CONTENTS

• Weekly Tips (If I've learned three things in recruitment it's ..)
• Article One (Making Better Use Of Your Time By Managing Your Meetings by James Osborne)
• Article Two (Top 10 Things To Look For In An IT Support Company by Mitchell C. Feldman)
• Online Recruitment Update (Hitwise Top 10 Recruitment Sites - Louise's UK Recruiter Blog - Discussion Board Summary - Vacancies from UKRecruiterJobs)
• Don't Miss This (HR Directors Summit Europe, 11th & 12th February 2009, Belgium - Boorman Consultancy launches recruiter’s survival guide - PR: The Recruitment Industry Development Agency Appoints Former Chief Executive of The REC -  PR: CNA Aquisition - PR: pfj acquires RPCushing)
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Visit http://www.ukrecruiterjobs.co.uk for the latest recruitment industry jobs.

Weekly Tips

Thanks for all your feedback about this section.  The majority of the feedback is that people want this section used for a variety of content.  The plan for 2009 is to alternate between the traditional "my favourites", series' of short tips and a new feature we will call "If I've learned three things in recruitment it's ..".  If you want to provide content for any (or all) of these drop me a note at louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk

We'll start this week with the new feature. If I've learned three things in recruitment it's ..

1) Within reason, smile through each phone call - everyone feels better after it.

2) Don't assume the Client knows everything about the role. Question them on every detail you expect to be asked about. Get as much detail as you can reasonably provide candidates with. It's your credibility on the front line. If you can't sell the role then candidates won't buy it.

3) Get your terms and conditions professionally written, signed before each engagement and adhere to them. Transparent contracts are good for everyone.

Provided by Dan Atkinson of Accite (www.accite.co.uk)

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Article One: Making Better Use Of Your Time By Managing Your Meetings by James Osborne

In this article James Osborne explains how to create extra time in your day by carefully managing the meetings you attend.

There are as many emails in each single day last year as there were in the whole of 1990. 

You’re probably thinking “Interesting statistic, but so what?” Well, while I am sure that everyone was working incredibly hard in 1990, not having the volume of emails or phone calls meant the pace of life was not as frantic and pressured. 

One of my business partners started out as a baked bean salesman back then (you have to start somewhere) and had neither email nor a mobile phone; instant replies were not the norm as it often is these days with the speed of modern communication. He told me, thinking time was far easier to come by then and we all know the benefit of having more than that.

The challenge today is that most of us use emails and the phone and whilst they undoubtedly deliver great benefits, it has reduced the amount of time we find for quality thinking.

We need to get that back. Quality thinking – whether we’re developing strategies, innovating or planning – is crucial for any business to be successful. 

So what can we do about it? Where can we get time back?

Well, whenever we are coaching people who want to increase their impact by reducing low value adding activities and tasks, one area that comes up time and time again is meetings. Whether its board meetings, team meetings or 1:1s, we seem to be addicted to them and fail to challenge ourselves and our colleagues as to what value we are adding by having these meetings. 

Processionary caterpillars

We act like “processionary caterpillars” and keep on going to the same meetings time and time again, going through the same motions knowing they are not making much difference, if any at all.

Just so you are aware, let me tell you a little bit about processionary caterpillars. They’re fascinating creatures but unfortunately are not that bright! 

Processionary caterpillars follow each other continuously, hence their name. A French biologist placed a number of processionary caterpillars in a ring. They proceeded to follow each other in this circle hour after hour, day after day. 

After 2 days the biologist placed a type of needle (the favourite food of the caterpillars) in a large pile in the middle of the ring. Even though the food was only inches away from the caterpillars, they were so obsessed with following each other that within 7 days they had all starved to death! Ring any bells?

While too many dull meetings will not lead to starvation, I have certainly been in meetings where my will to live has been dramatically affected, as I’m sure we all have.

So, make a list of every meeting you have (internal and external) and then ask yourself the question “just how valuable are these meetings to the development of me, my team or the business?” Once you have answers for each of the meetings you go to, categorise them into four groups as follows:

Class A meetings – High priority meetings with high impact to both you and the business. These are the meetings you should schedule into your diary (ahead of time) and keep, though consider how they could be even better and even more effective.

Class B meetings – The necessary meetings that you have to have because of their significance to the business, but that don’t do much for you personally. Focus on how you can make these meetings far more impactual to you (and others attending), or indeed how you can delegate your role at the meeting to someone else so your presence is no longer required

Class C Meetings – Low significance to everyone and everything, low impact, low importance and high annoyance meetings! These are the meetings you should clean out of your diary now.

Whatever you do, we should all focus on how we can reduce the time spent in “unnecessary” Class C meetings and use that time instead for quality thinking and maximising your impact on your organisation. 

