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silverback - 12:32pm Friday 26 June 2009
Sneak peek of CareerOne/Monster

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MyCareer OTP Advertising

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2009 - Year of the Recruitment Videos

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Where did you hear about this job? Tracking Candidate Sources

Author: Thomas Shaw
Date: 1:07am Friday 03 July 2009

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Do you track where your candidates have come from? If you are using some sort of application tracking system (ATS) in your recruitment process; more than likely you have the ability to automatically track where the candidate has come from.

A white paper released by Jake Firth from AllRetailJobs.com in October 2006 claimed that 83% of ATS Sourcing Data is Inaccurate

"Having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), HR Executives wrongly assume that the sourcing data has some resemblance to reality. Yet 5 out of 6 Candidates enter inaccurate data."

We all know it is very important to collect and generate periodic reports comparing the performance of our marketing channels. But with the evolution/improvements in technology why do I have the feeling that since the Oct 2006 survey, not much has changed?

Wherever possible, you should use URL “tracking tags” to correctly track the referral source. The predominately US based ATS Report Card compares various ATS providers.


There can be many other reasons that candidates do not provide the correct source when asked:
  • They don't remember (some ATS’s ask "where did you hear about this job" on the tenth page of the application) and some companies rely on information gathered during an interview, which can be several weeks later.
  • Some ATS's don't even have the site in their drop-down list. One major corporation listed the board JobsInLogistics.com as "Jobs and Logic" for months before the recruiter persuaded the ATS to make the necessary change. It was subsequently changed to Jobs in Logic.
  • Some ATS's have a confusing drop-down list with dozens or even hundreds of sources, sometimes not even in alphabetical order.
  • Some ATS's require a primary drop-down list followed by a secondary drop-down list, making it very difficult for the candidate to even find the site they were last on.
  • Some ATS's expect the candidate to type in their source - the first instinct for many candidates is to type in "internet" or "online", not a website name.
  • As the completion of the drop-down box is not mandatory on some ATS, the candidate may simply skip this question.
  • Many candidates will assume their "source" was where they started (such as Google, Yahoo, MSN)
  • Some candidates may search on multiple job boards and not remember which one they were just on last.
  • Some candidates do not want to reveal their source, so will often opt to choose no source or friend/associate, etc.
  • Some candidates want to pander favor by appearing dedicated to the company. So they choose the corporate name. After all this is where they are applying on the ATS.
  • Some candidates choose entirely unrelated sources (such as Highway Billboards), and nobody knows why.
  • Apathy prevails - instead of wading through dozens of options, which to them are irrelevant to applying for a position; they may simply click on "other" or the first source that comes to mind.



Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/where-did-you-hear-about-this-job-a219.html

Tags: recruitment marketing job boards sourcing data jake firth allretailjobs.com statistics tracking sources of hire atsreportcard.com application tracking system ats applicant tracking system

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Changes to Employment Law, What this means for Employers

Author: Thomas Shaw
Date: 8:15pm Thursday 02 July 2009

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As of the 1st of July 2009 a number of changes have come into effect relating to employment under the new Fair Work Regulations. The following blog post has been provided by LawLive.

One of the main changes for Small Businesses, is the change to the unfair dismissal laws. Previously Employers with fewer than 100 Employees were exempt from unfair dismissal laws, that has now changed and all Employers are now required to comply with unfair dismissal laws.

Within the unfair dismissal system, special arrangements apply for businesses with less than 15 "full-time equivalent" employees. Compared with larger businesses, smaller business receive;
  • Doubling of the minimum employment period from six to 12 months, during which time employees cannot take a claim for unfair dismissal, and
  • A short Fair Dismissal Code, which if followed by the business owner will ensure a dismissal is not unfair
This Fair Dismissal Code for Small Businesses requires the employer to give the employee a valid reason based of the employee's conduct or capacity to do the job, why the employee is at risk of being dismissed and a reasonable chance to rectify the problem.

By law, multiple notices are not required.

