Get smarter by staying online

Far from atrophying the grey matter, using the Internet helps boost brain power, research suggests, according to the BBC.

1 network = 30% of ALL spam???

According to this article in the New York Times on the shutting down of a major international spam network probably 90% of all email traffic is spam. That certainly is my experience every morning. And this gang, says the NYT was probably responsible for 30% of all spam, using 35,000 'zombie' computers, whose owners never knew they were being used that way, in an international 'botnet'. Mindboggling!

So will you shortly be seeing a sharp reduction in daily spam? What do you think?

Five reasons every niche site should have a job board

Here's an interesting angle: Julian Stopps on the bornpodcast.com blog says that all niche publications should run a job board. We agree - and it is something that Jobshout can be easily configured to do.

A few of his arguments equally apply to agencies and medium-sized companies upwards. It's cheap to implementm, it gets your site found and so can drive traffic to other parts of the site and it's yet another tool to combat the global talent shortage. And of course there are quite a few additional arguments which apply - the kudos it gives, the sense of professionalism that it imparts and, if your job board is really well search-engine-optimized (which Jobshout does as a matter of course), the tremendous web marketing tool it can be - probably the most cost-effective marketing tool you will ever find.

I will now leave my soapbox.

Finding keywords for your site

Creating keywords for your site is by no means an easy task. Understanding exactly what you think candidates and clients search for is about putting yourself in the mind of the user. There are tools to help you with this but there offer no guarantees. I have put together a short list of ways to go about creating keywords for your website.

Firstly creating keywords is a never ending task and should be reviewed as often as possible, depending on the goals and results you require.

Don’t just use general keywords

It is important that you still use the main keywords that people will search for as search engines will still recognise them. However these keywords are extremely competitive, using phrases of about 2 to 4 words are more useful then say competing for the word “furniture”. By using “art deco furniture” you are aiming to attract more specific users searching for those particular words. The trick is to keep your keywords relevant and popular enough that users will search for them but not too popular that no one searches for them at all(I never said doing this was going to be easy).

Checking on competitors sites

Checking your competitor’s sites and seeing what terms they are using and whether they are getting found in search engines is very important. Maybe you are not using those keywords in your site. This type of research is a long process but it can improve traffic to your site. If you can find keywords that your competitors are not using, you might be able to rank higher with less competition. One way to do this is if you type in Google “allintitle: keyword”. This will bring up all the sites that have chosen to use that keyword/s in the title of their website.

Use the tools that are available on the internet

Google have given webmasters many tools that allow them to refine their SEO to help them improve rankings. All of these tools are free and are very easy to use. Google have a service called Keyword Tool where you can analyse your website and it gives you keywords which are calculated from the content of your site. It will not guarantee if you use these keywords you will get more traffic to your site but it is worth having a go and seeing if there are any words or phrases you have not thought about. There are a couple of others such as Wordtracker and Wordze but these are not free services but it is worth checking out.

We know keywords are important but we must remember it is not the only way in which SEO can be improved. There are many other ways to do this but just remember to keep it ethical because after all this work, the last thing you want is to be banned from search engines altogether.

Jobshout is fully equipped to help with getting your site optimised using keywords and other various ways. To find out more click on Jobshout.

EU Agency Workers Directive

The next major step in this protracted process has now been reached. Here is what the REC has to say about it:

An agreement on the EU Agency Workers Directive was reached late last night by EU Employment Ministers in Luxembourg. This decision means that the Directive, which gives temps the right to the same pay as an equivalent permanent worker, could come into force in the UK by April 2010.

Commenting on the agreement, REC Chief Executive Kevin Green says: “Whilst yesterday’s agreement is significant, there is still a substantial amount of detail which needs to be decided upon. Although new regulations are unlikely to come into force until 2010, the next few months will be crucial in influencing the detail of what equal treatment provisions in the UK will look like.”

The text agreed yesterday in Luxembourg confirmed that there will be some level of flexibility in terms of how the new EU regulations will apply in the UK. This has been a key element of the REC’s campaign and, for example, means that equal treatment will only apply after 12 weeks of an assignment rather than from day one. As discussed at last week’s REC Agency Summit, one of the key issues is to ensure that the scope of equal treatment provisions is tightly defined and does not cover a full range of employee benefits and occupational pensions. The initial feedback from yesterday’s meeting in Luxembourg indicates that we could have a positive outcome on this issue, as well as on the definition of who constitutes a ‘comparable permanent employee’. One of the other positives is the focus on finding alternative dispute resolutions to limit the number of employment tribunals that could result.

