What I think about video job specs.

In the old days, job specs or descriptions were…let’s face it – mundane.

You know what I mean, all formal, straight talking, sub heading after sub heading, bullet point after bullet point, word after painstakingly typed word.

It was hugely difficult to covey any character or personality in them, usually meaning that the reader switched off and scanned straight to the crux – what’s the salary and what are the package benefits.

But it went beyond that. Trying to sell the role was hard enough, how do you showcase the environment or culture of the candidate’s potential new work place?

Erm, you couldn’t, not effectively anyway.

Same scenario with ads for newspapers (who?!) Or later on the job boards.

You had to grab the reader’s attention with in the first 15 seconds or so. Unless you were a wordsmith or a bard it was, for the most part an arduous task.

Thankfully, there IS a better way.

Unless you’re a recluse in the Himalayas you have heard about this new fangled thing called “Social Media”!

I jest of course, but the biblical rise of social media has made the good old job spec or description a million times A) more enjoyable to produce and B) more engaging for the candidates.

VIDEO!

Consultants on a compatible device (ergo ANY) talking into a camera as a real human being expressing the ins outs and shake it all abouts of the role they’re offering (selling).

Of course there are some old fashioned recruiters out there who will say that face to face discussions are the best.

Yes, there’s absolutely a place for the in person approach. It’s excellent for an agency that operates solely on a local basis. The reality is though that a large proportion of firms operate not only regionally and nationally but globally.

Can those same stuck in the mud recruiters claim that a candidate in Texas needs to interview in person at their office in Slough? (other places are available I am not endorsed by the town of Slough)!

Video specs have well and truly arrived and you’ve probably seen more and more agencies utilising this method.

So what’s the big deal?

It’s no secret that people buy from people. By talking into a lens it’s almost as if you’re speaking directly to the person watching (think Deadpool!) So immediately there is a subconscious connection. People buy from people…

The consultant can convey enthusiasm and other feelings to the candidate to evoke an emotional reaction from them, and as you know people buy from people… can you spot the theme here?

Also in today’s day of technology and information bombardment, either you like it or not as humans our attention spans have become somewhat selective if that’s the right word?

Essentially it’s easier to assimilate information aurally and visually than to read and digest information. The latter requires more of an investment from the reader. The former (if done properly) is subconsciously easier to do. It’s like reading a novel written in Latin vs watching The One Show (extreme example!)

For too long the recruitment industry has had a rubbish rep. I saw a post on LinkedIn recently that echoed a lime from an Eminem track, a pissed off candidate referred to the entire industry as “blood sucking succubus”, so seeing the recruiter as a person and not just a cog in an abominable machine can REALLY help with rep too!

So, finally, here’s what I think…

I think if you don’t do video specs you’re absolutely missing a trick.

Bob Dylan once wrote “the times they are a-changin'”, where realistically they already have. You’re going to get left behind. The talent pool of today is made up of an ever increasing amount of people becoming increasingly reliant of tech and in that is Social Media.

The ability for recruiters to reach exponentially more candidates than before, coupled with the ability to ENGAGE those candidates will mean that those agencies that exploit the hell out it will, invariably fare better than those that don’t, and destroy those firms who refuse to.

Video killed the radio star…Video will help you kill it in recruiting!

Once you’ve crafted your videos, if you need help reaching more of the right kinds of eyes – I can help with that with once of my Social Media Marketing packages.

Designed to really reach and engage, perfect to reach those passive candidates.

Give me a shout to hear more about it and see if we’re the right fit.

And thanks for reading!

How To Find Those Illusive Candidates Like A Liam Neeson From ‘Taken’ Pro

Picture Source:  LinkedIn.com

 Hands up who’s seen ‘Taken? If you haven’t, you’ve almost definitely seen the meme.

Liam’s character tells his daughter’s kidnapper “I don’t know who you are…I possess a set of very unique skills…I will find you!”

Although most of us aren’t trained contract killers or assassins (presumably), most recruiters should also possess a set of skills, that is the ability to find that needle in the haystack, that golden balls candidate that NONE of your competitors have got on their database, that ticket to landing a 5 figure fee! (DISCLAIMER – yes candidates are people with feelings etc…).

