January and hope you enjoy the Christmas break. | 
|
CONTENTS
Visit http://www.ukrecruiterjobs.co.uk for the latest recruitment industry jobs. |
My Favourites My three favourite "my favourites" from 2008: http://www.linkedin.com - Before you go to any meeting check out your contact on LinkedIn. Also, see who else you know who works, or has worked, there. http://www.5minutesaway.co.uk - A directory of services and facilities available for motorists within 5 minutes of each motorway junction. http://www.youconvertit.com/ - A free site which will convert hundreds of file types from one to another Why not submit your 3 favourite web sites. See the guidelines at http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/articles.htm |
Advertisement Merry Christmas to you all - look forward to a great New Year with Talisman The fully integrated Front & Back Office solution that's full of features to help you stand out from the competition but kind on your budget. Contact Tony Doherty on 01582 478 or email tony.doherty@recruitment-software.net See www.recruitment-software.net for more details
|
Article One: Beyond co-opetition by Lander Associates In the current economic climate, recruiters are facing new and unprecedented challenges. These new situations require different skills, new ways of working and fresh approaches to enable consultancies to work through the difficulties successfully. One such strategy for small or medium sized recruitment companies is co-opetition, in other words co-operating with your competition. Instead of fearing or ignoring your rival organisations, think about how working alongside them could actually benefit both parties. Working with another company can give you both a greater power, and one that could help you compete alongside the bigger players – something that neither could do alone. It is often worth teaming up with a company that offers the same or a similar service so that together you can offer a holistic package. However it’s also worth considering your strengths. Working alongside someone who is stronger than you at a different part of the recruitment process means you can offer a more far reaching service. For example if you are particularly strong in executive search and your competition is better at the day to day mid-level contingent recruitment, then by working together you can offer a comprehensive, top to bottom service. Sharing the workload with another firm can afford you the opportunity to handle real volume. You may be competent enough to do the job alone but if it proves to be just too large a task for your small company to handle, you will fail to deliver which will be damaging for your organisation. All recruiters should be carrying out competitor analysis and should therefore know which organisations are their biggest threats. Those consultancies who are a threat because they are good at what they do, should be the ones that you are aiming to work with. Working with weaker competitors that pose little or no threat, will mean that the quality of the service you provide will be poor and your reputation may suffer as a result. There will be challenges involved with co-opetition, but as long as they are managed correctly, they can be overcome without too much difficulty. The first potential challenge will be the differences in rates. This is the senior management’s responsibility and can be resolved by both parties discussing rates and coming to a mutual decision. Similarly, consultants must be managed carefully – there should be effective communication within the organisation and a change management programme should be introduced so that everyone involved can adapt well to the developments. The sharing of information can also be a sensitive area, but again decisions need to be made at management level. There must be clear parameters around what information can be shared and when; this will ensure consultants feel reassured and that your market intelligence remains safeguarded. Brand reputation is something else to consider. If the organisation you are considering partnering with has a brand which contradicts the message of your own, then the partnership will not work. It’s vital that you portray a strong joint brand message. Even if you have different service offerings, make sure you team up with a company that shares your values and philosophies and that your visions are aligned. The good thing about joining forces with rival recruiters is that once you have done it once, you know how it works, can build on that relationship and do it again. Looking at it simply, you can either lose business to the competition (or a bigger recruiter that you alone cannot compete with) and receive no fees, or you can work with another organisation and get half of the total revenue. It’s a business choice to consider carefully. In today’s market it’s necessary to think ‘outside the box’ and consider new options. It won’t be possible for every recruiter to work with each other – some you will be able to work with and others you won’t. But it’s at least worth discussing the possibility. Recruitment owners need to try new and innovative ways of doing business and take the first steps to what can be highly successful strategies.
