Free My CV is here!

We’ve all been working round the clock in the office and our CV distribution service is now up and running. It’s a very exciting sister website for us as it is beneficial to jobseekers and job boards alike.

Our new service gives jobseekers the opportunity to fill in a little extra information on the site which will enable us to pass their details on to other job boards, to cut out the amount of websites a jobseeker has to visit and form filling they must do, to find their perfect job. The job boards get the benefit of being provided with registered users who are quality candidates, actively looking for a new job.

Within ten minutes of a CV being uploaded by a candidate the job board will have their information, giving them hundreds of new registered users in real-time!

Job boards will have a report system to log in to so that they can see the candidates as and when they are sent. The report system provides them with information on the amount of candidates they receive, and they can view them in terms of categories such as education, salary expectations and location.

This isn’t archived CVs and jobseekers that have been inactive for months; we are offering the client data that is no more than a week old to ensure that the jobsites are receiving high quality candidates in real time, so that job boards can pass on these candidates to the recruiter and help the jobseeker in these troubled times. FreeMyCV.com gives job boards the opportunity to explore a new avenue of increasing registered users, without the time consuming elements involved with SEO and marketing. Instead we are giving boards the opportunity to have a cost effective and efficient way of gaining candidates and their details.

So whether you’re a jobseeker, a job board, or a recruiter, FreeMyCV.com offers everyone a wide range of benefits which will improve the face of job seeking on every level. You can check out our new site here: www.freemycv.com

The snow has finally started to clear up and people are braving the weather and venturing back outdoors, making it the perfect time to launch our latest technology, as Allthetopbananas,com creates a new application for the iPhone.

The application gives jobseekers the opportunity to take their job search outside the home or office. In today’s environment people just don’t have the time to sit in front of a computer for a couple of hours searching for their next job.

The technology allows the user to search through the 200,000+ jobs on our site, using the same detailed search criteria to improve the quality of results. The user can type in keywords, job types and specific locations, and then view all the details of the jobs they like. They are then given the opportunity to make a shortlist of these jobs, which can then be accessed at any time via the website.

We are truly in the age where technology shapes our daily lives. Our phones come with Internet access, people everywhere have embraced the ease and practicality of life with an iPhone; the all encompassing unit of technology bringing together everything you could possibly need and want whilst on the go.Why is it then that in this age of busy, tech savvy individuals, job seeking has stuck to traditional, unmoving principles?

If we can update our Facebook statuses, follow people on Twitter, download new music for our mobiles, then why can’t we utilise this technology to do practical tasks like job seeking? The new iPhone application aims to address this issue; we are making job seeking mobile, and ensuring that busy people can still get the same opportunity to job seek as those who have the time to search at their leisure.

So now there really is no excuse for not finding your perfect job. Wherever you are, you can rock out to your favourite songs, browse the web and now search for your ideal job!

What a week! Britain has been faced with the worst snow for 18 years, and its impact on the working world has been immense!

The economy has reportedly suffered losses of £3 billion thanks to the blizzards, as office numbers become depleted with masses of workers taking ‘snow days’.

While the rest of the country has been building snowmen, here at Allthetopbananas we have finished building our new site and the redesign goes live today.We Brits generally feel hard done by, as we often get the brunt of the bad weather. Although our weather is never that great, this week’s vast snowstorms seem to have turned the country upside down. With not enough grit for the roads, transport heavily affected and shops and businesses like ghost towns, it is clear that we were caught largely unprepared for the white stuff.

It has been reported that over 6.4 million workers stayed at home around the country when the snow hit, which is a fifth of the national workforce! What you can’t help but wonder is how many of these people are actually truly incapacitated by the snow? The first sign of bad weather and we run straight for our duvets and then our phones, to let our bosses know that it is far too treacherous to come into the office. Cue mass snowball fights, updated Facebook statuses and tales of snowmen and sledging; but of course we can’t possibly brave the elements for work! Well snow or otherwise, we’ve been working hard and are reaping the reward of the bad weather.

This week saw our site have a record number of jobseekers and traffic to the site, proving that every snow cloud does have a silver lining.

So amidst the hot toddies, igloo building and snowman competitions; why not log onto ATTB and check out our new site with its great new look and features to help make job seeking hassle free. Who knows, you might even find a job on our site that you’ll want to brave the snow for!

It’s January 2009, a new year and an exciting time for all of us at AllTheTopBananas.com, as we are weeks away from the launch of our site redesign!

We’ve come up with some great new features to really improve the relationship between our site, the job seeker and the recruiter. Our redesign aims to refine our success in the conversion of job seekers to candidates; and we are focused on ensuring that the quality of candidates we send the recruiter is the best that it can be.

We are aiming to further improve our already high quality of candidates to job targeting. Our latest features help us to build up a more detailed user profile of each individual job seeker. This level of quality candidates can then be passed onto the recruiter.