Here are some ideas that we endorse for getting time back and making meetings more efficient:

Only ever attend meetings when an agenda has been produced – if the chairperson can’t get themselves organised to issue an agenda the chances are that it won’t be a great meeting 

Put the agenda up on an intranet site or notice board and allow any one additional member of staff to come along to the meeting to air their opinions / ideas. If no-one signs up then the meeting is probably not of interest to anyone and maybe the meeting should not go ahead in the first place!

Attend only the part of the meeting that relates to you and where you can contribute 

• Create a limit on the length of presentations – if people can’t present in under 20 minutes they probably haven’t thought it through properly.

• Reduce the frequency of meetings.

• Move the meetings from the beginning of the morning or afternoon to the middle of the morning or afternoon – people are keener to get through the agenda when they know their lunch or evening is at risk.

• Do the meeting standing up if you can – it reduces the waffle.

• Review every meeting with a 2 minute review to find out what went well, what didn’t go well and what would make it even better next time.

If you take a step back and address some of these points, you will gain a significant part of you working lives back and just think what you could do if you were given 10,15, even up to 25% of your time back.

What impact could that have on you and the business if everyone in the organisation were given that amount of time back too?

James Osborne is the director of the award-winning training and consultancy organisation, Innergy, who have worked with over 300 recruitment companies in the past 18 months, enabling them to increase their productivity, improve their performance and embrace positive change. http://www.innergy-uk.com/

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Article Two: Top 10 Things To Look For In An IT Support Company by Mitchell C. Feldman

Are you considering a new IT Support company, or a looking for a professional and accredited IT Helpdesk? If so here are the Top 10 things you should consider before engaging your chosen provider. 

1. Location 
Make sure the chosen provider actually has offices in your locality. Too many companies offer IT Support so far away from their offices that it is impossible to service a business efficiently if downtime is crucial. 

2. Availability 24x7 
Make sure your chosen provider has all the required infrastructure to support you both today and tomorrow. They should have a dedicated IT helpdesk offering 24/7 support. Your business never closes so why should the support? They should be highly familiar with disciplines that deal with topics such as change management and configuration management. 

3. ITIL Accreditation 
ITIL accreditation is important as this shows the company has invested in process and procedures to ensure clients receive a high quality end to end service. Without formal accreditations such as ITIL you could spend more time managing your provider than the IT itself. 

4. Microsoft Partner Status & other partnership accreditations 
Let’s be honest, most of your infrastructure is in the hands of these guys so if your IT support company doesn’t have an alliance with them, alarm bells should be ringing. 

5. Monitoring 
Remote Monitoring, Predictive Monitoring, Big Brother, whatever you want to call it, this technology is essential to ensure the smooth running of your business. Be sure you understand exactly what the chosen IT Support company is actually capable of monitoring. In today’s fast paced technological world, “Always On” is essential and easily achievable. Proactive monitoring is the only way to achieve this. 

6. Industry Experience 
Do they have experience in your industry? For example if you were looking for IT Support for Accountants, or IT Support for Recruitment, you should expect and demand that your chosen provider can add value to your business by giving you an insight in to how other people within your sector do things. 

7. Company Size 
Ensure that your chosen provider have enough staff to support your needs. Too often we see larger companies (100+) still being looked after by that famous “man on a bike” or “geek in a bedroom”. Make sure your business does not outgrow theirs. Changing IT Support companies is often a costly and timely exercise. 

8. Reliable 
Make sure your provider is not the plumbers with leaky taps! Only too often we see suppliers preaching to their clients about the IT and the importance of a good infrastructure but they themselves do not practice this and more often their lack of infrastructure ultimately makes the client suffer e.g. website down. (How can you check this out)

9. Understand 
Make sure they take the time to not only understand your IT but also your business. IT Support and IT consultancy only work well if they add value to your business. If your IT Support provider does not understand how you work, the IT Support will suffer and you will not receive a return on your investment. Remember if the IT Support element works well then so does your business i.e. increase productivity, and a better service to your clients. 

10. Informative 
Make sure your IT provider gives you complete visibility in to their systems by way of having a quality Intranet. An IT Support company should have more than just a “log a ticket system” they should be able to offer dynamic reports detailing the level of service they provide you and how efficient it is. You cannot measure someone’s effectiveness unless you can access reports on it. 

Whilst this is not the complete A-Z of hiring an IT Support company, it does give you some good guidelines and at least gives you more than half a chance of getting IT right! 

IT Support is a demanding. Making sure you get it right is as important as choosing the right software to run your business. 

