Look, we know we’re great and you, very kindly, tell us we’re great, as well…But now those lovely people over at Monster have given us another, unexpected shot in the arm for our online recruitment skills.
Their Iphone App uses one of our jobs to showcase how a well rendered and well written job appears. All with our lovely logo and one of our old jobs on right in your face – POW…Out of the 5000+ live jobs they only went and chose good old Net Natives.
We have been getting all busy with our Facebook Recruitment Service for recruitment companies and job boards and received some nice PR today.
This is just the first round of it, but thought you may find it interesting…
http://www.onrec.com/news/net_natives_powers_recruitment_inside_fa
http://www.recruiter.co.uk/1006254.article?cmpid=REC04&cmptype=newsletter
What’s even more lovely are the interested recruitment companies calling us up straight after reading and wanting to work with us.
Thanks for that…
This question is being asked a lot at the moment as the BSI looks to work Online Recruitment world looks to create a set of standards to measure and track the best practices for the online recruitment industry.
There have been a lot of discussion about it over at our Recruitment Futurology Group.
I was invited to attend the first BSI meeting about 18 months ago. It was a good turn out, the CEOs or directors from every major UK job board and senior representatives from REC.
The issue was (and is) over responsibility. If a job board adheres to a standard set of principles, but the person who posts the jobs (the recruiters) do not, then where is the value of that kite mark? At that time, there was unilateral agreement that it couldn’t work.
But why not? Why not have a common set of principles across all of the job boards. Why not say that as a job board, you should only publish jobs that are for REAL vacancies, where EVERY candidate will be notified of acceptance or failure, where there is a common complaints procedure and which are bound by a set of metrics that measure success?
As a recruitment owner, I would love to be able to say to my clients that we only work with job boards that have the BSI standard. As a business, we adhere to those metrics, why shouldn’t our suppliers?
Why shouldn’t the job board industry want to try to do what’s best for the clients, candidates and industry as a whole?
As the MD of one of the Job Boards said to me in another forum, “Steve – if only all recruiters adhered to a set of principles around candidate management – sadly, as we all know, they do not. For Job Boards I suspect its a bit like ‘biting the hand that feeds them’. They grew up on staffing industry billings and came to rely on them – turning on them in this approach would risk 50% of their revenues I suspect.”
I think that pretty much sums it up…!
Twitter’s is never out of the news, whether with rallying cries against those damn Yankees criticising the NHS or the power of citizen journalism helping mobilise radical thought in Iran.
But I can’t help feeling its mighty PR machine has missed a trick by not ascribing Twitter’s influence over the gradual global recovery from recession.
Twitter has been perfectly placed during this period of slow trade and rising unemployment to be used as the effective business tool for the quick witted. Twitter’s reach and ability to bring together like minded people has provided a platform for business growth for those businesses willing to embrace it.
Though we are not in the same league as Dell, Net Natives can directly attribute £1000s of revenues generated by twitter to our business model. Real revenues for our online recruitment services, not “how to use twitter” or other idiots’ guide and abstract revenues.
And I still haven’t cracked it or think I am using it to its maximum potential. I still think before I tweet (cardinal sin, I know), don’t put out enough personal information; engage enough with my audience, or whatever else I am constantly instructed to do by another twitterers. But, so what…I (and my company) are having a go – getting involved and using the medium.
But, whilst I am an evangelist, I am an old fashioned sort of fella at heart. When I started work, the only means for communication was the phone and fax (why do people still insist on faxes!), so I still use the telephone call as my primary communication tool, where I can. But, we are now in the business of mixed mediums.
I use Twitter, but don’t rely on it. I don’t agree with comments that mandate sole faith in social media and proclaim the end of other mediums. This short term view will not help develop business, but will restrict growth and scope. In my business, online recruitment, the key is to maximise all avenues (be it recruitment advertising, SEO, SEM, social media, referrals – whatever, do it all but do them well).
