Categories
Google Internet Job Site Jobs Monster Recruitment Recruitment Agency Search Engine SEO SERP Twitter

Google Penguin 2 and the Jobs in Ireland

Did you hear Google released a major update to Penguin 2 on Friday? Matt Cutts (the head of Google’s Webspam team) recently confirmed on his blog that Penguin 2.0 is now live.

So let’s see how did the Google Penguin 2 update affect our Irish online recruitment industry. Here is the search result page for the word “Jobs” made in Google.ie.

Make sure if you do this search yourself that you are not logged in into Google yourself, have removed the Google cookie, etc – so that you do not see the Google’s “Personalised” search result for you.

Here is the new google.ie ranking for the search word “jobs”:

  1. Jobs.ie
  2. IrishJobs.ie
  3. FindAJob.ie
  4. Indeed.ie
  5. RecruitIreland.com
  6. Monster.ie
  7. Fas.ie
  8. Ie.JobRapido.com
  9. JobsToday.ie
  10. Twitter.com/jobs

So what can we conclude from the list of the sites that a are on the first page for the phrase jobs? By comparing what we have used to see there before the Google Penguin 2 update we can see what sites have been affected. Let’s start with the sites not affected by the update:

The SAON Group web sites leading with the purchased Jobs.ie site on top and their original IrishJobs.ie is steadily on top.

Nothing changed there for years. In fact may years. The last change there actually when Jobs.ie overtook IrishJobs.ie. If my memory serves me correctly that was towards the end of 2005. Very shortly after that IrishJobs.ie bought Jobs.ie.

So since 2005 the first two search results for the search for “jobs” have not changed in Ireland. So is Google doing much really with all these Panda, Penguin & Penguin 2 “updates”? Well in the last 7 years the results on top are not changing at all. Or does IrishJobs.ie & Jobs.ie have so good SEO specialists to keep them on top for all these years? It must be one of those.

The next three slots are Findajob.ie (aka LoadzaJobs.ie), Indeed.ie and Monster.ie. So what’s new here? Nothing much really in relation to the Google Penguin 2 update. Long term there isn’t much that has changed in here in the last 10 years really. What has changed is that Loadza has changed its domain name several times. They cannot seem to get it right really. EmployIreland.com that was 4th there is replaced by Indeed.ie about a year or more ago when they came to our market. Monster is the 5th recruitment web site there for the last 10 years.
So in essence the top 5 results for the word “jobs” haven’t changed at all in the last Google Penguin 2 update.

Where the changes that did occur are on the bottom part of the search page. That is the space that in the last 10 years have been occupied mostly by the Irish start-up job boards or similar sites. FAS was always there somewhere. They did rebrand to SOLAS, but forgot to do it online. Hence FAS.ie is still there. Good old civil servants…

So what the Google Penguin 2 update did affect is the last 4 remaining slots the search results page fro the word “jobs”. You can say Google hasn’t changed much really. What we are going to look at is if the Google Penguin 2 update was good actually. Or is it a step back in the quality of the search results?

The bottom of the page of the search results for jobs has been occupied by start-up job boards. It always was a dynamic space. In the last 10 year, about 100 web sites appeared and disappeared from there. I can remember the first Irish Jobs Aggregator IrishJobs.ie featuring there, and a long list of the site showing Irish jobs listings. There was one recruitment agency that made up there – in 2010 when the CPL.ie new web site was released. In this new update, CPL.ie dropped to 128 places, while their other site CPLJobs.com landed on a much better 53rd slot. Is there a hint that CPL.ie got hit by the Google Penguin 2 update? Most likely from the way it is ranking now.

It is still quite strange that no other recruitment agency got listed on the first page for the word “jobs” there ever, isn’t it?

So what did Google Penguin 2 update replaced the Irish start-ups with?