This is going to be possible with the introduction of our new advanced search guidance feature.  When users search for jobs on our site, they will receive proactive tips and advice on improving their search. The tool will suggest extra keywords that will allow the user to explore different avenues within their required job sector.I am really confident that our new features will enable the site to be more user friendly and help recruiters to find the right candidates for their jobs.

On the subject of redesign, something that has come to my attention is that we are not alone in investing in our jobseeker facing services, as the New Year sees other leading sites promoting their redesigns. The difference between us and other leading job sites is their decision to inflate their prices to coincide with the alterations of their product. This is without proven results on the effect these features have, and at a time of economic instability; is this increase fair to those recruiters who may be struggling with budgets?

We want to give all recruiters the opportunity to expose their vacancies and receive the best candidates that can be offered, without having to worry about inflating prices and long term contracts.  So inline with our goals of “helpful job search engine” we are reviewing our rates resulting in even better valued prices.

So what does the future hold for ATTB and the job market?  With a New Year, new site and new features it’s shaping up to be a fantastic year! 

“Credit Crunch”, “Downturn”, “Credit Squeeze”, ”Credit Crisis” – I have had enough!

Why is our media so addicted to such depressing news! There are real commercial positives out there but these companies do not make the news! Believe it or not, some businesses are delivering increased year on year profits – but even the BBC business news is overlooking any positives.

Not only are positives ignored, but the spin on the impacted businesses is terrible. Our media appears to be totally biased! Let's just consider good old Woolies; they had £250m debt. Was this all created during the last 6-12 months? Or are they a company who have been in a difficult position for some time and the current climate pushed their position over the edge, just like MFI or M&S who only recently reinvented their image?

I am not suggesting the “downturn” does not exist, but the media are in my opinion responsible for making the problem worse and putting fear into small businesses and individuals.

Perhaps a little less negativity and media hype might have encouraged the general population to spend more during xmas and boost retail?

Unless you have been affected directly and have lost your jobs (and I feel for those many thousands who have been directly impacted) are you worse or better off than this time last year? With yet another interest rate cut, many those without savings and in a position of debt will be better off.

The entire media hype is driven by us – I encourage you to switch over to a different TV channel when the topic of credit crunch comes up. Do not buy the newspaper spouting the most depressing headline on the front page and do not click on the news headlines that continue spouting fear.

If the media did not believe that this topic would sell and increase ratings, then they would get back to focusing on real news!

It is in your hands!

Well we are all benefiting from the recent VAT reduction and the rest of Darlings wonderful measures to repair our damaged economy – do you feel better off? Looking at the current job market businesses clearly are not yet feeling confident about reaching the end of the downturn.

But how does the current economic climate affect the job seeker?

Firstly it is very tough out their for many industries and roles. Does this affect online jobseeking?

Hell yes, it changes the entire seeking journey.  More and more job seekers need to search wider parameters. This means considering commuting further or considering jobs that are outside of the core comfortzone.

It puts the job seeker in a position to “browse” and the job search web sites are not great for browsing. This forces the user to perform more searches to find what they need.

The result is not just increased effort and frustration for the jobseeker, but job sites with over inflated search counts and page impressions. When looking at figures the advertiser must focus back on unique visits – which is a buck in the trend from looking at searches.

Why do clever, solid business decision makers frequently make a total hash of things when it comes to their website!

The truth is that great many of websites out there are products providing a function for a user base.  But at design / build time this is totally forgotten.

The discussion that is missed too early is,
“Which comes first for this site, usability / function or  look / feel.”

To put it a different way the question "is it a work of art to look at, or a product for people to use?".

For a recruitment agency website this discussion is probably going to result somewhere in the middle but closer to function that looks, such as:

·         Attractive, positive message showing us as professional

·         Clear information to attract clients

·         Easy to use to attract candidates to apply

I want to urge you all to consider this question and have clear business objectives for your website.

How pretty is Ebay or Google – are they works of art or fantastic usable designs?

Firstly, a thank you for everyone who has contacted me regards the last couple of posts. Your direct feedback is appreciated and will help mould future posts.

So our topic continues to discuss best practices for recruitment web sites. As promised last week, this post covers browsing jobs and Google.

So you have a funky website, your supplier sold you a “corker” with an array of search options to confuse your users and a great big “Search Jobs” button. Even better it is live on the Internet for 14 million online UK job seekers to use it.

What next? Well people visiting your site and using it would be a good idea. But where do they come from?

“Search engines like Google and Yahoo”,  I hear you chorus. Well yes, that would be great. Your website supplier may have even provided an “SEO” service (search engine optimization), they may have shown you how you can type your company name and office location into Google, WOW there you are on page one! The candidates will be rolling in!

Probably not, you need your jobs to be indexed by Google, as many pages as possible with job specifics clearly shown. 

Unfortunately from reviewing a great deal of recruitment agency websites more than half do not let Google read their job adverts at all. Out of the small fraction that does the jobs are badly optimized - too frequently all on one page.