|
Advertisement Not just a FREE TRIAL – Search our CV Database today and see how CV-Library could make your 2009 successful! To access your free fully account managed trial just visit http://www.cv-library.co.uk/trial or call 01252 810995 and we'll set you up straight away. Once you have finished your fully managed FREE TRIAL, you will have the opportunity to sign up at an exclusive discounted rate just for UKRecruiter readers. Not only will you receive access to over one million CVs, we will even post your vacancies on a large network of job searching portals. For more information visit http://www.cv-library.co.uk/trial or contact us directly on 01252 810995 or sales@cv-library.co.uk |
Article Two: Effective Emailing by Bryan Edwards “I know that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” RICHARD NIXON According to the Radicati Group an estimated 183 billion emails are sent every day. That’s around 2 million emails every second sent by 1.2 billion email Users! Moreover, there are an estimated 516 million business email boxes worldwide. That’s a heck of a potential for mis-communication, misunderstandings, angry words, bad feelings and loss of productivity if the messages go wrong. Communication experts say that email is good for INFORMATION and CONFIRMATION. However it’s not good for EMOTION or PERSUASION. It is very difficult to convey enthusiasm, empathy or sincerity via email. You can type the words, but one doesn’t get a sense of the way the words are conveyed, and therefore the message can be misinterpreted. Here are some tips on email etiquette. When sending: · In character, e-mail is somewhere between an informal telephone call and a formal letter, but an e-mail can be easily kept as a permanent record – a phone call is more difficult. Avoid slang, careless writing, thoughtless comments, too many dots or exclamation marks. · Consider the recipient – who really needs to know? Is it ‘nice to know’ or ‘essential to their job to know’? Consider using group names very carefully – it may save you time but does everyone on the group list really need that message? · Talk to your boss about the types of information he/she needs to be copied in on. · Beware of humour and sarcasm – unless you know the recipient very well. · Where is the recipient? If they are in the same office area, why not talk to them instead? Think of how long it takes to ‘talk’ the message compared to having to write it out. · Don’t use email as an excuse not to talk to somebody. Barriers in communicating with difficult people can be broken down by hearing your voice, or perhaps seeing you, to build better rapport. · Never email in anger. Calm down first, or consider an alternative method – email can never convey emotion. Face to face can be a much more effective way of getting how you feel across to an individual. · Indicate the subject of the e-mail, and the purpose, in the subject header, to help the recipient e.g. ‘Leadership Training: Joining Instructions below’. · Keep to business issues, avoiding personal e-mails and gossiping. · Include ‘pleasantries’ at the start of the email e.g. ‘Hope you’re having a good week’ or perhaps a ‘Thanks for doing that last project so quick’ before you launch into your reason for emailing. · Emailing bad news can be seen as ‘the coward’s way out’ because you don’t want to face the reaction. Also you can’t guarantee when they’ll read the bad news. · Re-read the message before sending, putting yourself in the recipient’s shoes – what is the tone like? What unintended messages could the recipient see? Am I being succinct enough? · Be careful about criticising people and organisations by email. A hasty remark by phone will be forgotten, on email there is a permanent record. · Avoid writing in capital letters (to some this is the equivalent of shouting, and it makes it more difficult to read) and be carefully about emboldening words. · If you classify all your e-mails as urgent, people may gradually stop treating them as such. · Be careful about copying the message to the recipient’s manager – some people may view this as untrusting and underhand. · Break the email ‘tennis’ – it’s far quicker to pick up the phone than reply with an email. When reading: · Deal with e mail at set times of the day ONLY– two or three times per day is a good guide. The tendency is to open email as soon as one arrives – if it was that urgent, the sender would have picked up the phone. · Turn off the automatic ‘incoming email alert’ facility. · Remove unwanted e-mails regularly – one user had 350 e-mails in his inbox after 3 days holiday! Always question WHY you keep an electronic copy? · Set regular times e.g. last day of the month, to review and delete your e-mails. · Set up folders for recipients. Important people such as the boss, the boss’s boss, and key customers could go into one folder that you check more frequently. · If you feel emotional after reading a message, give the sender the benefit of the doubt and assume there has been a misunderstanding. Have you read the message carefully? Are you quite sure you’ve understood? · If it’s about a complicated topic, or it’s a request for ideas or opinions, consider replying by phone, or meet up with the person. · If you are out of the office for a few days, set up an automated ‘out of office reply’, giving an alternative person’s name who may be able to help. · Send joke emails to your home inbox for reading later. Bryan Edwards is Managing Director of ABC Training Solutions Ltd. He delivers a wide range of interpersonal /managerial/customer care workshops and designs tailored training materials for organisations. He can be contacted on 07747 602215. Bryan runs www.abctrainingsolutions.biz which markets a wide range of fully-designed, ready to deliver workshops, self study packs and other training exercises for the busy trainer. |
Advertisement Voyager
Software is a leading supplier of software and solutions
for the recruitment industry and is now one of the few providers
able to offer the full end-to end solution. With offices in the UK
and Australia, Voyager supports thousands of users around the world
and offers an extended range of support and consultancy services
that help its clients keep one step ahead of the competition. Contact Sales on: 0800 008 6262 www.voyage.co.uk sales@voyage.co.uk
|
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 13th 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" |
|
Advertisement Looking for recruitment consultants, managers or directors, HR recruitment professionals or on-line recruitment professionals? Look no further! UKRecruiterJobs is the specialist job board of the renowned and highly respected UK Recruiter organisation. - Our Approach is to limit the volume of job
opportunities on display to those that are current, relevant and
targeted to our specialist audiences. For more information email info@ukrecruiterjobs.co.uk or call Eriq on 0845 004 1717 |
Please forward this newsletter on to any colleagues or recruitment friends who you think might like to receive the newsletter.
Regards
Louise Triance
UK Recruiter http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk
Subscribe Unsubscribe |
Feedback Advertising |
|
If you want to see back issues of the newsletter visit http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/recnet NOTE: This newsletter may be copied and distributed free of charge in its entirety. Individual sections may NOT be copied or distributed without prior written agreement. Copyright (c) 2008, UK Recruiter Ltd |