The recruitment sector, like many in the UK today, is facing challenges. That said, it is a lucrative industry, with countless agencies and freelancers climbing over each other to be seen. In economic times like these, making money is getting more difficult – but more people are looking for work. A recruitment agency with a strong online presence is vastly better placed than one without. A fancy TV ad with a prime time spot can only do so much and will almost always refer the viewer to a website. That’s where you can get the audiences attention for a far longer period, and more focus is being given to online recruitment. With a user generated search query, a recruitment site can pull in exactly the kind of people it wants.

When a user lands on a website, be it for jobs or otherwise, the first thing they’re going to establish is whether or not the content on that page is what they were looking for. It doesn’t matter if the website has amazing looking animations, loads quickly or has ingenious parallax scrolling capabilities – if the content isn’t there, the user is gone. Great design isn’t just about looks, especially with a website. Function will almost always outweigh form as a factor of importance. Navigation, layout and relevance to the area you’re targeting should be paramount. In any business, it’s customers that make it what it is, so make users and their experience your priority once they get to the site – that’s how you get people coming back.

With a specific field like recruitment and jobs, users are going to want and expect a few things from the off. Apart from being greeted by a nice looking and clear front page, they’re going to want to be able to find jobs and candidates easily. Having an integrated search feature with customisable filters is always appreciated. Clearly labelled areas to browse through jobs and candidates will make their visit much more pleasant than endlessly scrolling through a disorganised (or even a loosely organised) list of jobs and places. Being able to sign up for an account, upload a CV and get alerts for new roles is a feature users will love – and it means that you’ll have a database of potential candidates always waiting in the wings for future roles.

So that’s the end user happy – but really, the front end is a very small part of the story. Behind the curtain, a powerful, flexible content management system (CMS) needs to be in place to make the whole thing work properly – and to keep the other user (that’s you) happy too. The content management system needs to be just as easy to use and equally well set out – otherwise, that brilliant front end design is going to be for nothing. A site’s administrator needs to be able to control everything on the site without going back and forth with the site’s developer. The CMS should allow you to create, upload and edit vacancies whenever and from wherever, with the ability to categorise jobs and highlight special ones. As with any other good CMS, being able to make new pages and categories complete with images and other content is a must. Does the CMS support a news and/or blog area? Don’t overlook the importance of giving users a little piece of you – a blog can drive your authority, search engine ranking and gives users an insight into what you and your organisation are all about. Shout about success, comment on the industry and get involved. Nothing inspires confidence like an up to date website that has fresh thinking applied to it regularly.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave on Mars (with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears), you’ll be aware of the ‘mobile revolution’. Its not so much a revolution as it is a slowly emerging inevitability really, but being prepared (and doing it well) is going to pay off. In 2012, mobile internet growth surpassed desktop and it shows no sign of slowing down. Smartphones are prolific now. They’re cheaper and more powerful than ever before, with high end technologies trickling down to lower priced handsets and the top end rivalling laptop and games console capabilities. Having a mobile recruitment platform available is going to make a serious difference to your audience’s experience. People look for jobs in their spare time, something that most of us don’t have a lot of. Sneaking in a job hunt on the commute home or at lunch time is only going to be possible on a mobile device and a mobile optimised site is going to beat the competition hands down for usability. Endlessly pinching a screen to zoom in and out gets tiring fast. Entering text into close-knit fields is fiddly and annoying. Pressing the wrong button and having to start all over again is enough to drive a person crazy. Don’t let your site be the culprit.

So if you’ve taken everything into consideration, you should have a website that people love using. But how will they find it? Chances are, if they haven’t heard of your brand or seen your site’s domain, they’ll be searching blind – with a search engine. SEO, or search engine optimisation, is a vital service your website will require once it’s been established. If your site ranks highly in search engine results, more people will see it and use it. SEO uses a variety of techniques both on and off site to achieve better visibility. All on site optimisation will come down to the CMS and how flexible and adaptive it is, all off page optimisation will come down to how good a job you can do getting quality links and securing the brand across multiple online platforms. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but good SEO combined with excellent design and functionality will make your website a triple threat and very hard to beat. It might seem like a lot needs to be done, but it all boils down to usability and visibility. Get these two things right in any online venture and you’re on the right path. Recruitment Websites – What You Need To Know is a post from: Stone Carter Digital Marketing Recruitment

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It covers a few topics and although not a hard core SEO tutorial (for that I’d look elsewhere to be perfectly honest) it does cover the basics such as don’t bother with meta keyword tags as Google ignores this. Its surprising and quite frankly disturbing how often I hear that as a ranking factor when I interview SEO’s. Let me be clear, when I do hear it the interview ends pretty swiftly.