The first problem is Google does not (typically) click buttons. It really likes to click hyperlinks, and (sorry to get techie) real HTML anchor tags not JavaScript functions. Go to your site - can you get to all your jobs by clicking normal links? On a PC in Internet Explorer put your mouse over the link and look at the bottom left of the window. Does it say JavaScript? If so Google will not click it, instead it needs to show the url for the next page.

If you have a large volume of jobs then consider providing some links on your site to segments of your job stock, such as all part time jobs or all jobs in London etc.

Best practice Rule 2 “Let Google browse your job adverts via suitable links to search results”.

So now Google can read your jobs – yes, but there are still a few more popular Gotchas that so many websites insist on implementing. I will keep this list short-ish today. We could go crazy here with loads of tips, maybe in a later blog post.

Best practice Rule 3 “Do NOT display all your full job adverts on one big page/s. Always put each full job advert on to a page of its own. The results page should link to this full page job advert (with a link! and no javascript!)”

Best practice Rule 4 “Always ensure the job detail page has a handy back navigation to the search results”

Best practice Rule 5 “Always display the job title and location and category on your search results page and on your job details page”

While we are at it Best practice Rule 6 “On the full job detail page have a clear and noticeable call to action, reading apply now or something suitable. Put this call to action button or link at the bottom of the advert and near the top if your design allows.”

This covers just a few of the basic "must do" points for your site to be more Google friendly. In a future post I will cover more SEO topics – let me know how techie you would like it to get (I can always invite our resident SEO guru to help author a post).

While considering Google it must be remembered that a great deal of job seekers are active browsers. By this I mean they are looking for a new job but their seeking range is wide not narrow. Frequently a complex search form puts this user off. They really benefit from some simple links to click, enabling them to browse a wider range of vacancies.

Research suggests that 80% of jobs seekers are pragmatic, only 20% are careerist – don’t make your site easy to search but really hard to browse! Help the 80% find a job on your site!

Please keep the emails and comments coming. 

In my last blog I talked about making the most from your online presence – which can be cost effective and delivery high yields. As promised this is the first in a series of posts about best practices for recruitment agency websites.

We review and support agencies across the UK of various sizes – some have thousands of jobs on their systems others have tens of jobs. Too frequently small companies with 30 to 100 jobs are sold a complex website offering their users detailed search options such as category, salary, location, hours and keyword search. Great isn’t it? Such a web site gives the user true search power to find what they are lookingfor- umm, in a word - NO!

The problem is the technology supplier is selling what appeals – the features and functionality of the big boys. To most small SME agencies this will look and sound the best thing possible – and in favour of the supplier probably the more expensive option.

The problem is no one is considering the user – the online jobseeker.

The key word that is missed is EXPERIENCE! What is the experience when I come across all these options?

Well I might fill in salary,location and some keywords and click search with a keen eagerness to find my next perfect job. Unfortunately more often than the user is faced with a page saying – “No results found”. This is a very poor experience and will probably end up with the user leaving the agency website for good!

Job seeking is highly pragmatic – the job seeker changes their expectation and ideal job throughout their job-seeking journey. Typically the search widens the longer they are seeking.

The online job search should provide the ability to get to the jobs that may be of interest quicklyand easily. Jobs should be returned when ever possible, there will be no application if no job advert is read.

The search complexity has to reflect the choice provided by the data. This is key to a positive user experience.

So the best practice rule 1:

“Only provide search options that will typically return jobs from the choice of jobs available – if all the jobs are in London then don’t ask the user to choose between London and Edinburgh”

This may seem obvious– but go and have a look at your site and your competitors sites – how hard isit to actually get the search to return jobs? You may be shocked!

Next time post–Browsing not searching and helping Google read your jobs

Over the last 12months we have looked at hundreds of recruitment agency websites some small some huge. The question that springs to my mind time and time again is – do you get any applicants via your own website? Is that number good and worth your efforts? Are your competitors getting 10 times as many?

Many of you can answer this question confidentially as you measure your sites success and make the most of each online jobseeker who crosses your digital door. Well done! But could you get more?

Unfortunately there are plenty of you who do not know the answer to this question. Why not?

I understand that running your website is not your core business (unlike mine!) but it is an asset that you may well not be making the most of. Many agencies take the time to upload their jobs to their site but how easy is to for a job seeker to find the right job and apply.

There needs to be a best practice to help agencies improve the return from running their website. But what is the best practice and is there a one size fits all lycra style solution?

I firmly believe the answer to this question is NO! There are a few vital statistics that will allow you to find the right fitting best practice…

1. How many jobs do you have for a job seeker to view?
   
2. How easy is it for a job seeker to apply?  
   
3. How much pre-application filtering do you need?

Over the next few months I am going to blog on specific key areas surrounding recruitment agency website best practices. Some will be high level and some will be down and out geek level.

Each one will consider the vital measurements where suitable so it is relevant to you.

And maybe, it will help you increase your return on running your website and drive more cash to your bottom line!