I started with the question, “Can Twitter end the recession?” I suppose the answer is yes, but not on its own…
We’ve recently expanded our job board reach at Net Natives and we now post our clients roles across our network of over 700 job boards. Quite frankly this figure is so large that it sounds a bit ridiculous…
But look closer…
and of course, Monster, TotalJobs, Reed and a few others increasing this tally and you soon get beyond the 700 mark…
But this begs the question, “How many job boards are out there (we are the experts and, believe me, no one knows) and how much more consolidation will the market take during the economic downturn”?
I have recently been asked to write a piece on the future of the online recruitment market for Online Recruitment Magazine, so I won’t pre-empt what I am going to say in this article, but, needless to say, one thing is pretty obvious…
During this continued downturn, there is going to be more consolidation in the market and the clever job boards are building their reach through effective affiliations. The fight for recognition is by getting onto that first page on Google and the boards with the widest reach are the ones winning this battle.
We’ll keep reviewing our suppliers and only recommend the sites we feel will work. But, until the dust settles, we’ll continue to patiently explain that 700 isn’t that fanciful after all. In fact, it is only going to go up…
As always, of course, Net Natives would always recommend advertising broadly across the major UK job boards. But we’re an online recruitment company, NOT a job board reseller – we want our clients to engage with the best talent, directly. We always challenge our clients to do more. We say, ”Why not compete against the job boards directly…!”
If over 75% of job seekers turn to Google at the start of their job search and “Jobs” is consistently one of their top search terms, it should be pretty obvious why you would want to back up a job board advertising campaign with an effective Search Engine Marketing Campaign using Google. Coupled with effective online recruitment advertising, it is perfect for specific or ongoing recruitment campaigns. And here’s why…
All well and good. But be warned - ALWAYS make sure that your advert relates to the landing page you are driving traffic to and make it easy for candidates to apply when they are there.
Right, here endeth the lesson. If anyone wants to talk to me about recruitment PPC campaigns in more detail or has more comments to add feel free.
A slight tangent to the usual online recruitment stories and thoughts is the fact that we have signed up to the 10:10 Project to commit to cutting our carbon emissions. We are now a…
You can follow any twitter activity with the #1010 tag.
We are a small online recruitment business, so our impact is already pretty negligable, but we’ll do our best to try to do more…By putting this post out to our friends and subscribers, we hope to encourage others to get involved.
With nearly half a million job vacancies posted online at any one time it is important to make sure that your role is the one that’s not only found, but is going to motivate an application. Here are some points to consider when writing your job posting……
• SELL, SELL, SELL…This is an ADVERT not a job description. This is the first most people will have heard of you and it’s your chance to sell your company and your wonderful position. It is important for people to know who they work for AND what they are going to be doing, so this is your opportunity to tell candidates about YOUR unique selling points and make you stand out. Are you a successful, growing business, have you won awards, what’s the company “vibe” like? Everything is relevant. company vibes, size etc.
• Make sure that the first 2 lines are short, snappy mentioning the title and the company, to encourage the reader to carry on. Sorry to say, but your advert won’t be the only one your candidate will read. If your advert is too long the candidates will lose interest before they reach the apply button. Make sure you get the right information in front of them from the start. As for the rest of the advert, keep that short and to the point, as well, where relevant, use bullet points.
• Be as precise as you can be with the location, add the postcode. If you advertise a job as with a location of “Sussex” a candidates will have to search on “Sussex” to find the job, searching on a specific location within Sussex i.e. Brighton, will not show your job. Some companies ask us to put “nationwide” in their job ads because they have lots of jobs across lots of locations. However, very few job seekers will be willing to look for your perfect job anywhere in the UK, this needs to be kept in mind and thought about.
• It is important that you add the salary details to the advert with benefits. Salary is one of the absolute key aspects of searching, if you don’t have your salary up there, chances are you won’t be found. But highlight EVERY benefit of working with you, from bonus, through to parking space. Everything is relevant.
• But, regardless of what YOU may call the job, make sure the title and the job advert content relates to what your perfect candidate will be searching for. For example, just because you are going to call your next hire, “the VP of Client Relations”, hardly any excellent candidates will search for that term. Tailor the title to what will get the best response.
