CONTENTS

• Weekly Tips (If I've Learnt Three Things by Peter Sewell, PJS Consultants)
• Article One (Top Tips for Achieving Motivation by Fiona Lander)
• Article Two (Ten things you must do before starting your own recruitment business by Heather Townsend)
• Online Recruitment Update (UK Recruiter Plus Favourites - Hitwise Top 10 Recruitment Sites - Louise's UK Recruiter Blog - Discussion Board Summary - UKRecruiterJobs)
• Don't Miss This (PR: Recruitment Store & MRL – Moving forward as one - PR: Are you ready to embrace the power of the UK’s top job boards? - PR: Marketing Competition: Win share options in an innovative company – Is there a lesson for the recruitment industry? - PR: Bullhorn joins industry body APSCo - PR: Recruitment Contractor Board set to change the landscape of the Traditional On line Job Board Space - PR: www.payrolljobsboard.com goes live! - PR: ACT Management Solutions (contact Colin Tovey - colin@act-ms.com))
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• Feedback & Advertising Information

Visit http://www.ukrecruiterjobs.co.uk for the latest recruitment industry jobs 

Weekly Tips - If I've Learnt Three Things

1.  Ensure mutual trust

2.  Be professional

3.  Respect absolute confidentiality

Provided by Peter Sewell from PJS Consultants

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

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Article One:  Top Tips for Achieving Motivation

With the rise in motivation training across the UK coupled with survey results that place attitude and motivation as the top personal development need, it seems that there are many people out there who could do with a boost of morale and encouragement, in what has been a long and tough recession. Recruitment is an industry that has definitely felt the effects, with consultants working twice as hard for business, just to survive. So how can you make sure that your team remains motivated, efficient and eager to work, even when times are hard? We asked some of our specialist trainers for their top tips.

Helen Harvey recommends making the working environment a more pleasant one and concentrating on making the workplace somewhere that people want to be. “Send the team weekly update emails on successes and publicly thank, acknowledge and praise people for a job well done. These things may sound small but they can have a big impact. In the same way, make sure your team feels valued – ask people for their input and give them your time, it doesn’t cost anything! It’s also important to make an effort when it comes to matters that aren’t work related – sending birthday cards, organising team outings and taking an interest in people’s lives outside of work can help both retention and team motivation.”

Angela Cripps agrees that praise is important. “Give recognition loudly!” she advises. “Make sure everyone knows when someone's done a good job, but especially make sure that the right person gets the recognition. And celebrate the minor victories as well as the major ones. It’s also important that if you ask someone to do something, you follow it up. There's nothing more de-motivating than being asked to produce a piece of work or achieve a certain target, only for no-one to notice that it's been done. All that goes through that person’s head is ‘What was the point? I won't do that again’. Remember, it helps you too, as people do what you inspect... not what you expect!” 

Toby Buckle takes an alternative approach and says that it’s necessary to re-assess how you motivate yourself. He comments “There are two forms of motivation. One is getting away from the negative and the other is looking towards the positive. The key is finding out which works better for you. For example are you motivated by the fact working harder may help you keep your job or by the fact that you want to a promotion? If one isn’t working, look to the other.”

Alan Clark agrees that it’s important for the individual to take some responsibility for their own motivation. “Don’t rely on managers to motivate you - it must come from within. Think to yourself; ‘What gets me out of bed in the morning?’ What is your aim? Many recruiters say to me that the money is what’s important to them, but it’s what they do with it that is their motivation – buying that new watch or new car.” He also mentions the importance of recognition, “If you’re a manager, give plenty of encouragement and praise. Don’t practice ‘seagull management’ – swooping in only when times are bad and then disappearing again. It’s also important not to rely too heavily on incentives as they can in fact de-motivate people. I’ve had recruiters tell me that they don’t feel motivated as their incentive was not something they were interested in. Find out what individuals on your team are driven by and aim to address their needs one by one.” 

What people fear most is the unknown, so it’s crucial to encourage open and clear communication and keep everyone in your organisation up to date with what is happening, then they feel reassured that the business is being managed well. Mentoring and buddy schemes can also be great ways for employees to share knowledge and experiences and feel valued and supported. It is vital to engage people by keeping them involved and inviting their ideas – and acting on them. 