There is still plenty of scope for disaster here: the devil as always will be in the detail. REC's press release actually has more teeth than their statement above, sent out to member, and deals with the subject pretty well.

It's an ill wind...

Good news for temp agencies - according to a survey conducted by the REC one in four employers expects to increase their use of temps, mainly because of economic instability. It comes at a time when good news for recruiters is in rather short supply - though it won't be such good news if your main business is perms, which presumably is going to shrink as a result.

Blogshout

Here's my selection of what's interesting in the recruitment blogosphere:

1. Perriam & Everitt's survey of the industry is not a pretty picture.
2. Broadbean's Dan McGuire video interview on how to write good job adverts and the best time of the week to post jobs.
3. Recruitment 2.0 on the impact of fuel costs
4. Sirona says there are ten things that employers have to understand
5. Now here's an idea to bring a smile to your face, courtesy of Louise's blog
6. Enhance Media say that now you can bid for your competitors names on Google Adwords.
7. OMG, Gordon's using Twitter now. Why can't he just stick to phoning voters at 6am? The heart sinks…
   

Agency workers update

Here's what Anne Fairweather of the REC had to say yesterday prior to the announcement of a deal between the TUC, CBI and the government:

…the move to 12 weeks is a significant change in direction from the Government who once declared that temporary workers did not need any further rights (in the DTI publication Success at Work in 2006). REC does not believe that there has been sufficient evidence presented to justify equal treatment provisions and is very disappointed that the Government appears to be changing its position on this matter. We will therefore emphasis this disappointment in our press line if a final agreement between the CBI and TUC is reached.

The point about the government moving from its stated position in 2006 is a good one. As I posted a week ago, it is really symptomatic of the weakness of the government that it has buckled under pressure from the left of the PLP and the unions. The REC can 'express…disappointment' at the lack of 'sufficient evident' and the government's volte face (u-turn to you and me) as much as it likes, but since when did rationality and consistency win against raw politics?

CBI hails agency workers deal as "least worst option"

Hardly a ringing endorsement, but probably true under the circumstances - the deal is that protected rights begin at 12 weeks employment. It's long enough to protect labour market flexibility (arguable - not all analysts agree), but gives the unions and the government's left wing what they have been agitating for.

There's a good summary in this BBC article.

More AWD news

As I posted yesterday, the government is pushing ahead with the union-inspired agenda regarding agency workers. Here's part of a statement from the REC summarising the situation:

As expected, The Prime Minister’s draft legislative programme announced today includes a specific mention of more regulation on the agency sector. The full statement on agency work is as follows:

“We are committed to both flexibility and to fairness in the workplace and we will do nothing that jeopardises jobs and businesses taking on workers. But most people agree that it is not fair that even after months in the job, agency workers can currently be paid less than the staff they work alongside ---- and as a result permanent staff can feel they are being unfairly undercut. So My Rt Hon Friend the Secretary for Business plans to bring forward legislation - subject to an agreement between employers and employees, and in Europe - that will for the first time ensure new rules for fair treatment of agency workers here in Britain.”

This statement suggests that there will be a swift move, under the next Parliament (roughly Nov 08 - Nov 09) to implement the Agency Workers Directive. The REC has consistently held the view that the EU Directive holds more chance of a workable outcome than the Private Members Bill on Agency Work that is current being debated in the House of Commons. The work of REC Recruitment Champions has played a key role in ensuring that this Bill is unlikely to go forward. As discussions now move over to a possible outcome in Brussels, REC members can play an equally important role in ensuring that any new EU Legislation is workable in the UK. The Prime Minister himself made it clear that the intention was not to jeopardise jobs and opportunities and the REC will be working with Government, the CBI and other stakeholders to ensure that this is the case.

Today’s announcement by Gordon Brown suggests that there could be agreement on the AWD at the 9th June Employment Council, or perhaps shortly after the French take over the Presidency in July. Any agreement between Ministers in Council would then have to go to the European Parliament for a second reading. If the Parliament accepts the position of the Council, with no amendments, it is possible that the final text of the AWD would be available around 6 months after agreement in Council. This is a very tight timetable if legislation to implement the Directive is to be introduced in the next Parliament.

In addition to this the Government is pushing forward with its planned Agency Work Commission. The Commission would be made up of representatives from the CBI and the TUC. The TUC have yet to confirm that they will sit on the Commission, but it is thought that this is becoming more likely.

If everything comes together the recruitment industry could see new legislation on the pay and conditions of agency workers by April 2010. The framework of the legislation will be the Directive. It is thought that the Agency Work Commission would be allowed, under the terms of the Directive, to set a derogation period after which equal treatment rights are implemented.

