Get offline for effective online recruitment

I’m regularly reminded of the importance of getting offline if you want to be an effective online recruiter. On Thursday I attended another nursing event. It underlined two crucial issues about the typical healthcare jobseeker who uses our jobs board for nurses:

1. they aren’t all familiar with the concept of job boards

2. many haven’t heard of our jobs board or our competitors’ jobs boards

For me, it completely justifies the time and expense that it takes to get out and meet our potential new audience: it helps spread the word to those people who aren’t finding us via our online marketing. So we’re extending our reach in a really human way.

Obviously, this is good for the nurses who’ll end up using our site. And it’s great for our clients – they expect us to be exploring a variety of avenues to bring an ever bigger pool of targeted job seekers to their jobs.

As always, I’m baffled why other job boards don’t attend more events. Some don’t attend any. It makes me wonder whether the online recruitment industry could sometimes be accused of being too insular.

Maybe we’re a little blinded by the science we use – progressive technologies, online social media, ‘mashups’ and the like certainly have their place. But, depending on your market, it may actually mean very little to the audience you’re hoping to attract.

Without doubt, the senior nurse prescribers I met on Thursday would have stood stony-faced if I’d started talking about mashups! It was enough, I think, for them to understand that we can help them find a job, or, perhaps, recruit staff when they next need to do so.

Browse our list of UK nursing events.

Online recruitment tip – get back to basics

Social networking is all well and good. And most, like me, have jumped on the bandwagon for good or bad.

But chasing the next best thing in online recruitment practice shouldn’t be at the expense of traditional procedures. A good, well-written job description is still important. We still see some atrociously written job ads on Nurses.co.uk and Carehomejobs.com. We’re on a mission to change this. So before you start tweeting, check this out. Let’s walk before we run!

Below are some great online recruitment job posting tips. We’ll be taking them with us to the events we’re attending in 2010. So this is a sneak preview…

Healthcare Online Job Posting Tips - Use our expertise to write winning online job ads

We see thousands of ads that are poorly constructed. Here are some of the most common problems:

• Not enough detail
• Poor English
• Too broad
• Duplicated job postings
• Too prescriptive (sell it, don’t just tell it!)

By following this guide you’ll save time, get more applications, and be a better online recruiter!

Get busy

• Spend more time on the healthcare job boards that work
• Post all your new vacancies
• Post specific jobs, don’t post a one-ad-fits-all job
• Repost jobs at least once a week
• Mondays are the busiest day so get active on Mondays
• Know your keywords for each job

Great Titles catch the eye

• Make job titles clear
• ‘RMN Care Home Manager’ not just ‘RMN’ or ‘Home Manager’
• Include keywords in job titles
• Avoid exclamation marks or unusual characters

Winning Job Ads Get Good Applications

• Unique Content. Write interesting, informative and unique job descriptions
• The job you post on one site should be different to the job you post on another
• Know your keywords and use them
• Prescriptive: Tell the job! Key competencies, person specification, salary, location
• Descriptive: Sell the job. It’s not all me! me! me! and what you want!
• Brevity is king. Keep it brief. Web wants clear and brief
• Post to form fields correctly (‘£25000 per hour’ is not really a healthcare salary)
• Don’t spam, users hate seeing the same job posted many times

The race to embrace technology – but don’t forget your users and clients

Yesterday I read about a new job board that’s claiming an original offering: They’ll pay jobseekers to upload their CV. That’s a new one. It might work. I’m not saying it’s a daft idea. Although I’m unconvinced it would work for our healthcare job sites (nursing jobs, healthcare jobs, or jobs in care homes).

It reminded me of an article I read last week too. In that, the recruitment consultants Harvey Nash tell us that social networking sites are being used more and more in recruitment by job boards like us and recruiters… But not, ironically, by the jobseekers themselves.

Only 12% of the job-hunting market deemed most likely to do so (18-24 year olds) are using social networking to look for a job.

I laughed when I read that the same research said that many employers think these people should be using social networking to look for a job. And that they should ‘develop their personal brand’ as a jobseeker. It’s like dad telling son what to do with his spare time.