Other areas covered include things like email forwarding from webmaster tools for updates and alerts as well as making sure you verify the site and add in web analytics.

It also covers areas like checking the domains history. Was it a spam monster in the past? If so you may find you will have a fair few difficulties when it comes to ranking now.

Check it out if you are a small business owner who cannot afford the services to a reputable SEO firm.

SEO For Startups In 10 mins From Google is a post from: Stone Carter Digital Marketing Recruitment

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Here are a few tips on what you need to ensure your client can see the value of SEO you are delivering.

1) Analytics

It is important whatever state the website is in, to have tracking in place. This allows you to see the number of visits to the client’s’ site, the keywords that are driving visits and the referrals. One of the best tracking software is Google Analytics, which allows you to easily see the effects of your SEO work on the traffic. For example the number of visits, pages per visit, average time spent on site, has the increased since you started the SEO for the client?

2) CMS

You should find out early on in the contract, or even better, before it is signed if the client has a CMS. If they do, you should login and check out what you can and cannot change so that you are able to recommend actions that can be implemented. It is hard for your client to see the value of SEO if you put forward all the recommendations but are not able to action any of them. One of the best CMS is WordPress and if your client is in the middle of changing their site, suggest they integrate this CMS into their website.

3) Quick Sign Off

With most of your clients, you will probably be carrying out link building. It is therefore extremely important that you can get sign off for all copywriting you do quickly. Within a week is ideal, anything longer means the syndication and publication of the post or article is delayed. Some of the larger companies I have worked with in the past have taken a month to sign off copywriting material. There are often conflicts internally on the client side, for example the PR team want to own all the content and do not always understand the value of SEO who are employed by the marketing team.

4) Buy in From Senior Management

When you initially start work with a client, you may have direct contact with the marketing director who is an advocate for SEO. If that person leaves, he/she may be replaced with another director who may not know anything about SEO or see the value in it. You will then to meet the director and show to him/her the advantages of SEO and why it is important. It is crucial you have buy in from senior management otherwise it can make your job very difficult indeed. You need to show the value of SEO, how it can be used to grow the business and generate sales. The number of sales made and revenue generated will attract the attention of senior management.

5) Visibility

Always be in touch with the client, even it is just a quick email to show them how they are appearing in the search results. You should not necessarily focus on rankings, but if the client wants, this, send them some screenshots of better rankings which can be attributed to the SEO work you have done, which clearly shows the value of SEO.

If you have all 5 of the above, you will be able to carry out your SEO work with confidence, knowing that your client will not question the reasons for SEO. You can therefore deliver great results and show to all members of the senior management team the value of SEO. This in turn will lead to new business for the next financial year. 5 Things You Need to Show The Value of SEO is a post from: Stone Carter Digital Marketing Recruitment

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1) Face to Face Contact

Never underestimate the importance of face to face contact. If you are looking for that “perfect” job, go out and meet people who will help you find it. First stop is to meet a recruitment agent who is after your interests. Yes, there are some who do care about you and who will not send off your CV to any random employer. Don’t be put off by those recruiters who send you spam emails every day, there are genuine ones out there.

2) Funky business cards

Even if you do not have a job, there is still plenty for you to put on your business card. Think of it as a mini CV, put your twitter profile, Linkedin, email address and even website on the card. There are many places that offer low prices for quirky designs. One such company is moo cards which have personalised mini cards and can be ordered from £10.

3) Networking events

There are around 15 million people who work in London, which means there are many business and networking events that are taking place every day of the week. If you want to improve your chances of getting a job, start attending these events. Meetup.com is a great place to find out what is happening in your area. I run a meetup group called Search London which has events every 4 – 6 weeks on average, the next one takes place 10th of July. There are many meetup groups, but only tend the ones in your industry which can help you with your search for a job. At these meetups, check out who else is attending and aim to introduce yourself with your business card when you arrive.