Will the Agency Workers Bill really relaunch Brown?

You always know when a government is in trouble: it decides to "relaunch" itself. The more relaunches, the greater the trouble. Having been thoroughly underwhelmed by the sight of Gordon's arse on TV sofas recently, and his admission of "mistakes" and commitment to "long-term decisions", I was idly waiting for a ferry today when my reverie was interrupted by news of another Brown relaunch, on Radio 4. The theme, it seems, to be announced tomorrow, in a pre-announcement of the next Queen's Speech, in which Her Maj announces the things her Government are going to announce over the months to come to an excited nation, is "fairness". A vital plank of this imposing edifice is, it seems, to be the AWB, guaranteeing "fairness" to agency workers.

It is hardly surprising that he should throw such a delicious morsel towards the left of his party. Buying off the unions and their supporters is going to be essential to our beleaguered PM over the next few months, and of course the AWB is close to the heart of the unions. The passage of this Private Members Bill through the house is reminiscent of Blair's decision to ban fox-hunting by allowing a PMB through the House, another "dog-whistle" measure in an hour of need.

If you want to find out what "fairness" means to the unions, check out the T&G's horror story.

Is legislation is going to get rid of illegal, immoral and incompetent practices in a minute percentage of recruitment agencies and their clients? That seems to be the T&G's pitch. If you are a desperate Labour MP faced with the prospect of finding a proper job some time soon, you might hope so. But the rest of us who work in the real world know that agency workers, overall, bring dynamism and flexibility to the labour market and that, despite the dire conditions of some, they very often have an "unfair" advantage, by opting for a bit of uncertainty in return for higher rewards and the chance to stay in control of their own working lives - when they work, for whom, and on what.

Gordon thinks that it will endear him to the public. Like me you may disagree and think that it will just be another bureaucratic restriction imposed on business and free movement of labour. Unfortunately he's the relaunching PM - for now.

Google have added another search box!

Looks like Google are trying to refine their searches even further. They have added an internal search box for some web sites that allow users to search more in depth for that web site. Try and type in UK government and you will see an internal search for the web site.


This does seem quite a useful idea and I know I have used it and found it very useful. There are however problems with this because there are arguments saying this can be unfair, we just want to know why do some web pages have this feature and others do not. If you type in US government into Google, this internal search box does not appear for them (at least when this posting went out). I do not understand how Google actually works out which web site deserves this feature or not. All we know is that they use their complex algorithms and metrics to work this out. Is this a way that Google is dominating the search engine world or is it actually designed solely for the users. I guess we are going to have to wait and see what happens. I welcome any thoughts you may have about this or any opposing views.

Targeting passive candidates

Jobshout brings you the best and most relevant CVs for your job. Because using Jobshout you can post your jobs on targeted niche sites, you're less likely to get unqualified and irrelevant job responses and more likely to reach qualified, passive candidates.

Besides, automated world class and effective natural SEO, an integration with Broadbean - Jobshout can be setup really easily to post jobs on other sites for example indeed.co.uk, Google base using SOAP, XML and RSS technology. It can even be further extended to meet needs of different industry sectors and we are open to make
this process even easier to mash up and share the information on different and relevant websites as per different needs.

For example, if you publish IT jobs in a specific industry or skills we can customise Jobshout to publish jobs on niche sites relevant to that industry. Now doing it all from central place saves time, remove chances of errors, and increases productivity. And in this way, Jobshout will keep your staff happy.

Try yourself by clicking Jobshout trial! or drop us an email info@jobshout.co.uk to find out more about Jobshout.

Online ad spend increase 238% year on year

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, online advertising in 2007 cost £2.8 billion. Of this, £286.8 went on 'online recruitment classifieds' - job boards to you and me.

Most jobseekers go online

This is another bit of research, this time from Borrell Associates in the US. "Opportunity abounds online: nearly half the jopbseekers who have internet access are not using online media to look for a job", it says. Well, that may mean that there is a lot of opportunity for growth, but it also means that right now, over 50% of internet-enabled people looking for work go online.

Interestingly, the report also comments on the use of video by employers and recruiters as being "the hottest new tool". Total ad spending on online video was $522 million in 2007 and this is predicted to rise nearly twentyfold by 2012. Of this a "significant portion" is going to job- and employer-related video. So if you want to steal a march on your competition, get yourself an online vid!

Invite Google to index your pages

To invite Google to come and index your page webmasters will generally add a ‘robots.txt’ file. This file tells the Googlebot that you want it to read and index your page.