An important change to unfair dismissal is in the wording of the requirements for businesses that have had an unfair dismissal case bought against them, the fair dismissal code previously advised that an employer 'may be required to produce evidence of compliance', the code has been amended to now read than employer 'will be required to provide evidence'. Although a seemingly small change, it can have great ramifications.

To help avoid issues in dealing with unfair dismissal, it is important that all warnings be properly documented, and copies of any warnings given to employees are stored in their employee file. LawLive has a range of Warning Notices and Termination Notices available for these situations.

A fact sheet released by the Australian Government, includes further information on the changes to "Fair Dismissal" as well as a checklist to ensure that businesses comply with fair dismissal regulations.

LawLive helps you minimize your companies risks by getting all the legal documents your business requires. Cut down your legal costs by using LawLive's contracts & documents before seeing your Lawyer. All LawLive's contracts & documents are drafted by leading legal professionals, which ensures the professional quality of our contracts & documents.


Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/changes-to-employment-law-what-this-means-for-employers-a218.html

Tags: lawlive lawlive.com.au employment law legal advice fair work regulations unfair dismissal warning notices termination small business

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Shut Up and Get Back to Work

Author: Thomas Shaw
Date: 5:02pm Tuesday 30 June 2009

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When Frank the Foreman shouts, you must do exactly what he says within the set amount of time (in time with the music). Shut Up and Get Back to Work is an interactive application designed for the iphone. It has four commands - you must pinch, slide, press or swipe the appropriate controls in the correct order Frank tells you.

The game is very simple. But as it speeds up, Frank will mix up the sequence with different commands “Slide it!" and colors "Blue".

Overall, the games design, graphics and layout are very good. Kudos on the video and website!

Within 5 minutes you are over the game.





Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/shut-up-and-get-back-to-work-a217.html

Tags: enabled games enabledgames.com.au game iphone iphone application

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Top Job Search Logos

Author: Thomas Shaw
Date: 4:02pm Sunday 28 June 2009

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JobMob released a list of the Top 105 Beautiful Job Search Company Logos. On the list were a number of Australian HR/Recruiting logos that made the top 105. I am still waiting to hear how the list was chosen. Congratulations to the following Australian companies...

#102 HRDaily
#94 Tenth House Recruitment
#76 Graduate Careers Australia
#64 GradConnection
#46 Blue Recruit



Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/top-job-search-logos-a216.html

Tags: blue recruit graduatecareers.com.au graduate careers australia tenthhouse.com.au tenth house gradconnection.com.au gradconnection hrdaily.com.au hrdaily bluerecruit.com.au logos design jobmob

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Social Software in the Enterprise

Author: Thomas Shaw
Date: 12:54am Friday 26 June 2009

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A simple and well done presentation on Social Software in the Enterprise by Lidia Vikulova





Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/social-software-in-the-enterprise-a215.html

Tags: enterprise social software slideshare.net web2.0 lidia vikulova

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Sneak peek of CareerOne/Monster

Author: Thomas Shaw
Date: 8:52pm Tuesday 23 June 2009

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Everyone has been asking me the same questions recently: Thomas, what is happening with CareerOne & Monster? What’s the goss? blah blah blah.... Simple answer - I don't know.

The only information we have come across is that they are currently completing live system testing. Unfortunately, someone has forgotten to delete the test adverts.

From the looks of it, they will be using the current (or yet to be released) version of the Monster platform.







Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/sneak-peek-of-careerone-monster-a214.html

Tags: nsw government job ads integration monster careerone careerone.com.au monster.com job board test ads

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Creating a RSS Job Feed

Author: Thomas Shaw
Date: 4:10pm Tuesday 23 June 2009

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Creating a RSS job feed can be a complex process and is best left to a programmer. So...what data should you include in your RSS job feeds? There are standard RSS specifications available, but we want to include extra data fields specifically for job aggregators to correctly index our data.

There are many different fields you can include. I have listed my standard RSS job feed template I use when creating job sites. This will be a good reference for any Career Site, Recruitment Agency or Job Board.