The reality is however, many don’t. As good and effective as an agencies training might be, and the vast majority are excellent by the way – being able to find those candidates can be incredibly difficult.

These individuals are hidden, tucked away behind stable careers, good salaries, brilliant work culture, management that gives a shit and so on.

They’re not in that 12% or 13% represented in the above picture.

They’re not the ones reaching out BEGGING for a new opportunity.

Without being rude you can see that 25% anywhere. Just visit any usual job board CV database and BOOM, hello!

The issue, is that everyone’s got access, it’s like a goddamn “hook-a-duck”, the real skill lies in reaching that coveted 45%, and even dare I say those 15%.

Let’s be honest, even those “completely satisfied” candidates would possibly at least keep an open mind IF presented with the right opportunity.

“But Dan!” I hear you cry. “How do I do that?!”

You absolutely have to have a well thought out, laser-targeted and “Agent 47” style executed Social Media Marketing campaign.

“But Dan, I’m all over my Social media marketing”…Really? Then why aren’t you in front of these people?

It’s so much more than posting to LinkedIn or forums etc.

Here’s what you need to do.

1. Get your SEO right! SEO and SMM are like bread and butter! For optimum results there needs to be strong cohesion between both!
2. Really think about your target candidate. Where do they hang out? What are their typical interests? What are their B2C buying personas. What are their typical motivators. Pushes. Pulls. What did they eat for breakfast! (Too far?!)
3. Once you’ve really drilled down in to that you have to create content that they are more likely than not to engage with.
4. You’ve got to sell sell sell the opportunity as succinctly as possible with the space/time you have. Think video specs as a way to enthuse and engage.
5. Sign up to the advertising facility on each of the platforms your targets are likely to be.
6. Set a realistic budget!Don’t scrape here, if your client is looking for a golden balls candidate, and you’ve settled on a 20-30% fee you need to do the maths.Is it feasible to spend £1k on advertising if your fee (for some reason – this is only an example) is £2k?
7. You’re going to lose money on that deal so probably not. If you can get a £10/£15K+ fee, then you’re happier to spend £3-£5K.
8. Run your ads/sponsored posts.
9. ..Don’t stop there. Tweak adjust. Tweak adjust. Tweak adjust again. Study the analytics. Study the conversions. Can you increase then? Are you getting enough traction? Is your content as relevant today as it was last week?
10. Keep going. Once you’ve cracked it, replicate.

This method is exactly how I helped several clients create in excess of £50k extra revenue last year. If you know someone who needs to see this, give it a share. Email them the link. Shout it from your window.

If you’d like to know more on how I can help you do the same – come and say hello!

Why You Should Absolutely Outsource!

Of course, I’m big advocate of outsourcing work, after all, it’s the back bone of my business. If firms didn’t outsource their SEO to me – I’d have to get a proper job!

But I get it, you’re scared of out outsourcing. So many questions.

“How can I let go, I’m a control freak”, or “How absurd to think that an outsider can understand my business” or “Outsourcing means there’s no safety net – at least in-house means accountability”, I could go on. But I won’t.

The reality is, you have every right to be scared. There are SO many horror stories out there about errors made by or caused by an outsourcing outfit it could really make your skin crawl if you let it.

But think of it like this….

YOU are an outsourced service. YOU are an outsourcer. Yes…YOU and your business.

Where would YOU be if your clients didn’t outsource their requirements to you? You’d be in the same place I would – up shit creek!

The truth is you and I, we’re pretty similar. We are a necessary “evil”(I use that phrase lightly of course) and we (usually) are a service easily farmed out to someone else.

Think about your selling points, WHY do clients utilise your service.

·        To save time

·        To save money

·        They’re too busy

·        They’re not the experts!

Well, those are the exact same reasons you would work with me. You’ve got a business to run and recruitment digital marketing can be a slow, laborious and time-consuming task.

You want to make money, not waste it. Bad marketing is like a bad hire – it will cost you in the long run.