Now most people will not know how to write a ‘robot.txt’ file or maybe have never even heard of it. Well Google have come up with an ingenious translator that turns your requests into ‘robot.txt’ file, it is called generate robots text. Now you don’t even need to learn the language used all you have to do is know what you want indexed.

There are however some problems relating to privacy that some robots from other sources will just ignore the file and search everything. To overcome this you should protect private information by passwords and not rely on the ‘robots.txt’ file.

For more information have a look at Google Webmaster Blog.

Ever wondered how many recruitment companies there are in the UK?

Well, we certainly have. Here, courtesy of the International Confederation
of Private Employment Agencies (CIETT) is the answer, as well as the figures for nine other countries. It makes intriguing reading:

Japan: 30,600
UK: 10,462
Germany: 7,885
USA: 6,000
South Africa: 2,739
Netherlands: 2,100
Czech Republic: 1,707
Poland: 1,541
Brazil: 1,250
France: 1,200

You can get a copy of the whole report, which is worth reading, here.

Five minutes to enhance your brand

Surprisingly – to me at least – about 80% of our clients choose to publish their job board using the jobshout.co.uk domain. That means that the address you promote is xyzpeople.jobshout.co.uk.

That’s fine as far as it goes. But how much more impressive – how much better for your brand – is it to direct people to a subdomain of your own site – such as jobs.xyzpeople.com? After all one of the main advantages of publishing your own job board is to enhance you standing in the eyes of clients and candidates, and using your own domain name for your job board just looks so much better.

And if it looks better to people, the chances are that it is going to look better to search engines too. Publishing those jobs under your own domain will tend to enhance the ranking of your whole site in relevant searches; and any standing that your site already has in the eyes of Google & Co. will, conversely help the search engine performance of your job ads.

And the good news is that the whole job should take about five minutes at the outside, though it does sound technical and, therefore, scary. But it should be really easy. Just get whoever it is that looks after your site's Domain Name Server (DNS) records (very often it's your ISP) to create an entry for a new subdomain. All this means is that, as well as the www. subdomain (www.xyzpeople.com [or whatever]), you would now have a DNS record for jobs.xyzpeople.com as well. This would be a CNAME entry (...I know, but don't worry...) pointing to www.jobshout.co.uk.

Having done that, go into your Jobshout setup and specify your site’s domain name (jobs.xyzpeople.com).

What if you have been promoting the address of your job board as being a jobshout.co.uk address? No problem – both addresses will work now.

It’s easy, and will richly repay the little bit of effort involved.

(XYZ People is the name of our demo site, in case you were wondering.)

Recruitment 2.0! Yet another 2.0 for us to use

Most of us all hear about Web 2.0 (social networking sites) but now there is talk of recruitment 2.0. Recruitment 2.0 is the new thinking, new channels and new approaches to candidate and client attraction. With all these new ideas and systems to understand, how do we use them and more importantly what are they. Below are a couple of ideas that have been suggested:

Using search engine marketing

Candidates and clients are starting to use search engines more as filters for their searches, be it for jobs or agencies. This means that the fight for marketing online and improving your ranking is becoming increasingly competitive. Search marketing also includes pay per click searches; these are starting to get used more in recruitment because of the benefits of target marketing. The Internet is such a great tool for marketing because of the democratic nature that allows any company no matter what the size to rank higher than their competitors and that is why pay per click and online marketing is so popular.

Using SMS and portable Internet

The portable Internet on phones will be vastly improved within the next couple of years making it a viable option that recruitment companies should embrace. Having a mobile web page could be crucial in reaching your target markets and again gives you another channel to capture your target market. SMS alerts are also a relatively undiscovered area that will be explored more and more as mobile Internet improves. There are already talks of getting targeted SMS messages to your phone as you walk by shops, there are of course many problems with this but this is only at discussion point and I have no doubt that in the near future it will be happening. With the Iphone already in circulation and being an all in one device that allows easier navigation around the Internet soon more affordable products will be available and this will create another channel to access potential candidates and clients.

Digital community matters

We are now seeking advice from people who have put their thoughts and reviews on the Internet; we do our own knowledge seeking and find what we want. We don’t believe what people or adverts say to us, we need to reinforce our ideas ourselves and we will spend time doing this. Ultimately the candidates and clients are getting more power and are being more choosey in deciding which company they want to work for. By using Blogs, pod casts and other tools you are encouraging a two way communication. Engaging in conversation and opinion sharing invites people to make contact and stimulates interest.

So what now?

Recruitment 2.0 is all about new channels at lower cost, more proactive, engaging and measurable. This seems to promise a lot and can seem a little too good to be true but with more and more advances I see no reason why these new channels can not be explored to the best of our abilities.