• KEY WORDS are called key for a reason… this is what will render your advert higher up the search listing against the search criteria of your candidate. Make sure that the body of the advert is key word optimized against the search criteria of the advert as well as the title. But, BE WARNED, too much key word optimization will mean that it will be considered SPAM…
• Sector and skills are equally important. Many people choose to work in a particular industry sector and set their search criteria against that sector. Always consider this when creating the job advert. Likewise, In many professions qualifications are very important and would be what your perfect applicant would search on. In accounting, for example, it’s ACA, ACCA, CIMA. In IT, the specific tools and languages are of paramount importance. If your job requires specific qualifications, add them.
• Personalise the advert, Make sure that the language used in directed to the type of candidate you wish to attract. Make it salesy for a sales person, but a technical person will want a clinical description with facts whilst it would be more suitable when addressing a creative person an advert full of adjectives and enticements will appeal.
If you have any questions about what makes a successful recruitment advert, just ask for Michaela at Net Natives, I’d be happy to help.
I have a passion for, and a personal investment in, online recruitment, so I was very proud to have been asked to sit on the panel of consulting judges to help shortlist the NORAS (National Online Recruitment Awards).
Now in their ninth year, the NORAs are seen as the standard by which recruitment websites are measured. The awards are initially nominated by job seekers themselves. This year they received almost 25,000 nominations for 654 separate websites.
The finalists were assessed by a selection panel of industry experts (well, and me), from a candidate’s point of view, to arrive at the shortlist of sites across 12 categories.
As an industry insider it was an interesting exercise to see what boundaries are being pushed to help companies recruit better for themselves. Some interesting propositions from small businesses, but the traditional recruitment agency space felt very dated.
Will be interesting to see who actual winners are later this year. I’ll keep you posted…
#NORAs Finalists announced for the 2009 National Online Recruitment Awards. http://bit.ly/3DRwS7 Huge thanks to all who nominated
I saw a blog post by the MD of a major recruitment company discussing how it was the preserve of recruitment companies to find people jobs. The comment was, “People find people jobs, not job boards”.
I thought it worth while reposting my thoughts here because it is basically all we are all about as a company…
Agreed, people find people jobs, not job boards, but those “people” no longer have to be traditional recruiters, but the hiring managers and the applicants themselves.
The internet is about empowerment, you no longer rely on a travel agent to book your holiday, nor an estate agent to find your house, why should you solely rely on a 3rd party to find your job or hire your staff?
With the correct use of job boards, social media and a robust ATS, direct hiring managers can build and manage their own talent pools without a primary need for traditional introductions, whilst applicants can research and engage with companies directly.
Certainly, there will always be a need for highly skilled recruiters who build and “re-sell” their niche talent pool, particularly in the temp/contract sector. But the majority of recruitment today is managing large volume responses to job board advertising and effective CV database mining, coupled with the utilisation of relevant social media to create and manage talent pools.
Who are we? http://www.NetNatives.co.uk are a recruitment company, but we take a different approach to developments in technology (not just job boards & social media, but open and social web sourcing tools), enabling clients to directly engage with passive and active candidates (and vice versa) to build their own talent pools, not ours. We advertise, search (job boards and open web), contact and manage candidates applications for our clients – in one case hiring 10 people (average salary £25k) for a campaign that cost £575. All the time, feeding back responses to EVERY candidate and providing clients with effective management reports on which methods were successful, encouraging them develop their own strategies. Why do we do this? Well, why shouldn’t we?
I, naturally, hesitated posting this on a “traditional” recruitment company’s blog, but thought it important to highlight that recruitment IS about people, but, thankfully, it’s no longer just about recruitment consultants…
oh and I didn’t even discuss SEM/SEO strategies or effective social media advertising. 
If you follow these simple points you may never have to use a recruitment agency again, wouldn’t that be nice:
1. Be certain you need to recruit!
Make sure you have the role clearly defined and that there is a potential career path for the person you hire
Make sure you have budget you need to recruit!