RSS places restrictions on the first non-whitespace characters of the data in <link> and <url> The data in these elements must begin with an URI scheme, such as http:// https:// news:// mailto: and ftp:// You can validate your feed at Feed Validator


Channel Elements
  • [TITLE] The name of the RSS feed, eg. "XYZ Recruitment Agency - Latest Jobs"
  • [LINK] The URL to the website.
  • [DESCRIPTION] A phrase or sentence describing the content of the entire feed.
  • [COPYRIGHT] Copyright notice for the content.
  • [WEBMASTER] Email address for technical issues related to the feed.
  • [LANGUAGE] The language of the RSS feed, eg. "en-us"
  • [PUBDATE] The date the feed was created. Use RFC822 format, eg. "Tue, 23 June 2009 14:25:30 GMT"
  • [LASTBUILDDATE] The date the feed was last updated. Use RFC822 format, eg. "Tue, 23 June 2009 14:25:30 GMT"
  • [TTL] Time to live indicated the amount of time (in minutes) that the feed should be cached before refreshing from the source, eg. "20"

Item Elements. Each job should have it's own <item></item> element.
  • [TITLE] The job title, eg. "Accountant"
  • [LINK] The URL to the individual job advert.
  • [GUID] A string that uniquely identifies the job. When present, an aggregator may choose to use this string to determine if an item is new.
  • [DESCRIPTION] Short description of the job advert.
  • [PUBDATE] The date the job was posted. If it's a date in the future, aggregators may choose to not display the item until that date. Use RFC822 format, eg. "Tue, 23 June 2009 14:25:30 GMT"
  • [CATEGORY-SOURCE] Name of the Recruitment Agency. You could use the tag <author></author> instead.
  • [CATEGORY-LOCATION] Job Location, eg. "Melbourne, Victoria 3000 Australia"
  • [CATEGORY-INDUSTRY] Job Industry/Classification, eg. "Accounting"
  • [CATEGORY-SALARY] Job Salary, eg. "$50,000"

Here is the XML data structure for a sample RSS job feed.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <rss version="2.0"> <channel> <title>[TITLE]</title> <link>[LINK]</link> <description>[DESCRIPTION]</description> <language>[LANGUAGE]</language> <copyright>[COPYRIGHT]</copyright> <webMaster>[WEBMASTER]</webMaster> <pubDate>[PUBDATE]</pubDate> <lastBuildDate>[LASTBUILDDATE]</lastBuildDate> <ttl>[TTL]</ttl> <item> <title>[TITLE]</title> <link>[LINK]</link> <guid isPermaLink="false">[GUID]</guid> <description>[DESCRIPTION]</description> <pubDate>[PUBDATE]</pubDate> <category domain="source">[CATEGORY-SOURCE]</category> <category domain="location">[CATEGORY-LOCATION]</category> <category domain="industry">[CATEGORY-INDUSTRY]</category> <category domain="salary">[CATEGORY-SALARY]</category> </item> etc... etc... </channel> </rss>


Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/creating-a-rss-job-feed-a213.html

Tags: job feed structure aggregators job board data structure recruitment website job feed xml rss

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Using RSS feeds in your Job Search

Author: Thomas Shaw
Date: 8:54pm Monday 22 June 2009

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A RSS feed can compliment your other job hunting methods by bringing you instant and targeted jobs directly to your computer screen or inbox. RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. RSS delivers information (in this case, jobs) in a simple web language called XML.

The feeds will provide you a simple list of jobs available in the search category/location and link directly to the job. Be sure to set your reader to periodically update your RSS feed so you can access the most recent job additions.

What are the advantages of setting up a RSS feed?
  • It allows you to easily stay informed by automatically retrieving the latest jobs from the sites you are interested in.
  • You save time by not visiting each site individually.
  • You can read the feed when and wherever it suits you.
  • You don’t have to give anyone your email address.
  • Ability to "mash-up" multiple job feeds from multiple sources.
  • Increases productivity.
  • You can unsubscribe.
  • It's free.



How do I find out if a website has an RSS feed?

RSS feeds are available on most major job boards. Few sites tell you that RSS is an option. Often, you need to perform a job search from various criteria before the button appears.