Just out of interest there are already talks about Web 3.0, we just cannot keep up it seems.

Jobshout announces job alerts functionality

Here's our latest press release...

Jobshout, the online service for recruiters and HR that lets you add your own job board to your website, has announced that it will soon allow users to automatically send alerts about newly posted jobs, via email or SMS, to candidates whose job-seeking profile matches the vacancy.

“Job alerts are a great way to communicate with candidates”, says Jobshout CEO Steve Gibson. “The ability to post a job and to have it go out immediately to people whose profile it matches can give an agency a critical advantage in a business environment in which speed can often be a major factor in whether you win business or not. And from a branding point of view having your very own job board that sends alerts to jobseekers speaks volumes about the quality of service that you provide.”

The job alerts functionality is part of a broader programme to expand the Jobshout package through its Jobshout Pro add-on package. The first module to be announced was the ability to send job details to the UK’s popular Broadbean job posting system.

The job alerts system has been under development for several months and is due for release in a few weeks time.

About Jobshout
The Jobshout service began in 2007. It lets people who are recruiting online – in other words recruitment and staffing agencies, and other organisations who want to advertise their vacancies on the web – quickly set up a job board, with their own branding and the look and feel of their own website. They can then publish it under their own domain name, or on jobshout.com.

Jobshout is very quick to set up, there are no start-up costs, and it is a hosted service, so there is no software to install or maintain. Publishing a job on the web becomes the work of a couple of minutes, and in the process Jobshout does the sort of work that a web expert would do to ensure that the ad stands the best possible chance of being found in searches on Google, MSN, and so on.

Jobshout monitors applicants and CVs, and its built-in analytics show how well individual ads, and the site as a whole, are working.

Jobshout is a division of recruitment specialists Workstation.

For interviews or further information, contact Nathan Mayatt at info@jobshout.co.uk or call +44 (0)207 371 7161.

Interested and want to be an early adopter? Contact Alistair.

Job searching by salary

We are in the process of making a small but significant change to the way the Jobshout system does its searches, which is to allow visitors to your Jobshout job board to search by salary range.

I know, I know... this is fairly standard job board functionality, and I won't go into the reason why we haven't done it before, which are technical and rather dull. Surprisingly few people ever seemed to notice that it wasn't there.

However, searching by salary range is a rather important thing if you are sending out job alerts by email or - especially - SMS (which costs), if your search criteria are being used as the criteria for your job alerts. Basically, you want people to be getting alerts that are as relevant to them as possible, so that they are always happy to receive them.

(Watch this blogspace for another important announcement.)

New sites will have the salary searching built in as a matter of course. If you are an existing Jobshout user, then we will be getting in touch with you in due course. If salary searching is important and you want it NOW email Alistair.

REC pledges support for proposed commission on agency work

The REC have sent a letter to the Prime Minister backing the Agency Work Commission as well as their stance on the Agency Workers Bill and the EU Agency Workers Directive.

Tom Hadley, of the REC has requested an "objective evaluation of the agency work landscape in the UK". They are wanting a practical solution to the exploitation of workers without having a negative impact on the temp and contract workers.

Do you know anyone that this job would suit?

Here's an ad for a new business position that we are looking to fill:

Are you a Recruitment Consultant or SEO Business Developer looking for something a bit different? If so, we could have the perfect role for you.

This is a pivotal position within Jobshout, where there is great potential for personal growth (and earnings!). The role is a real mix of developing new clients as well as building on existing client relationships. So fantastic account management, organisation business development and communication skills are essential.

You’ll responsible for the day-to-day client liaison from the initial contact; as well as working with the rest of the team where you’ll be brain storming new ideas for marketing and business development. As you can see this isn’t your typical new business role!

Based in Fulham, with recently refurbished offices, a friendly and relaxed culture/vibe (plus a great pub across the road)…it really is a lovely place to work.

If you are a motivated self-starter who likes the freedom to work in a way that suits you and have a passion/knowledge of the digital world then we would love to hear from you.

If this sounds like you or anyone that you know, please get in touch with us. It's a great role for an exciting product in a fun team.

Get your voice heard

As you know the Agency Workers Bill has gone through to the next stage and we are encouraging people to sign our petition and post their comments on our Blog. Whether you’re for the Agency Workers Bill or against it we want to hear your views and get a debate going. Are you an employer who finds temporary workers to be a useful solution or are you a temporary worker who feels mistreated? Whatever your opinions are on the Agency Workers Bill let us know…

We look forward to hearing from you.