Recruitment is very hands on, fast paced, reactive – refer to the above point.

You are an expert recruiter. You know your shit. That’s why you clients pay you £1000’s in fees. You are not (usually) a marketing expert, and SEO expert and so on. You need the expertise a real marketer can bring.

You might argue “Well I have a Social Media Expert in-house”…do you? Or do you have someone that has a degree in Zoology who can string a sentence together and knows how to post to Instagram stories??

Because my friend that is NOT an expert. My 16 year old daughter can do that – I wouldn’t pay her £18k/pa plus because of that.

“Well I have an in-house marketing team” – that’s great, but what are you paying them for if the firm down the road are out-ranking you? Essentially, I work WITH in-house teams to deliver value, I’m not looking to replace anyone, but rather absorb some of the workload and turn that in to real results.

Finally, outsourcing your digital marketing does not mean losing accountability. This is not a sales pitch – none of my blog posts are, however I will say this; Every single client I work with has their own log in to the back end of my system.

I believe in being 100% transparent, so you can see at every step of the way exactly what I and my team are up to. That’s all I’ll say on that for now.

If you know someone that needs to see this, give it share, email them the link etc.

On that note – join me on LinkedIn, Insta or add me on Facebook and let’s see what we can do together this year.

Peace!

Local SEO Case Study

 Client Vertical – High St Generalist

Client Location – Leeds UK

Service Provided – Local SEO

Background

The Client is a high street generalist agency, predominantly high volume, low margin recruitment.

Typical roles are industrial biased – warehouse ops, production, pickers/packers and commercial temp desk.

The local, temp market place in which the Client operates is hugely competitive. The labour market is abundant and competition for client base is fierce. As is the norm in this field, margins are low but volume is higher.

The Client, as a relatively newly established outfit, was struggling to compete in an already inundated market. 100% of their consultants’ time was spent servicing 2 or 3 large clients. The fear was one of if/when these contracts were finished, where does the next client/vacancy come from.

The Client was ranked on page four of Google SERPS for keywords including “temp warehouse jobs Leeds” and variations of. Dominated by the larger corporates, they were unable to improve their rankings and were missing leads due to SERP results.

Solution Provided

Following initial consultation, it was decided that – as most of their work was in their local area, and they seldom chased business regionally or wider – a local SEO campaign was best, it was also the most comfortable in terms of their initial SEO budget.

Their on-site SEO (all the technical things like links, HTML/Alt tags etc) needed considerable work.

They had previously had a local SEO firm “look after this”, it became apparent they had employed the services of a “gig” SEO-er (someone who peddles their wares on freelancer websites) who was paid £150 to “SEO the website”.

In fact this individual had caused the Client’s site to be penalised by Google.by using “black hat” SEO techniques.

The first part of my job was to right the wrongs this person had made.

Then it was on to all of the on-page technical aspects were completed, penalties were eventually lifted and through the length of the campaign the emphasis was on creating sustainable, authoritative back links and conducting blog outreach. Directory submissions, Google+, Google My Business optimisation and reputation management.

Results Delivered

The client saw an immediate increase in traffic to their website. We targeted around 15 specific, long tail keywords and after the first 10 weeks, unique visitors per month rocketed from 20 to around 195. After month 4 the keyword groups were generating an extra 300 hits to the website and approaching the 12 month mark we are seeing search volume of around 8000.

The client has now moved to hover around the bottom of page 1/mid-section of Page 2 for their chosen keywords, which, whilst not yet in the “map pack” the Client will be re-contracting with a more aggressive SEO campaign to really tackle that prime space competition.

The Local SEO campaign has resulted in an impressive ROI of £8.70 per £1 spent, so they’re now in a position to reinvest a proportion of those profits into a higher-grade SEO package.

It is expected that this client will increase their temps out figure by threefold in 2019.

I can help you replicate the type of ROI this client achieved – all you need to do is make a move.

An Open Letter To My Former Self

“If I knew then what I know now…” is something we’ve probably all at some point said.