2. Sell your company!
The best candidates will have more than one interview, make sure you know how best to sell your company. From the advert through to the interview.
3. Prepare yourself
Make sure that you know what the role is in relation to the company, what are the questions you should be asking against that job type.
This will help you prepare when reviewing CVs.
Make sure that you know when everyone is available for interviews and decision making (you don’t want someone off on a holiday at the critical time).
4. Act fast!
The best candidates don’t hang around, if you see someone you like, invite them in for an interview.
5. Pre-screen
Take about 10 minutes to have a telephone interview with the shortlist candidates to make sure you are comfortable with their ability and you sell the company.
See our pre screen question post to make sure you are getting the most out of this process
6. Build your own referral network
Make sure you get the most out of your own network
Have a read of our referral networking blog post for more ideas
7. Use social networks
Have a read of our Facebook advertising blog post for more ideas
8. Build your own talent pool
You should have a database of talent this you know to keep in touch with for your future recruitment needs. Some may be perfect for freelance.
If you need any other help or advice on your recruitment process please get in touch.
One of our key areas of speciality is helping our clients deliver on sales roles using our unique, flat fee online recruitment services. Our business model is based on helping clients be better recruiters, so we would hope that this post helps you with any sales recruitment, by listing every possible question you would want to ask you potential sales or business development hires. If you have any questions just get in contact.
(oh and there is a question which is good for the process and good for referral grabbing, see if you can spot it). Good luck…
Good luck with your recruitment and please contact us if you need any help with sales recruitment
Interviewing can be traumatic for applicant and interviewer, which makes preparation important if the results are to be meaningful and well prepared…
Net Natives bring clients closer to the applicants through our online flat fee recruitment services, we think that recruitment should be an open process and want you to learn how to be better recruiters. We have already provided an extensive list of sales questions, but you should also use competency based questions in any interview scenario.
Competency based questioning as a technique
Competency based interviewing seeks to determine how a candidate is likely to behave in the future, based on how they have behaved in the past.
Competency based questions seek evidence of how a particular problem, circumstance etc. has been handled in the past.
Below is a list of competency based questions to cover most scenarios you would require when interviewing…
Example: Tell me about a time when you had to plan an event?
Question: What steps did you take? What were the results?
Example: Could you tell me a time when you were really busy with study, work or other commitments?
Question: How did you handle it? What did you do?
Example: Have you ever been in position when you had others helping you?
Question: How did you distribute tasks?
Example: Describe a situation that challenged your interpersonal skills?
Question: How did you manage the situation?
Example: Can you think of a time when you have been involved with a group of people / team that was unhappy about something or who were faced with a specific challenge?
Question: What was the problem / issue? What you do? What was the outcome?
Example: Describe a situation where your work was criticized?
Question: Describe the situation. What happened?
Example: Tell me about a particularly difficult problem you have been faced with?
Question: How did you address this? What was the outcome?
Example: Can you think of a time when you didn’t know what to do to solve a problem?
Question: What was the situation? What was the outcome?
Example: Give me an example when something was being done poorly?
Question: What did you do? What was the outcome?
Example: Can you tell me a time when you missed an important detail in the workplace?
Question: What happened? What was the outcome?
Tell me about a time that you had to convey a complex message. How did you choose to do this? Who was the audience? What were the results?
Give me an example when you had to persuade someone around to your way of thinking.
Is there an example where you had to resolve conflict within your team?
Talk about an example where you have had to work with a colleague who had a very different style to you? How did you do this?
Where have you “gone the extra mile” for a client. What was the outcome?
Talk about a client relationship that you had to turn around?
Let’s talk about a project you have been involved with where you had to manage stakeholder groups. How did you go about this? How did you measure your success?
Have you an example where you have had to challenge the actions of a colleague?
Have you ever been asked to do something you were uncomfortable with? How did you deal with this?
Give me an example where you had to give some difficult feedback.
Give me an example where you have worked to improve an individual’s performance. What was the outcome?