Petition refuses to die

Having put it to death and then resurrected it as an experiment, we are now planning to resubmit the petition at an opportune moment, assuming that the Agency Workers Bill lives on. Currently Brown looks to be trying to find a fudge that will keep the unions happy.

So the petition remains open. Do sign it, if like us you think that AWB would, overall, be bad for temps, employers, recruiters and the economy as a whole.

Blink and you may have missed it

If you were in any doubt as to whether the media regards our industry as boring, it should have been dispelled by its response to the debate over the Agency Workers Bill. The only thing that seems to have awakened the lobby from its torpor is the fact that a lot of Labour MPs turned up to vote and sing the Red Flag (yes really).

Yesterday union bosses were called in to Number Ten and Brown apparently suggested a dither, or "official review", as it is known in the trade. The should kick the issue into the long grass for about six months, but it sounds as though the godfathers were not buying the idea.

The general consensus, such as there is seems to be that the government is opposed to the bill and so it would be astonishing if it went through. However the unions and their client MPs look certain to fight the issue too and defy the government. The last thing Brown will want to do is to call in the Tories to defeat his own party.

Does Google read? - update

It seems that the answer is yes. Having removed the words "this petition is closed" it is now back at number three when you search for "agency workers bill petition". The two entries above it are about the Jobshout AWB petition - but they never disappeared from the listings, just the page they were pointing at.

Does Google read?

An intriguing postscript to the petition.

Yesterday it figured high in all relevant searches on Google. Same thing this morning. By lunchtime it had TOTALLY disappeared from search engines results. It was not just buried somewhere deep down - it was gone.

What made the difference? Well late yesterday we edited the page to say "This petition is now closed." So does Google read now?

In the interests of science we have taken that statement off the page to see what happens. We'll let you know.

Thanks for the support

Many thanks to those of you who supported our last minute petition against the AWB, and to everyone who helped us publicise it. We got 363 signatures, which I suppose is not bad considering that we only started it on Monday, and managed to build up quite a head of steam over the four days of its short life.

The petition was delivered to every MP yesterday.

Agency Workers Bill passed

Bad news today, I'm afraid. The predicted government opposition to the Bill did not materialise, and neither, for the most part did Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. In event the government sat on its hands, presumably as a sop to its sponsors, the trade unions, whose baby this was.

According to the Electoral Commission 18 months ago, unions provide Labour with 75% of its funds. The influence they wield as a result became clear today.

The CBI, I am told, predicts a loss of 250,000 jobs if this Bill passes into law.

Importance of links on Google

Adding external and internal links is very important for Google as it shows a vote of confidence for the web page. Google ranks this very highly. Google sorts out pages in order of confidence as well as other variables because Google likes relevant content.

A great way to have links is through blogs as it shows similar content and because they (should) have new content added at least once a week as Google’s robots will visit the blog more. You can also submit press releases and links to directories to increase the amount of links to your site. You must be careful when you add link as linking to “link farms” are not always the best way as “quality” links are what Google is searching for. If you have a link from a page with a higher pagerank than you it is more beneficial than a web site with a lower pagerank.

When you are adding links to your site you should bear in mind what the users will want, there is no point in having a link from a garden centre if your business is aerodynamics.

Links are not the only way to increase your page rank but it is certainly a very important aspect of this and one which should not be overlooked

Sign our petition

The Agency Workers Bill goes before the House on the 22nd. If you have not already registered your disapproval, there is still time to do so by signing our petition.

Good news for small agencies

The good news is that Google is devoting a lot of its energies of late to providing search results that are relevant to the searcher's location. Now, of course, it has always done this to some degree - if you were a UK user, you tended to get UK results.

However, just recently we have found that search results are varying to a surprising degree. We discuss search engine results quite a lot with clients, normally over the phone and have suddenly found that a client in Manchester, say, or even on the other side of London, can be seeing significantly different results in a Google search.

Locally biassed search results have to be excellent news for smaller agencies. You see, you really can compete with the big players.

Here's an interesting thing...

We posted Nathan's 'rant' on the Jobshout website a few days ago. Do a Google search today for 'employment agencies bill' and you'll find it at 6th out of 6.75 million results. Not bad! A good example of how well Jobshout's search engine optimization techniques work.

Incidentally REC Members who have been loyally paying their subscriptions could be justifiably miffed that the REC are nowhere near top rankings, despite its claims to have been vigorously campaigning on this topic. Interestingly pages about recruitment agencies in Fort William seem to do well. William... Bill... - geddit?

Small but deadly - The Agency Workers Bill

Here's what Jobshout's Nathan Mayatt has to say about the Bill. He describes as a "rant", but it's a rant with a lot of sense.