Don’t forget to invest in your people, especially when it comes to training - if they don’t have the skills they need to succeed in their role, their motivation levels will remain low. Finally, even when times are hard, lead by example; try to maintain an upbeat attitude – keeping morale high is one of the ‘vital signs’ of a healthy organisation. 

Fiona Lander is Managing Director of Lander Associates, the international training and performance development specialists to the professional recruitment sector

Fiona Lander is also a contributor to UK Recruiter Plus.  You can use your free trial to view up to three articles on the site including those Fiona has provided for us including; Candidate Strategies for the downturn and Presentation Skills

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Article Two: Ten things you must do before starting your own recruitment business by Heather Townsend

Are you fed up with office politics? Want the freedom to be your own boss? Got an idea for a new business? Here are ten things you must do to increase your chances of success with your new business venture.

1. Write your business goals down
Only about 3% of adults have clear, written goals. These people accomplish five to ten times as much as people of equal ability and standing, but who, have never taken the time to write out exactly what they want to achieve. From personal experience, your business idea only properly starts to take shape when you write your goals down and tell other people about them. I had wanted to be my own boss for about five years. Once I wrote down my business goals, my business was up and running within 3 months.

2. Gain the commitment and support of family and friends
Starting your own business is all-consuming. As a new recruitment-related business owner, your working week is now 7 days. Inevitably your quality time with the family, friends and loved ones is going to reduce in the short term – how can you prepare people for this? It is a sad statistic that many new business owners’ marriages don’t survive the first couple of years of trading. Knowing that you have your family and friends commitment and support to your new venture is invaluable and a great source of free advertising! 

3. Strengthen your network
People prefer to buy from people that they trust or have been recommended to them by someone that they trust. As well as being your most effective source of work, referrals, and clients, your network will take the place of your current work mates and colleagues. Suddenly, as a new recruitment business owner, you can’t just pop down the corridor and ask Maggie in IT for some advice. Do you have enough people in your current network willing and able to give you all the advice and assistance that you may need in the early days of working for yourself?

As you probably have guessed networking is going to be key to your business survival and growth. Plan to spend a significant portion of your early mornings and evenings networking. With the advent of on-line networking you can now networking 24/7 from the comfort of your own home.

4. Identify mentors
Chances are that somebody will have been there before you and got the tee-shirt. After all most new recruitment business start-ups are generally offering a tried and tested product or service. Most people when asked to act in a mentor capacity are genuinely flattered and want to help someone starting out. You can learn from their mistakes and successes. My mentors in the early days of being my own boss gave me priceless advice which helped me get the basics right first time, and supported me through the difficult patches.

5. Identify your target market
You will be building up your business one client at a time. So, where are your clients coming from? And more importantly, where do they hang out? What do they read? What websites are on their favourites list? What do they expect from their suppliers? Only when you have answered these questions will you be ready to think about writing and implementing a marketing strategy.

For the full article please click here to access UK Recruiter Plus.  With over 275 guides, training tools, proformas and articles UK Recruiter Plus (free trial available) is the definitive online guide to the UK recruitment industry.

Heather Townsend is the founder and driving force behind The Efficiency Coach. The Efficiency Coach offers coaching and consultancy to SME’s, Entrepreneurs, Professionals and Startup Businesses. 

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Online Recruitment Update  

UK Recruiter Plus - Favourites
These are this week's favourite articles from UK Recruiter Plus as chosen by the UK Recruiter team: 
- Candidate Qualification Checklist
- Beating the Bad Days
- 10 Tips for Choosing a Job Board
We are currently offering a £25 discount when you sign up to UK Recruiter Plus; the definitive online guide for the UK recruitment industry.  www.ukrecruiterplus.co.uk and a free trial  - www.ukrecruiterplus.co.uk/trial

UKRecruiterJobs: Traditional, On-line and Corporate HR Recruitment Job Board 
The UK Recruiter job board is run in conjunction with Changeboard.  Here is a selection of the latest vacancies on the site:
- Recruitment Consultant - Warm Desk, Bristol
- Recruitment Consultant, Reading 
- Marketing Recruiter, London
- Researcher - Newly Qualified Accountants - City, London
- Recruitment Consultant – Finance (Commerce) London (City)
The UK Recruiter job board is run in conjunction with Changeboard. We are currently offering free trials for recruitment consultancies to post their recruitment jobs. To set-up a free trial, please contact Bekki at Changeboard on 020 8675 8851 or email bekki@changeboard.com and quote UK Recruiter. 