Give me an example where you received some difficult feedback. Talk about how you set personal objectives.
What are your objectives for your next role?
How do you define success? How do you achieve it?
Give me an example where you had to manage a specific project to deadlines.
Give me an example where you had to deal with two conflicting priorities.
An example where you were faced with unreasonable deadline?
Forget everything you think you know. Facebook Advertising Works.
The Facts:
Facebook Advertising Demographic
What is Facebook Advertising?
Facebook Advertising are advertisements displayed on Facebook users’ web pages. They appear in the right side column on Facebook pages in the Ad Space.
Make It Work!
1. Do your research – Facebook allows you to target your adverts to a very specific and relevant audience. Not only can you specify age, gender, education and work place, but Facebook also scans users’ profiles for their interests, job titles, skills and much more. By working out who will want to see your advert, the more successful your advertising campaign will be.
2. Stand out from the crowd – Unlike Google users, Facebook users aren’t on the site waiting to look at your ad, the ads have to be relevant and interesting. Facebook users need a reason to click on your ads. Give them one!
3. Take them somewhere they want to go - When users click on your ad they will be taken to your website or Facebook business page. Your message needs to be consistent with clear calls to actions. You don’t want users clicking on your ads but leaving your site straight away as they couldn’t find what they were looking for.
4. Monitor, Measure & Experiment – The best Facebook advertising campaigns have multiple adverts with various ad copy and images. It’s crucial to regularly change your advert copy and images to get the best click rate. Monitor and refine your ads and use your campaign data wisely.
5. No half measures – It’s not easy, you’ll have to work hard, but it’s worth it. We have fabulous case studies, we’d even go so far as to say we’re sort of experts in this new field.
If you want to know more or if you would like us to create a campaign feasibility research report…
Email us at hello@netnatives.co.uk
Or call us on
01273 734 640
What do you do when a client gives you 2 weeks to deliver a mass hiring project, to a strict budget and sets the expectation that there is an extreme shortage of potential candidates and advertising has never worked for them before?
Well, if you’re Net Natives, within a fortnight, you of course deliver your unique recruitment service, as well as;
…within budget and with a smile on our face!
Fast forward to now and from the 5,000 targeted visitors to ADPDentistjobs, ADP have already begun hiring from the 425+ relevant applications, that just keep coming. Candidate shortage…?! Pah!
Every penny spent is tracked, measured, monitored and reviewed with weekly reports. Facebook advertising, providing the best return on investment (yes, we’re surprised with this, as well), but working well as a truly joined up, multi-platform campaign that is tracked and measured throughout.
The client has called us “phenomenal”, bless them…But then again, we have to say, why shouldn’t they? In one month alone, we’ve saved over £100,000s in recruitment fees and potential lost revenue from lack of hires!
We have loads more case studies, so if you want to know more, get in touch
We had a wonderfully busy 2009, working with over 100 new clients in the last 3 months alone, who now keep coming back for more. Here are some of ours and the UK’s job boards’ vital statistics for October to December 2009.
Our goal for 2010 is to help make recruitment open, transparent and helpful; we hope these stats will help you understand how the system works.
The Top 10 most applied for Job Titles
From the hundreds of individual campaigns Net Natives has run in the last 3 months, these are the most popular job titles based on candidate response.
Average No. of Applications per Role
By breaking down candidate responses into sectors, we can begin to see which sectors generate the most interest from online recruitment
*This figure is deceivingly good, due to an incredibly successful multi-platform client campaign.
How has does the UK’s Job Board network perform?
Here is a quick performance overview of our job board network over the last 3 months, to give you an idea of how each job board performed in relation to the number of applications for the last 3 months’ campaigns as wel as those applications that were shortlisted as extremely relevant. As you can see below, we don’t only use the major and niche UK job boards, but also search across many candidate databases as part of our flat fee service.
We love our stats here at Net Natives, but what do they all mean? Have a look at our candidates job search post to get the inside track on candidate behaviour and how this relates to the stats we have.