Kids! Stop using Facebook to tell your mates about how wasted you got on Saturday night and start using it to develop your own personal brand instead.

Sure, we use social networking to reach nurses. And, yes, we put our nursing jobs on Twitter, and I, too, Tweet. We also use Facebook. But I wouldn’t try and tell people to start using all the various technologies to develop their brand in order to get a job. Some may not want to. Some find it hard enough to get 5 minutes to browse some jobs.

Job boards and recruiters need to keep a sense of perspective of their own importance. Facebook and Twitter weren’t invented for us. Tread carefully. My personal view is that some are in danger of losing sight of the user. For instance, we have our own nursing jobs iPhone app. But we still remember that we get phone calls from some healthcare workers who can’t even create their CV on a computer.

For this reason we probably wouldn’t pay jobseekers to upload their CV. I’d be worried that we might attract only those people looking to make a quick buck. Better, I think, to help those genuine nurses and healthcare industry staff who need our help creating a CV. And that’s not achieved via social networking.

Nursing Jobs iPhone app for FREE

Great news. Our own Nurses.co.uk iPhone app is available free to download. We’re the first job board to offer nursing jobs on your iPhone! Apple have just approved it today!

Click here to find it on iTunes. Or just search for ‘nursing jobs’ in your phone’s iTunes app. You’ll recognise our little shiny healthcare-cross icon.

You’ll be able to search, browse, save and email nursing jobs. Better still, if you’re already a registered user of Nurses.co.uk you can apply to jobs on your phone! Not registered yet? To register just upload your CV go here.

We dance like elves for healthcare recruitment fun

To prove that, deep down, those of us in healthcare recruitment, every now and then, really can have fun, we put on little felt hats and curly slippers and danced like elves. Just for you.

Watch us dance.  Happy Christmas.

Don’t let Mr X get you on ageist job ads

I was listening to Radio Five Live tonight. Apparently, there’s a man (called Mr X) who has won over 100 legal disputes against companies over their ageist job ads.

It turns out that Mr X is more in to profiteering than campaigning for the rights of all job-seekers.

Mr X has had most success on the term ‘recent graduate’. For instance, “applications are invited from recent graduates”. Mr X then threatens court action and negative publicity in the press, and the advertiser settles out of court.

Arguably, explained a barrister on the programme, Mr X could be challenged on the simple fact that a graduate need not be of any particular age. But winning a victory in court would require time and money. And Mr X is cunning enough to know most companies prefer to settle than spend months dealing with solicitors and their fees.

It points up one really obvious conclusion: be aware of the laws governing discrimination in recruitment advertising. Every recruitment consultant should be wise to this because it’s covered in detail during the REC’s introductory course, Certificate in Recruitment Practice. Similarly, HR professionals will be aware.

It’s middle management that Mr X is really targetting here. Those line managers who’s day-to-day job is not hiring staff.

So if you’re reading this, and you’re about to post a job ad why not have a quick check on discriminatory laws in recruitment advertising. Don’t let Mr X sting you too.

Recruiters: If a jobs worth posting, it’s worth posting well

We’re sick of duplicate jobs. There’s such a powerful argument against doing it. Users don’t like it, search engines don’t like it, the REC guidelines suggest against it.

So here at Nurses.co.uk we’re going to set ourselves the challenge of converting all healthcare recruiters to become better job advertisers.

Our site, Nurses.co.uk, has 1000s of nursing jobs posted to its various nursing categories. Unfortunately, not all of them are brilliantly written. That’s understandable – time is short. But one thing we want to encourage every nursing recruiter to do is write UNIQUE jobs. Even a badly worded unique posting is better than a well written duplicated posting.

If a job is worth advertising, it’s worth doing well. No two jobs are the same. But we see many jobs advertised in exactly the same way. Same words, same location, same job title.

From a job seeker’s point of view, this is extremely irritating. Tell job seeking nurses about a job correctly and you’ll get more applications.

From Google’s point of view it’s potentially damaging. Damaging to the site that publishes the jobs. This is because Google doesn’t like duplicate content.  And you, literally, can’t argue with Google. Believe me, we’ve tried.