As I made the transition from recruitment extraordinaire to successful digital marketer it is 100% a phrase I have used several times a day!

Yes I’m successful – my clients win daily – but I’m a huge advocate of #alwaysbelearning. I think that’s where a load of people typically go wrong. They get comfortable, complacent even.

“Recruitment? Invented it mate!”….but you didn’t. And you certainly are not RE-inventing it!

What you CAN do is think more outside of that old skool, KPI heavy box. That mind set does sweet FA to differentiate between you and most every other firm out there.

I’m talking utilising that wonderful thing called the internet.

As traditional print advertising (who?!) continues to slump off to the recess, recruitment digital marketing HAS to be a fundamental part of your sustainability or (preferably) growth plans.

Yes it’s fair to say that back when I started out recruiting the whole digital marketing thing was like a dark art black magic kinda thing, social media wasn’t about, and we had to do things the old way (the only way at that time!). So I guess it’s less a “if I’d have known then…” situation, more of a if I was starting out now situation.

I’m going to go ahead and stick my neck on the line and say recruiters these days have never had it so easy! There, I said it.

Newbies will never know the hardship of the good days when phone was king and social networking was taking clients out to strip clubs!

Where they absolutely do have the upper hand is online marketing. These younger recruiters have often time grown up with an iPod or iPad (other handheld devices are available) in their hands and using it and social media are second nature, they don’t even have to think about it.

Of course it’s not all about those just entering the profession.

Established firms and solos also have the same toolkit available to them and it’s great to see so many agencies getting involved and being present cross platform.

With all of the tech out there and the growing use of AI (artificial intelligence – a post on this coming soon) there has never been a better, easier an more effective time to be a recruiter.

If your agency is just starting to click in – kudos – but you need to ramp it up.

If you work for a firm who won’t or isn’t able to adapt – GET OUT. Controversial? Perhaps. But you’re in recruitment to make paper right? See the pound or dollar signs? I’m here to tell you that isn’t going to happen if the people you work for refuse to adapt. Their agency will die and you’ll end up having to go elsewhere anyway!

Gen Z are here and studies support the fact that they are the most tech reliant, relationship-centric group of people on the planet.

This generation IS the future of the Labour market. If you don’t operate in a way that is wholly congruent with their workings, they’ll just partner with a firm does.

The implications of a non-digital, non-social strategy are wide reaching. I bet you don’t use a roller-deck anymore – so why aren’t you utilising digital?

So, back to the context of the title of this post…

If I was starting out now, I would 1000% have a well thought out, well researched, expertly executed digital marketing strategy from the get go.

It would be my main consideration. I would create a personable approach and market myself as the brand, not the firm I worked for.

I would be savvy, and keep up with not just the most recent recruitment trends, but also social media marketing trends, the latest SEO tips, how to dominate PPC and how to do basic web development.

Then I’d realise there literally not enough hours in the day – so I’d definitely partner with someone like my current self, someone who knows recruiting and digital marketing. If he could dance he’d be a triple threat!

If you know someone who needs to see this hit share.

Happy to answer any questions, drop me a line at dj@kaizen-digital.com.

Thanks for reading!

D

5 Tips To Optimise Your Position in Search Engines

I wanted to share these 5 simple tips here with you because very few recruiters understand what SEO is, what the basic optimisation techniques are and why it is critical to use them.

What is SEO?

So, what us this SEO thing?? Search Engine Optimisation is nothing more than a set of techniques that can optimise the natural or “organic” position of a website on search engines. The objective here is to position or index the site in the search engines according to certain keywords corresponding to the main themes of the site in question.

 For example, for the REC it would have a good positioning for keywords such as “recruitment”, “recruitment qualifications” and long tail keywords such as “how to start a recruitment agency”.

 By natural or organic ranking, I mean the search results that are displayed naturally by the search engine not the sponsored links which is located most of the time at the top or on the right of the screen (PPC etc).

 Once you understand the concept of SEO, it’s important to know how these optimisation techniques can help your business perform better according to your specific goals. My clients’ goals are always one four aims, most often a mix of goals; increased revenues; reduced overall marketing spend; saving time; and/or improving their brand awareness. So that in mind, what are the benefits of investing in SEO services for your business?