But the ultimate statistic is which job board provide the best hires. It’s not that simple, with each providing strength in different areas, but we’ll provide more detailed statists in our next round up. In the meantime, we hope these are good enough for the time being
If you have any questions about our stats or want some more detailed information on our job board network please get in touch.
You know there is no need to use a recruitment company to find your candidates, because effective online recruitment will find your next hire. But this is just one part of the process, you still need to act like a recruiter when organising your interviews…
When you interview a candidate who has come from a recruitment company, they will have been spoon fed all the information they could possibly need to know about your company. Their CV’s are even edited to tailor them to your position.
With low cost, online recruitment you get to see the ‘raw candidate’, without a recruiter’s influence. It is vital you provide your candidates with the information they need so they are able prepare themselves for the interview. Follow these simple tips to help you get the best out of your candidates:
Prior to the Interview:
1. Email confirmation with the following information:
2. Call them the day before the interview to confirm
What do YOU need to prepare?
If you have any other questions on how to prep your candidates please see our FAQs or get in touch with us directly.
How do candidates behave and conduct themselves when job seeking? What drives their behaviour?
How do you ensure you sell your role in the right place and market it correctly to utilise how job seekers search?
This is what we do, here’s what we know…
1. For every registered candidate online, they have on average registered his or her details with about 5 different job boards?
2. For every unique user a job board each month, approximately 50% arrive through email job alerts.
3. 30% of candidates visit the site directly (and of those 75% of searches start at Google).
4. 20% click through subsidiary and aggregator boards (partners).
So what does this mean?
Well simply put, candidates are spreading their bets. They are registering with a variety of job boards but, equally as important, candidates are labour savers. They prefer the adverts were sent to them, rather than search.
We understand this, and this is why Net Natives partner with each of the UK’s largest job boards and every relevant specialist job site. We make sure that every relevant candidate who has set up a job alert on X job board, or may be organically searching across Y board – our client’s vacancy is marketed. The candidates spread their bets, and so do we.
At the end of every campaign we provide our clients with a report which demonstrates the number of applicants from each of the job boards. We also use this marketing data to ensure we are maximising our return on investment for each board, on behalf of our clients.
Simply put, we do our homework so you don’t have to.
For more information, have a look at our job board network.
I’ve been involved in recruitment for 16 years and set up my recruitment business nearly 2 years ago, yet I still struggle to know what to say when people (alright, my Mum) asks, “So, what sort of business are you?”.
Our unique way of looking at recruitment is so pioneering it’s hard to put us into any “recruitment” category…
Bascially, we are a recruitment company to some, an ad agency to others and a marketing consultancy to the rest, but splendid to all!
So that’s as clear as mud still, then! Look, why not just get in touch and we’ll try and explain everything…
(Oh and we are also partners with the UK’s Recruitment SEO guru who runs our sister company Search Natives that will help get your site found, ethically…)
I recently wrote an article about how recruitment has changed and thought I should share some thoughts about what has changed and why it will never be the same again.
The Net Natives online recruitment business model thrives because the nature of recruitment has changed in 4 incredibly important (but rarely mentioned) ways.
One final note. I have never thought much of the contingent recruitment model. Why should I work hard to find the best candidate only for the client to turn out not to have budget or the role changes (or not be a good employer).
Companies like us do everything a recruiter NOW does; we create the campaigns, post, search, filter, screen and shortlist but our model is paid our ability to do this, not our client’s ability to hire. We are transparent in our successes and believe in passing on our specialist online recruitment knowledge to everyone.
But of course we provide regular recruitment training for our clients throughout our blogs. Something you would never get from a traditional recruiter.
And on a final FINAL note. I have been exposed to some pretty horrific recruitment practices in my 15 years all because the consultants wanted to close the deal. Not for the benefit of the candidate, nor the client but for their pocket. This does not happen when the client makes the objective choice to recruit without undue and irrelevant influence.