So if you want to increase applications to your jobs, write each one individually. And that goes for the same kind of job but in different locations. Write about the different location in each job.

You’ll benefit from doing it, we promise.

If you want our tips on writing great job ads, let me know. (You can email me via my about page on this blog.)

Poor nursing job adverts drive me nuts

Just for the record, those of us who work at Nurses.co.uk (a jobs web site for the UK nursing industry) don’t post the job advertisements listed on the site. Nor do we know any of the details about jobs. The jobs are posted by our clients, who are NHS Trusts and PCTs, recruitment agencies, care homes, and private hospitals.

It’s frustrating, then, to have phone calls each day from nurses who don’t know where a job is, or exactly what kind of Theatre Nurse job it is that’s being advertised, or what the pay is going to be.

It’s not their fault of course. If I were a nurse, looking for Theatre jobs in Manchester, I would want to know in which part of Manchester the job is based, what the hours are, the type of hospital it is and the pay, exactly. It’s completely understandable.

Nursing recruiters, on the most part, are expert in nursing recruitment. Some, however, aren’t. But they need to learn. And they must understand the needs of the very discerning, skilled and qualified nursing workforce that they’re looking to attract to their jobs.

If a nursing recruiter doesn’t understand the difference between an ODP and a Theatre Nurse then they ought to take themselves away and find out before attempting to recruit them. Otherwise they can expect to receive zero applications and do a disservice to those of us interested in maintaining the highest standards in the nursing recruitment industry.

Nursing Degree – A Good Move

It has to be a good move to have a qualified nursing workforce who have all taken a degree course.

The expectations placed upon the modern nurse are manifold. As well as therapeutic care and specialist experience and expertise, nurses are expected to manage often complex decision-making processes. Learning how to process those decisions is key. We all know that the degree course in England will give student nurses these skills.

Also, the insistence of community-based work experience within the course is great.

The RCN is right to generally back this move by the Department of Health. It is also right to make its concerns known. The three key concerns are:

1. a wariness of emphasis on targets
2. funding for student nurses should remain available and fair
3. therapeutic care must remain in the foreground of a nurse’s role

So long as the RCN and also UNISON keep pressing these points and ensure that they are adhered to, this change will be a good one for nursing jobs.

CV Watchdogs Let Nurses Down

Some job sites offer a CV Watchdog service. Nurses.co.uk chooses not to. I think CV Watchdogs can encourage bad recruitment practice.

A CV Watchdog is a feature available to recruiters on some job web sites. They allow a recruitment consultant to receive a CV by email as soon as the CV is registered on the jobs site.

I can completely understand why this is attractive from a recruiter’s point of view. In itself, a Watchdog isn’t evil. When I recruited, I’d have loved the convenience of it.

But, as always, it’s how it’s used. Watchdogs reinforce a culture of recruitment practice that places speed of CV delivery over candidate research.

But when did speed of email delivery become a key element of good recruitment practice? Good healthcare consultants run checks on a CV before forwarding it to their client. Knowledge and nursing industry experience, combined with strong candidate communication, ensures the recruiter does a good job. Candidate, job and client are all matched. This takes time.

And taking time and being proactive is something that runs counter to the nature and purpose of a CV Watchdog – their primary function is immediacy and ease. Recruitment codes go out the window as consultants rush to get the CV first and send it out before their rivals in a ‘first-past-the-post’ recruitment race.

In a competitive trading environment, with no laws obliging recruitment consultants to follow best practice, it’s inevitable that agencies will attempt to win fees in different ways.

Fees are crucial of course. And nursing recruitment is competitive.

But nursing recruitment is not to be taken lightly. Therapeutic care, administration of medicine, restraining patients with mental health diseases, understanding the needs of a patient with terminal cancer, showing compassion to grieving family members, assisting surgeons in theatre… these are the vital skills required from the person in the CV. They aren’t always immediately apparent in a two page document. A phone call or two is required, at least. Perhaps some background checks.

Indeed, too much speed might mean key elements are overlooked. And this is potentially damaging to both patient and the industry.