 How to use SEO techniques to help your business perform better!

 What are the benefits of investing in SEO for your business? (SEO is hands-down an investment NOT a ball ache expense!).

 Knowing that 90% ish of Internet users use a search engine to find products and services they need, you can easily understand why effective SEO is important to generating leads and extra deals.

 According to a marketers in the know, 91% of Internet users would only consult the first page of search results. This drops to around 5% for the 2nd page of results, to around 2% for the first 3 pages and only combined 3% for 3 pages and more.

 You can see the how important it is for your site to be in a page 1 position for your chosen keywords. Choosing keywords is vital, but that’s a different conversation for a different day – the secret is in the competitor analysis!!

 So, what steps can YOU take to start rubbing Google’s belly to start recognising you and your site as a player in your chosen field?

 ­­­­5 SEO Tips To Optimise Your Search Engine Positioning

So let’s check out the 5 SEO tips that will help you better index your site in the search engines.

 DISCLAIMER – SEO is a fairly complex and evolving discipline so this is far from being a comprehensive guide!

 These 5 techniques can help you make a few small changes to your site so that it is better positioned in the engines. SEO takes time to show traction, this we (should) already know, and these 5 techniques are a tiny part of technical SEO. So don’t expect page 1 results (unless you’re already there), but it’s a start!

 1. Structure your URLs correctly

 My first tip is to make sure the URLs of your site are structured so that the search engine robots index them more quickly and easily.

 I see this ALL the time – http://www.yourbusiness.co.uk/1136_en?900_%76.html. This is incorrect structurally.

 2. Rewrite your URLs

 The above URL doesn’t help the indexing of your pages in the search engines. It’s better to write your URLs by using your page’s title or very specific and relevant keywords to the very content of your page such as: http://www.yourbusiness.com/services/clients/retained-search.

 So, Google will understand that this is a page about retained search services and search engines will index your pages more easily. You can use a Mod rewrite module to optimize the writing of your URLs easily or if you use a CMS (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc.), you can just look in settings/permalink to change the URL of the pages from numbers/dates to page names/categories etc.

 3. Add content and update your site frequently

 You’ve heard this loads no doubt: “Content is King”, I’m guilty as charged for throwing that phrase around like a rag doll! But it is an easy win when improving the indexing of your site.

 The more often your site is updated, the more search engines will tend to index it to a higher level. In fact, search engines value new content more than content that has not been changed in a long time, so you’ll benefit from updating your site frequently.

 Don’t get it twisted, I’m not just talking about blogging. A major mistake literally 90% of recruiters I talk to are making – not updating/removing jobs on their jobs page. If it’s filled – bin it. If it’s been live for a long time, refresh it. Trust me. Also – don’t forget to add blog posts at the very LEAST every 2 weeks. If you’re stuck for time/inspiration – click me!

 4. Avoid duplication of content

 Avoid duplicating your content. Search engines penalise sites that have duplicated content. It’s important to make sure that you don’t have two identical pages for example, on your old domain and your new domain name or two duplicate blog posts or job postings – even if the URL for both is different.

 5. Make sure you have quality links pointing to your site.

 I’ve said this before and will continue to do so “not all links are created equal!”

 The old belief system was that the more links you have linking to your domain from another domain then the better off you will be in the SERPS (search engine results pages) is defunct. Like most things, quality presides over quantity.

 Look for certain metrics on a site you want a link from; age of the domain name; the credibility of the site in the search engines; its page rank; trust score; and citation score.

 Remember this: SEO is a VITAL part of your marketing strategy. You might think that you don’t need to invest it in now as all your works come from existing clients etc, referrals…so on. Great, all it takes is for one or two of those clients to fall out with you or find someone better and BOOM, you’re on your way to being on your arse.

Bearing in mind SEO takes typical 3-6 months to begin to be effective, the best time to future protect yourself is now.

As always, happy to answer any questions so drop me an EMAIL or give me a call on 07486 571 264.