Hope this all makes sense, but if anyone wants to speak to me about this in more detail, feel free to get in touch – steve@netnatives.co.uk
Here’s a recent case study of a project we did for one of our Recruitment SEO clients we thought you may be interested in. If you want to find out more about our Recruitment SEO services please get in touch.
Project Objective
The Synergy Group provides recruitment, training and consultancy solutions to public and private sector employers across the UK. Synergy Group needed to raise traffic to their website through relevant “organic searches” on Google and the major search engines.
The Synergy Group also wanted to improve their internal understanding of how search engines work through effective training and documentation.
Search Natives’ Solution
Search Natives’ SEO project focused on making sure candidates found the right page on Synergy for their job search. This included:
What we did?
Highlighted the technical factors that were affecting how Synergy’s website ranked on the different search engines with best practice implementation recommendations. As well as providing comparative data and analysis of Synergy’s website against its main competitors’ websites with specific areas for improvement.
We also improved Synergy’s link profile. Search Natives used different techniques to provide Synergy with a list of relevant, high quality sites that could link back to Synergy’s site.
Provided recommendations to ensure Synergy’s website was optimised around relevant keywords, writing properly formatted keyword rich title, description and H1 tags for their main pages. We also provided an Excel document containing the new tags and a document explaining how these changes should be implemented.
All followed up with easy to understand documentation and training.
The results
Whilst Synergy is still in the process of implementing our recommendations, we’ve proven that even the small changes can make a difference. As well as growing from Page rank 4 to 5 within an incredibly short period of time, our work has dramatically increased their relevant traffic and candidate conversion rates. So much so, they kindly said the following…
What they said:
“Search Natives extensive knowledge of recruitment SEO has provided us with the tools to affect our website’s search rankings. By using their expertise we have improved our site from a technical point of view and can directly attribute better and more relevant search traffic as a result of their great work.”
Thought you all would be interested in a recent case study we received from one of our Further Education Colleges we work with as an advertising partner….If you want to know more, you know how to get in touch…
Campaign Objectives:
Brighton & Hove City College provides vocational courses and training to people in Brighton, Hove and the surrounding area. With a limited budget, the objective of their campaign with Net Natives was to increase the applications for multiple hard to fill full and part-time courses.
Net Natives Solution:
Targeted Facebook advertising campaigns.
Brighton & Hove City College’s target audience use Facebook every day. It’s the perfect platform to promote City College’s courses.
For each of the target courses Net Natives designed multiple adverts with varying ad copy and images. This was done to test what images worked and to ensure Facebook users did not get bored of seeing the same advert.
The targeting for each course was individually researched so that only the most relevant users saw the ads. For example, City College wanted to promote a Jazz Dance course so Net Natives specifically targeted those users who had registered an interest in dance on their profiles.Net Natives only targeted those Facebook users living in Brighton, Hove and local towns. By only showing their ads to a specific audience City College only received clicks from people they knew should respond positively to the courses on offer.
Each course campaign was monitored and edited to maximise the effectiveness of the advertising. At the end of the campaign Net Natives provided an end of campaign report demonstrating how many clicks were received for each course as well as other useful information such as the number of clicks for each advert design type received to feed back in to future marketing campaigns.
The Statistic and results
| Impressions | Over 11 million |
| Number of clicks | Over 1,000 clicks |
| Cost per application | Less than £0.75 per converted application |
What they said
“Net Natives have proven the concept for us for effective Facebook advertising. We have been particularly impressed with the level of strategic input the Net Natives team have provided to ensure the campaign met our objectives. For us the return on investment has been such that we will use this advertising medium as one of our primary resources, with Net Natives as our go to agency.”
With over 1,000 job boards in the UK, it is crucial that you pick the right one for your company and position. We are proud of our recommended job boards, we have gone to a lot of trouble to work out which are the best and then track and measure to ensure the best results. Before we engage with any new boards, we ask some pretty rigorous questions – we thought you may find them useful…
Yes I know it is a lot, but that’s what we do. Or you could get in touch or speak to me or on of my campaign team at Net Natives. We know the answers to all of these questions for each job board, afterall it is our job to know this….