The Agency Workers Bill will have a wide sweeping effect on the welfare of everyone in society in one way or another. The Bill and what it appears to aim at sounds fine, but it will do the complete opposite. The Bill should target the problem and not create worse conditions for people who benefit from flexible working. The Bill as it stands will affect people looking for work, employers (particularly small businesses), recruitment agencies and the economy as a whole.

Any Member of Parliament should assess the negative impacts of this Bill on their constituency.

Assumptions
This Bill is based on a number of assumptions that are not true.
○ That all recruitment agencies condone unfair treatment of people
○ That all temporary workers want the exactly the same rights as permanent people
○ That all temporary workers are paid less
○ That all temporary workers are forced to work in unfair condition
○ That all the power and control is with the employer or employment agency

In the digital and creative industry, which is the sector I know most about, temporary and freelance people are paid more than full-timers, control the bookings they take and work in exactly the same conditions as permanent staff. People are moving from permanent into freelance and temporary roles, as it gives them greater control over their lives, better pay and a better work life balance.

There are already a number of laws in place to protect temporary workers, from the Employment Agencies Act, Working Time Directive, Minimum Wage and many more. Cases in law have given temporary staff permanent employment status.

Who the bill will affect:
Recruitment agencies

The Bill states that nothing should come in the way of a temporary worker taking up direct employment with the same employer and that any contract that seeks to prevent this, or has the effect of doing so, will be void. This would mean that an employer who was using an agency for temporary or freelance staff would be able to take on that individual without being charged a fee - a gross infringement of the legitimate rights of the agency. There is no restriction on the length of time that individual has been with them or if they operate as a limited company contractor or are on PAYE.

This may sound fine, but companies use employment agencies as they do not have the resources or money to pay temporary staff immediately and do not have the time to find talented temporary workers. As all permanent roles will need to be offered to temporary workers then a company may see this as an opportunity to get a free placement. This would make it economically unviable to offer a service on a temporary basis. The impact on small to medium sized recruitment companies would be dramatic, making it impossible to operate. As a consequence it would drive large numbers of people out of work.

This Bill would drive a lot of recruitment to large recruitment agencies as smaller agencies would not be able to survive. This would force large numbers of people out of work and create worse working conditions for many people.

The niche recruitment market focuses on offering a tailored professional service to both candidates and clients, as by definition it is niche and must work on quality and word of mouth. By forcing those out of business will mean that there will not be the same level of specialist service to both candidates and clients in niche markets.

Direct employers
All businesses need the ability to offer people work on a temporary basis, as a way of managing seasonal peaks, fluctuations in client activity and the economy changing. Without this companies will not be able to react to market changes, making them less competitive on a global scale. This would mean that in the medium to long-term the economy will not be able to grow, fewer roles will be created and working conditions will decline.

Small businesses now are the major employers of the future. Many organisations that started 20 years ago as small companies now employ large numbers of people but they would be stifled in their early stages without the ability to adapt to market changes, thus effecting the long-term viability of the economy.

As large organisations have the ability to sustain certain changes in the market and by their nature do not survive on flexibility but on long term strategies, means that this Bill will play right in to the hands of multi-national and major corporate groups.

People looking for work
Many people need flexible work to be able to manage their life style. The idea that everyone wants to work on a permanent basis at one company or institution is not correct. With the potential that recruitment employment businesses are unable to offer the service of temporary work would directly impact upon them.

If you’re in your twenties and you need work between jobs or university, or for any other reason, what you what is more money, not higher sick pay.

Many people like the control of being able to work on a temporary basis. We have people that have been freelancing with us for many years, as we pay them on time, protect them and find them work. This could all be lost if this Bill came into effect.

Economy
The economy needs the ability to have a flexible work force. This does not mean that they are exploited but are treated fairly. If someone receives increased pay to compensate for less benefits and the lack of security that is not a bad thing.

If this Bill were to come into effect now it would drive many people out of work in permanent and temporary roles. Stifle the economy from being able to adapt and push itself out of any downturn, making the UK less competitive on a global scale.

Summary
I agree with the Unions that people who are exploited should be protected. But the Unions want power and influence. Driving the workforce, at any cost, towards permanent rather than temporary status will tend to give them that..

8 days and counting...

If you are likely to be affected by the Agency Workers Bill, there are just eight days to lobby your MP. It looks like a disaster waiting to happen to the temporary recruitment industry.

Here's an article on personneltoday.com.

And here's the thing itself

More crazyegg

Well, I've been running a test on crazyegg.com on the workstation.co.uk's homepage, the longest-running Jobshout account, for 17 days now, and said I'd be back, so here I am.