4) Follow up

Once you have attended an event, then you can revert back to email. Contact those people who you have met at the meetup and with whom you have had a positive conversation with. Drop them a mail just to say “hi” and find out if there are any developments with job opportunities at their work. If they do not reply within 2 weeks of your first email, ping them another one. Do not give up.

It can be very difficult to find that perfect job but it is out there somewhere. It is not going to land on your lap so you have to be proactive, go into the busy market and find it. Believe in yourself and you will succeed, you may need a little help now and then, but don’t be afraid to ask. Networking Your Way To A Job is a post from: Stone Carter Digital Marketing Recruitment

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It’s an age old question really, should I try and make my CV stand out from the crowd or not? Back in the day before the rise of the internet and all these shiny new social media platforms it was a case of using a comical font, or if you want to get real old school, posting in a CV on coloured paper. To be honest there were hundreds of things job seekers did to try and make their resume stand out. Occasionally we got to see something that made us smile, but generally it quickened the document on its way to the shredder or deleted folder.

In all reality it often still does today. Un-readable layouts that don’t make sense and what can only be described as offensive on the eye fonts are still a huge no go in my opinion. Do you need a photo? Let’s be honest for a moment and put all political correctness aside, people judge a book by its cover and if you are not quite the super model type then this will do you more harm than good. I know it is something you might not want to hear, but take the advice. Seriously. When I see a photo on a resume, I remove it before sending onto a client.

Now let’s forget about all the old techniques and fast forward to 2012 and the brave new digital world the likes of twitter and Facebook have forged for us. Would I advise against something creative on the resume front nowadays? Well yes and no. It really depends I guess on what kind of an eye you have for design.

Got a profile on Facebook? I’m not really the gambling type but if I was I’d lay money that you do. Anyway, it’s up to you whether your profile is public or not but personally I’d set it to private at least while you look for a new job. Within digital I’d say around 99% of employers go take a peek now. Got something in your personal life to hide? Then hide it. But that’s not to say that Facebook can’t be your friend.

With timeline being rolled out or forced upon us, depending on your point of view of course, why not go create a fan page for your CV. Now please remember, there are a lot of weirdo’s out there in internet land so please, do not put any personal contact information such as a home address or phone numbers on the fan page. Keep it simple, they can message you via Facebook or add in a throw away email address just for job hunting. Hotmail or Gmail will do fine for this exercise.

If you happen to be an SEO type, then maybe do a bit of keyword research around your job title and pick a page name that might be capable of ranking easier if some goes looking for a person with your career history.

Also remember to set it so that no one can post a comment. Apart from the weirdo’s there are nasty little trolls and spam addicts around every corner, or should that be under every bridge?

Anyway, let’s take a look at what we can now do with our timeline page. Well we have the option to post milestones with dates. Perfect for education and work history. Find a cool photo or company logo and this update is instantly spruced up and laid out in a nice chronological order.

Think about your header image. Remember what I said about books and covers. Avoid a self photo and go with something more appealing to the general public. Google top 10 best timeline headers and you’ll probably get a few good ideas of what looks good, or more importantly what other people think looks good.

Add some information to the basic information under the manage tab. A brief profile with the usual work achievements and selling point. Add links to LinkedIn profiles, twitter and personal blogs if you feel they are new employer safe.

You could add in a few likes for pages in your industry to show you know your stuff and stay up to date with the latest news. Just set your fan page as the main Facebook user when you do this so it shows on the page. This will be shown in a prominent position on the page so I’d suggest avoiding any political or religious sites you may be a fan of or have a personal belief in.

You only have four Facebook Tabs showing under the header image now and photo’s is a sticky that you can’t move. Add a few here if you think they would help but try and avoid those naked drunken handstand photos from the Xmas party. I’d suggest business related tabs here. Things like Slideshare so you can show any presentations you have made or if you have a YouTube account, maybe some cool videos on industry related topics. Maybe you speaking at an event if that’s something you happen to do.  The apps list is pretty extensive so think carefully about what you want to add.

Will the Facebook fan page resume make a standard CV a thing of the past? I seriously doubt it, but if done correctly this can be a great way to show you have a bit of creative flare and it is easy to update, amend and get in-front of prospective employers. It’s simply another weapon you can use in your job hunting arsenal.

I originally posted this over at ClickZ. Check it out as well as my other articles. Create A Facebook Fanpage CV is a post from: Stone Carter Digital Marketing Recruitment

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