You will find your job online, but here are some basic precautions you need to take to make sure that no one steals your identity online. Your CV contains a lot of personal information, protect yourself when job hunting online.
For more information on how to create the perfect CV click here but make sure that you do not provide unnecessary personal details about yourself on your CV.
Information you should include:
Never give out the following details unless you know that they are going to a genuine employer and they personally request them:
There is also no obligation for you to provide information like your date of birth or age, gender, hair or eye colour, weight, height, marital status and the number of children you have. You should be extra cautious if you hear about job opportunities through unexpected emails. Stop and think about whether it’s likely this person will be contacting you and do some investigation into the organisation or individual to check they are legitimate before responding.
Never respond to phishing emails, which will give the impression that they are from legitimate organisations, but aren’t in reality. Many of them will ask for your user names and passwords or other private information.
Always remember not to worry too much. There are loads of great job hunting tools online for keeping you up to date with the latest job opportunities and thousands of new roles are advertised each day. Why not use LinkedIn for job hunting or have a look at the major UK job boards.
Being prepared for your first interview is crucial. Here’s some useful hints and tips to ensure you are in the best possible position to impress.
Here are some example questions to get you started:
Check out our Graduate Careers Advice Page for more information on finding the best job for you.
LinkedIn has a user base of over 8.5 million experienced professionals, and is used by many companies as a database for candidates. For this reason LinkedIn is an excellent place to promote yourself online.
Here are 10 tips to help you enhance your job search using LinkedIn:
Complete your profile thoroughly. You should:
Build your network. Build your network to increase the likelihood that your profile will come up at the top of the list when hiring managers/recruiters are looking for candidates.
Prepare for interviews using LinkedIn. Expand your research by reading about the people who will be interviewing you. Knowing that you have an acquaintance in common or share an interest is a great way to establish rapport.
Join LinkedIn groups. Join as many groups as possible, but concentrate first on those whose members are people who could hire you (hiring managers) or can help you find a job (recruiters/executive search consultants). You may also want to join job search support groups and industry groups.
Participate in discussions. Share your insights and answers to questions on discussion boards thus demonstrating your knowledge and desire to contribute. Post questions or discussion topics yourself. This will help you make valuable connections while building your personal brand. Always be sure to include your email address in your posts.
Search for jobs daily. LinkedIn’s job board functions like other job boards with the exception that many of the opportunities listed are exclusive to LinkedIn. In addition, many of the opportunities list the recruiters or employers who posted them, offering another level of personal connection for networking.
Identify target companies. You can identify companies by industry and geography to expand your list of target companies. You can filter your LinkedIn list by exploring the company’s web site and job postings. Then, by going back to LinkedIn, you can identify hiring managers and HR managers for additional information and potentially informational interviews.
Update your profile regularly. Every time you update your whole network will be notified and you’ll get exposure.
Include the link to your LinkedIn profile in your signature on every email. That way people can see all your credentials with one click.
LinkedIn can be a valuable job hunting tool if used properly.Why not read our “how to create the perfect CV” post and our “prepare for your first” interview post.
We have recently had some interesting discussions with our job board suppliers about what sort of business are we. Are we are recruitment company or an ad agency?
We are in the business of filling roles NOT selling ads. 9 times out of 10, this can be done with normal, “lineage” job board advertising (our bread and butter), but sometimes clients need that little bit more.
If clients want to gain maximum exposure for a specific position or for the company brand, then you need to think of more than just the advert.
We have run many various creative campaigns, some with a social media element, so with client paid branding, some with all of them. Here I want to focus on the job boards and how to get the most out of them for certain campaigns.
As Campaign Manager, I work closely with the job boards and have recently dome some research on different options and ways of advertising on the job boards to make your role and company stand out from the crowd. I’ve listed some of the options below:
Each have their own relevance, but should be looked at as part of a variety of options open for each campaign.
There’s a lot to take in, so if you can have questions – or if there are any job boards out there with more ideas. Please get in touch.