The website usually indicates the existence of the feed with a link to "RSS", or sometimes by displaying an orange button with the letters "XML" or "RSS".

Once you know the URL of an RSS feed, you can provide that address to a RSS feed reader/aggregator.


How do I set up my feed reader/aggregator?

If you don’t have a RSS reader on your computer, there are plenty of free downloads available. For those people who prefer web based RSS readers, Google Reader is a good choice.

One question you might consider is where you will be when you review the feed results? If the only computer you have access to, is at work; you might consider a web based solution or set up the RSS delivery via email.




Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/using-rss-feeds-in-your-job-search-a212.html

Tags: feedburner xml google reader job board job search rss

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Australian Job Outlook

Author: Thomas Shaw
Date: 5:08pm Sunday 21 June 2009

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The Australian Government's Job Outlook careers and labour market research information website has recently been upgraded and  helps you decide on your future career. It now include a suite of charts that compare information for specific occupations within that occupational cluster.

The statistics are based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) monthly labour force survey and supplementary surveys. Job Outlook is a comprehensive source of information on occupational trends and prospects, including:
  • Job Prospects and ‘key indicators’
  • Employment levels and trends
  • Recent and future job growth
  • Employment by gender
  • Employment by full-time/part-time and average hours worked
  • Employment growth (five years) by gender and full-time/part-time
  • Employment by age group
  • Educational profile
  • Employment by State/Territory
  • Main employing industries for occupations
  • Job turnover and vacancy levels for occupations
  • Unemployment levels
  • Earnings (full-time before tax)




Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/australian-job-outlook-a211.html

Tags: career profiles employment industries occupation clusters employment growth employment levels occupations joboutlook.gov.au jobsearch.gov.au deewr australian employment job prospects job outlook australian bureau of statistics job turnover unemployment level

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How secure is your Recruitment website? Part 3 - Hidden iframe injection

Author: Thomas Shaw
Date: 6:06pm Thursday 18 June 2009

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A new malware attack has been making the rounds recently. It has infected a number of recruitment web sites, job boards and hosting servers. If you suddenly find that your website is triggering your anti-virus software and flagging it as a “dangerous site”, the culprit may be the hidden iframe injection hack.

These types of attacks can cause great harm to your website’s reputation as people are unlikely to ignore the stern warning. Often site owners are bemused as to why this is happening. What is causing their sites to behave in this way and as the webmaster what can you do to remove the warnings from the search results?

In the majority of cases the warning results because hackers have injected code into your website code. This is usually in the form of an iframe, or a web-page within a web-page. To avoid detection, the iframe is made to have a size of 1px, and is then set to be invisible using CSS.

Most malicious domains used in this attack, are blacklisted by Google. And if your site is infected it may also be blacklisted. The Safe Browsing diagnostic page in this case will say something like:

"Malicious software is hosted on 1 domain(s), including..."

If your site becomes infected, contact both your webmaster and your hosting company immediately.




If your website is ever flaged as malicious here are some steps to fix it and resubmit for validation.
  1. Start with your own computer. Scan it with anti-virus and anti-spyware tools.
  2. Once you are sure your computer is clean, change all site passwords - computer, server, website, network.
  3. Keep the new passwords secure. Don’t use auto-upload features of your web site editors. Enter passwords every time you upload new content instead. Use SFTP instead of FTP if possible.
  4. Remove the malicious code (the iframes code) from the infected files on the server. The easiest way to do it is upload a clean backed up version.
  5. Check the server, directory and file permissions. Make sure your settings are correct!
  6. Scan your server directories for any new/suspicious files (don’t forget to check hidden files). Remove anything that should not be there.
  7. If your site was flagged by Google, request a malware review via Webmaster Tools. (read this blog post)
  8. Regularly check your site with diagnostics tools to be sure your site is clean.

Did you know that Twitter checks all URLs before allowing you to post?




Direct URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/how-secure-is-your-recruitment-website-part-3-hidden-iframe-injection-a210.html

Tags: hacking security job board recruitment websites malicious code iframe injection hrcareers.com.au ahri virus insecure twitter malware

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