Mitchell Feldman is the managing director of The Internet Group Ltd (TIG). TIG is an award winning managed service provider (MSP) and a Microsoft Gold Partner. The company offers professional and reliable IT services that reduce costs, dramatically improve efficiency and boost profitability for businesses of all sizes. http://www.theinternetgroup.com/  

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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 
For the latest job opportunities in recruitment or to find recruiting professionals, go to www.UKRecruiterJobs.co.uk.  Here is a selection of the latest vacancies on the site:
- Accountancy Recruitment Consultant
- Recruitment Consultant - Procurement, Supply Chain and Logistics 
- Compliance Recruiter into Industry
- Recruitment Consultant - Digital Desk
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Hitwise top 10 Recruitment Sites, week ending 10th January 2009
The most visited UK recruitment sites last week, starting with the most popular, were www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk, www.reed.co.uk, www.jobs.nhs.uk, www.totaljobs.com, www.jobsite.co.uk, www.linkedin.com, jobs.guardian.co.uk, www.monster.co.uk, www.tes.co.uk and www.jobrapido.co.uk. For more information about Hitwise, visit http://www.hitwise.co.uk

Louise's UK Recruiter blog
Since the last newsletter Louise has posted the following: 
- Winner of Best UK Recruitment Blog of 2008
- HR Leadership Alliance – Event Roundup
- Sky's Graduate Selection for 2008/09
- Drastic times?
You can read Louise's UK Recruiter blog at http://ukrecruiter.typepad.com  You can keep up to date with other recruitment blogs from the UK via the UK Recruiter blog watch page at http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/blogs.htm.  

Discussion Board Summary
Don't forget to visit The Discussion Board. Current topics on the site include:
- New to this too
- Wanted Training Material
- Agency Central
- In House Recruitment
You do not need to be registered to post or view messages on the discussion board.  Any postings you or anyone else makes will be included in the weekly digest (sign up for the digest here). Visit the site, ask questions and share your knowledge.  

This section is sponsored by http://www.1Job.co.uk; "the leading UK job search engine"

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Don't Miss This 

HR Directors Summit Europe, 11th & 12th February 2009, Belgium
"HR Directors Summit Europe 2009 brings together top and leading senior executives from international organisations for knowledge sharing, learning, networking, benchmarking, business development and problem solving. With special guest speaker: LYNDA GRATTON from London Business School, Leading Professor of Management Practice, Organisation and Management. BME Global HR Summits are not to be missed. The HR Directors Summit is a major networking event, which offers interactive presentations, panel discussions, case studies and workshops delivered by top industry practitioners, researchers, consultants and academics. The delegates will learn about emerging challenges and development strategies in the Human Resources industry in order to achieve greater business results. For more information go to http://www.bmeglobal.com"  

Boorman Consultancy launches recruiter’s survival guide
"It seems there is no escaping the latest economic trend and the downturn is, whether we like it or not, really upon us. For those of us who have seen it all before we know there is light at the end of the tunnel, but for the time being we need to get through the coming months of uncertainty as best we can. Bill Boorman, managing director of The Boorman Consultancy, the recruitment training and development experts, has put together a white paper giving thirteen steps to success for recruiters in the current market.  The paper: “Tin Hat Strategy- A 13 point Plan for Survival and Growth” looks at issues such as spreading risk, protecting and growing existing business, managing performance and keeping lean. It also addresses the thorny issue of redundancy and the importance of clear leadership. For a free copy of the white paper contact Lowri Gray at BlueSky PR: lowri@bluesky-pr.net Tel: 0845 130 8291"

Press Release: The Recruitment Industry Development Agency – Appoints Former Chief Executive of The REC
"The Recruitment Industry Development Agency (RIDA) Ltd has announced the appointment of Helen Reynolds as Chief Executive. Reynolds, best known as the former Acting Chief Executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, takes up the post, having left the REC in 2008. RIDA Ltd is the largest business support provider to the Recruitment Industry, providing rounded support and guidance to the recruitment industry at every stage of its development. Staffed by the best talents in the Industry, RIDA has an impressive combined 200 years worth of expertise to impart. With an extensive relationship network, throughout 14 locations in the UK, it means that whether a business is seeking venture capital, funding, business growth or mentorship, RIDA is ultimate Industry resource. www.rida.uk.com" 

Press Release: CNA Aquisition
"Network Brand Partnerships, a fully owned subsidiary of Pertemps Investments, completed the acquisition of CNA International in December 2008, adding the established 20 strong Executive Search franchise network to their Health Care and High Street focused partner networks. CNA Executive Search form one of the three arms of the unique offering Network Brand Partnerships has formed to create the leading recruitment industry franchise opportunity. High quality search is a multi million pound industry. Continued growth is forecast due to the acute worldwide shortage of proven top management talent."

Press Release: pfj acquires RPCushing
"pfj, one of the UK’s leading specialist recruitment companies has acquired a majority interest in RPCushing a leading provider of recruitment solutions to the Market Research and Analysis & Information sectors. This is a further development to pfj’s vision of developing a global network of leading specialist recruitment companies which started last year with the acquisition of ICUR, the Sydney based media specialist. www.pfj.co.uk" 

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