Hitwise top 10 Recruitment Sites, week ending 2 October 2009
The most visited UK recruitment sites last week, starting with the most popular, were www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk, www.jobs.nhs.uk, www.linkedin.com, www.reed.co.uk, www.totaljobs.com, www.jobsite.co.uk, www.tes.co.uk, www.monster.co.uk, www.jobrapido.co.uk & jobs.guardian.co.uk. For more information about Hitwise, visit http://www.hitwise.co.uk

Louise's UK Recruiter blog
You can read Louise's UK Recruiter blog at http://ukrecruiter.typepad.com. She has recently posted about Finalists for National Online Recruitment Awards 2009. You can also 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:
- Recruitment Investor
- Attracting Candidates
- Solo Recruiter
- Monster Job Board
You do not need to be registered to post or view messages on the discussion board.  Visit the site, ask questions and share your knowledge.  

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UK Recruiter's networking event & the NORAs ceremony - 5 November 2009, 6-10pm

The Recruitment Networking Event is organised by UK Recruiter. This event will run in conjunction with the annual National Online Recruitment Awards (NORAs) being hosted by alljobsuk. This year we expect the event to be well attended and therefore have released the opportunity for registration well in advance.  Our networking evenings are a great opportunity to meet with other professionals operating across all segments of the industry. Anyone working within the recruitment industry is invited to attend; whether a recruiter, researcher, job board employee, publisher, corporate recruiter or supplier to the industry.  We will be running the now the popular "speed networking" sessions as well as the awards themselves. It will to be another great night and social event.

For this event we will be charging a small admittance fee of £3.50 which includes two FREE drinks on the night! Event sponsors and UK Recruiter Plus members gain free admittance. There are limited places so register now to avoid disappointment at http://recnetnora.eventbrite.com/

If you are interested in sponsoring this event please contact mike@ukrecruiter.co.uk for more details.

Don't Miss This 

Recruitment Store & MRL – Moving forward as one
All MRL staff, from various parts of the globe, came together recently to be involved in an ideas creation and strategy setting day for the business moving forward. The day was orchestrated and facilitated by Jonathan Jenkins of the Recruitment Store. As a result, MRL are very pleased to announce that Recruitment Store have been chosen as their people development provider.  David Stone, MD of MRL, commented ‘It was a fantastic day and it was great to witness such positivity coming from all of our valued colleagues. I was amazed at how many ideas were generated from such a stimulating event. It is has given us all a great deal of food for thought and reminded us of how important it is to move forward as one unit and ensure there is a continuous communication flow. ‘  www.recruitmentstore.com

Are you ready to embrace the power of the UK’s top job boards?
The cost of advertising on the UK’s best known job sites has been out of the financial reach of many independent recruitment agencies and in the domain of the larger employers and national agency chains.  However, this is about to change with the new all-in-one job post solution Recruitersite.co.uk, the company have developed an online advertising model which allows small to medium agencies to compete on an equal footing with the industry leaders.  Recruitersite.co.uk has negotiated with the major job boards to provide a pay as you go, job post platform for the UK recruitment industry, to help narrow the resource gap that exists between SME’s and the larger agencies.  Advertising from the site is easy, you simply select one of the advertising packages that best fits your needs, input the job details, and the system does the rest, posting to at least 6 job boards for one price, starting at £69.  Contact Details: www.recruitersite.co.uk Scott Taylor info@recruitersite.co.uk or call us on 01384 457 670. 