I've just been showing the results around the office, and you have to say that they pretty impressive. This screenshot, for instance, shows a colour-coded map of who came from which referrer and where they clicked on the page. Then you've got 'heatmaps' showing the hotspots on your page, stats showing the most clicked links, and an overlay showing how many people clicked which link, and which you can drill down into to get referrer information.

It's the topographical information (who clicked exactly where), and the ability to see this graphically that gives crazyegg its impact. And impact it does have - definitely the 'wow' factor. Christine our marketer is getting very excited - "probably", she says, "a little too excited."

You can try it out free. Well worth it.

www.crazyegg.com

Going for redundancy

Back in December I said that we had started the process of separating out content management (all the work you do in the Jobshout back end, in other words) and the business of publishing pages on the web. The idea is to improve performance and provide a more resilient system. I'm pleased to say that we have now done this and it is now live on www.workstation.co.uk, where it can be tested in a live environment. It has certainly been successful in speeding up performance.

If you want to compare speed of job searching, you can use the "unseparated" system at jobs2.workstation.co.uk.

Ultimately we are aiming for a completely mirrored system which will mean "redundancy". While this may not be a great thing in the world of employment, it is greatly to be desired in computer systems - it means that if one thing fails there's always another to take over.

Another more-than-satisifed customer

"Jobshout is an outstanding and cost effective business tool for young businesses looking to maximise their web presence. There is no better offer on the market and a superb support team to assist with every step. I strongly advise any new or existing recruitment agencies to join Jobshout" - Rob Wickenden Director, Harry Owen Ltd

Thanks Rob, for your very generous comments.

Click here to take a look at the Harry Owen website.

We implemented the entire site, by the way, not just the job board.

Jobshout page tracker technology

Did you know this?

Jobshout stats use Jobshout's very own technology called Page Tracker, which logs every page impression on any Jobshout job board.

This works regardless of where the job board is being hosted. Even if a job board is running on mirror servers in different countries Page Tracker will make sure that every hit is collated, analyzed and ready for reporting in Jobshout Stats almost instantly.

In this way Jobshout gives you accurate figure of visitors, jobs applications, job page impressions and much more via its state of the art stats section.

Jobshout is growing

Jobshout has gained an extra team member; Victoria Fry has joined Jobshout as a new Account Manager. With a strong background in recruitment and the digital world, Victoria has a great insight into the industry.

She will be a great asset to Jobshout and keep us moving forward with her creative ideas and recruitment knowledge.

crazyegg.com

I've been desperately trying to see how I came across this great idea. It's one of the advantages of using a news aggregator that it helps you to come across really interesting things on the web, of which this is definitely one. The downside is that you get so much information that it's easy to lose track of where it came from.

Crazyegg lets you "see" graphical representations of web analytics data on the page. This is potentially brilliant, to have a visual impression of what links people click when they visit your site, where the hotspots are, how patterns change according to where the visitor came from or how quickly they responded when they arrived - things like that. It's free for a basic account and pretty reasonably priced at higher levels. And it's one line of javascript put into a page to get the analytics going.

Well, I''m going to try it out. Watch this space.

Back to the grind again

Well, here we are again - with belated New Years wishes to all our readers. And we come back to the wonderful news of yet another pot shot at the temporary recruitment market. In case you have missed it, a Bill will be debated in Parliament next month about the rights of temporary workers. This is a cause celebre for the trade unions, who have been grinding on about it for years. They were a driving force behind the 2004 Employment Agencies Act Regulations, which severely hampered recruiter’s abilities to protect their legitimate commercial interests in respect of temps. It stems from a belief that temps are routinely and cynically maltreated, and yet, to the best of my knowledge, they have never advanced any statistical evidence in support of this.

Here’s the REC’s counter on the subject:

Temping provides instant access to work, it allows people to balance their work life with other commitments and can act as a stepping stone into employment from those furthest away from the jobs market. REC has promoted a strong and successful campaign to Government about the true nature of temping. This has been supported by research from REC’s Industry Research Unit that has shown that over 80% of temps are satisfied with their assignment and welcome the opportunities that temping brings them. Research has also shown that the resources that temps bring to businesses helps them cover exceptional periods, from standing in for a worker who is on leave to helping to grow a small business and take it to the next level.

What the REC does NOT say, of course, is that a significant percentage of temps temp because they prefer to, and because they can often earn significantly more than their fulltime colleagues.

And here’s a link to the REC’s news item.

Sounds like time to dust off that MP and get him/her to speak up in the House in support of the dynamic, flexible work market that the UK recruitment industry provides.