Dear Reader,

This month the emphasis is firmly on recruiting. You will find some ideas and research information about where job seekers go to find their next job. However it is clear from clients that using a combination of approaches and knowing your target market is what makes a job advert successful, just like marketing your business. Clients have successfully filled positions from emailing out a job advert to their networks, and through word of mouth referrals have found the perfect candidate! A perfect blend of the “old” (word of mouth) and the “new” (internet)!

Read on for information on how to reach your ideal candidate and good hunting!

Regards

Carolyne Wahlen

Recruitment - Where the heck are the people?

How to find the right candidates - especially in a seller's market? The basic question to be answered is really, where will your potential candidates be looking for a job? Will they be reading the national or local newspapers, listening to the radio, surfing on the internet?

According to statistics provided by Google at the Enhanced Media seminar “2008 – The Year Ahead” (full presentation available on request) 43 million Britons aged 16+ use the Internet, more than 60% of UK households 15+ million, are online and 85% of these have broadband connections.

And, as Enhanced Media has found with their “How e are you?” survey, of 16,000+ people who have completed the survey, 71% of them have applied for a job online and 97% of them use email (your opportunity to find out “How e are you?” available on our website).

This would lead you to believe that print is dead and we should all put jobs on the internet. However, as the research below shows, maybe we should actually all save our money and just approach the agencies, as many candidates think that they will be getting their next job from them!

Free Resources

Employees must give you advance notice that they want to take holiday. This notice should be at least twice as long as the amount of holiday they want to take (for example, they should give two week's notice for one week's holiday). You can refuse permission for your employee's holiday as long as you give notice which is at least as long as the holiday requested (so to refuse a request for a week's leave, you would have to tell the employee a week in advance). There is no need to use an official form, but you do need a written record (email is fine). You don't want to come to the end of the holiday year and have no written proof to back up your case when the employee says they have two more days to take and you think they have already taken their full entitlement! The same notice period applies if you want them to take their leave at set times of year (e.g. closing at Christmas and New Year), but we would recommend giving them as much notice as possible on this, ideally at the start of each holiday year.