Marketing Competition: Win share options in an innovative company – Is there a lesson for the recruitment industry?
London based firm Itsacareerthing.com , which only recently launched a new virtual recruitment and assessment platform have announced a new competition open to all talented individuals.  They are seeking new and fresh marketing ideas to help them reach target audiences and are offering share options in the company for the winning entries. They believe that by opening up the competition to all who seek to enter that they will be able to gain access to a wide range of talented individuals.  For more information on the competition please visit: http://recruitmentwithoutwalls.blogspot.com/2009/09/marketing-competition-win-share-options.html

Bullhorn joins industry body APSCo
'London, 23 July 2009 - Bullhorn, the global leader in On Demand, front office staffing and recruiting software, has been granted affiliate membership to the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo). The company, which launched in Europe in June sees the membership as an important part of its initiatives to establish itself as a leading player in the UK market.  Peter Linas, Sales Director, commented: We feel it is important to make a contribution to the staffing industry and becoming a member of APSCo will allow Bullhorn to do so. We are delighted that our launch into the UK has been endorsed by such a high profile professional body."   The membership will allow Bullhorn to keep up to date with UK and EU parliamentary issues and to benefit from the influence APSCo has over policy and industry regulations.  Peter Linas continues: "The future of the recruitment sector is on the web, and as the leading Global provider of recruitment SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions, we felt it was important for Bullhorn to be part of APSCo. As more recruiters look to integrate with the likes of LinkedIn, Google, Zoominfo and the next inevitable social networking innovation, we would like to be there to assist, as well as promote best practice and develop industry standards." www.bullhorn.com'

Recruitment Contractor Board set to change the landscape of the Traditional On line Job Board Space
'Welcome to Australia & New Zealand’s first ever exclusive Recruiter Contractor Board. Finally, a career site that gives both the candidate and client choices.  Recruit Me Now’s contractor board is for recruitment talent interested in contracting and employers looking to recruit talent on a contract basis, without the burden of head count.  This revolutionary initiative is an alliance between Recruit Me Now who will host and facilitate the contractor board and Entity Solutions, a professional engagement services organisation, who will manage the engagement of all contractors exclusively.  Recruit Me Now’s contractor board reverses the traditional job board methods of candidates applying to job ads, and introduces an additional posting facility that enables candidates to create a profile ad and have potential clients search and apply to them.  Thanks to Recruit Me Now, clients can apply directly to recruitment talent from Recruit Me Now and engage them as contractors directly for as long or little as they like.  “When the market swings back around we need to be ready to meet the Industry's talent demands on a national and global scale (as we know only too well how quickly this landscape can change). Our Contractor Board will address the current uncertainty around permanent headcount, introduce a flexible resourcing workforce and provide a solution around retaining Industry talent, before it is too late", says founder and Managing Director, Michael Dimopoulos.  Regardless of whether you are a multi-national, boutique agency or a corporation looking for recruitment resources, Recruit Me Now has made finding contract talent affordable across an entire Industry, with the initiative supported by well over 70% of Australia's leading Rec2Rec's.  Interested in contracting, looking for a contractor or you would like to find out more? Visit www.recruitmenow.com.au and click the white Contractor Board button or call Michael Dimopoulos on 1300 729 249.'

www.payrolljobsboard.com goes live!
Payrolljobsboard.com is a specialist recruitment website catering solely for the payroll market. At last payroll candidates are able to register themselves on a job board that highlights their specialist skills. Payroll clients are able to advertise to a payroll specific audience whose experience and qualifications are monitored before they are able to load themselves onto the site. As a result, it is only payroll qualified candidates who will apply to vacancies on www.payrolljobsboard.com.  The site has been developed by payroll specialists as a result of limited opportunities for both candidates and clients to search in a payroll specific environment. Detailed job titles and payroll software experience are all part of the registration and search process.  Whether you are a payroll administrator looking for their second job in the industry or a payroll bureau looking for an ongoing source of specialist payroll candidates, www.payrolljobsboard.com is a natural choice for you.  For the first month of launch, payrolljobsboard.com is offering a free advertisement to clients and entry into a draw for a 120gb iPod for candidates.  www.payrolljobsboard.com Tel: 01727 831194

ACT Management Solutions (contact Colin Tovey - colin@act-ms.com)
'Zero one Design is delighted to announce the launch of ACT Management Solutions, career portal. ACT provides executive recruitment services for those companies seeking the highest calibre employees and those individuals looking to further their careers at the highest level.  Unlike many others ACT (Attract, Capture and Transform) uses a ‘Pure Search’ methodology, to find the best not the most visible.  Colin Tovey – Managing Director said; “We are delighted with our web presence, In today’s world of impersonal emailed CV's & job specifications, we are cutting through the use of technology to make recruitment a people focused business once again.”  Tel: 0844 351 0432'

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