Ie.Jobrapido.com – one job aggregator. Well, it is the only .com web site here. It actually does have jobs aggregated from sites like freelancer.com and similar. Some Irish recruitment agencies as well. The overall quality of the jobs advertised (content) if poor. A large number of jobs are taken down from the sites they are originally published on anyway, and the whole set of jobs is a really poor representation of the list of active jobs in Ireland. In essence a really poor experience for a job seeker.

JobsToday.ie – a UK newspaper publisher. Note that any link you click on that site it brings you to their UK web site (.co.uk). This results-driven by the backlinks from their newspaper releases is so wrong that it actually reminds of the Yahoo style paid search result placements from the end of the last century. It is pointless and out of place. It is no good to a Google visitor. There are simply a handful of jobs listed there on some UK newspaper web site.

Twitter.com/jobs – The page with the HTML Title: Jobs at “Twitter –San Francisco”. San Francisco??? A search result to someone looking for a job in Ireland in Google.ie? Google? Don’t you have a Google Maps division? Or do you want us all to emigrate? What’s the story there? What kind of a (crap) search result is that? Or did the Google Penguin 2 algorithm value a social media sites results “a bit” too much so the results from the social media are going to creep into any search we make?

So to conclude what have the Google Penguin 2 update brought us? It removed Irish start-ups and replaced them with what can be the best described irrelevant search results. In their own vocabulary, they call it SPAM. Luckily for us, this only affects the bottom part of the page. The “under the fold” stuff. The top part of the page wasn’t affected by the latest update.

How did your site ranking feature in the Google Penguin 2 update last week? If you are stuck give the SEO Consultant a shout!

Categories
Career CV Database Job Site Jobs Recruitment Recruitment Agency

Recruitment Consultant job by the SAON Group

Here is a new job for the Recruitment Consultant advertised by the SAON Group (IrisJobs.ie):

Resourcer/Recruitment Consultant

 

Saongroup operates online recruitment websites for recruiters and career seekers across four continents – Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas – and websites live in 29 countries. The Group also includes Candidate Manager, a leading provider of recruitment management software. Saongroup.com has been headquartered in Dublin, Ireland since its foundation in 1995.

In March, Irishjobs.ie and Jobs.ie launched a new service, TalentScout, which in addition to advertising vacancies on www.irishjobs.ie and www.jobs.ie now gives their large corporate client base access to a Headhunting and Candidate Filtering service.

Due to the successful launch and client reaction to TalentScout we are now looking to expand the team and we feel that this position would be well suited to a candidate who is currently employed as a Recruitment Consultant. This is an excellent opportunity to progress your career with Saongroup, a company that is internationally recognised as a Market Leader in the online recruitment space. The role offers an excellent commission and bonus structure with a rapid path to promotion for the right candidate.

Job responsibilities:-

  • Conduct telephone interviews
  • Use innovation in attracting staff to include networking, headhunting, and database search.
  • Post vacancies on all available media and identify new media to source applicants.
  • Manage and filter incoming applicants
  • Create application forms and screening questions
  • Liaise with Account Managers and Sales Manager regularly on progress of open roles

Skills required:

 

  • At least 2 years’ experience in recruitment
  • Expertise in sourcing via headhunting and social media required
  • Human Resources or Business related degree desirable. CIPD qualification an advantage
  • A proven ability to build strong client relationships
  • Tenacity to develop new business, both face to face & on the phone
  • A record of success in a highly results driven environment
  • Track record of achieving monthly revenue targets
  • Great time management, computer proficiency and excellent communication skills
  • Proficiency in using Salesforce or equivalent CRM
  • Experience with applicant tracking systems is useful
  • Ability to work in a fast-paced, rapidly-changing environment
Location Dublin 2 (Dublin Centre, IE)
Payment Not Disclosed
Category HR / Recruitment, Sales – €35k+
Terms Permanent, Full-time
Last updated 15/04/2013
Contact Denise Hannon
Categories
Career Internet Job Site Jobs Recruitment Search Engine

JobsBoard.ie will let you find the job 3 times faster than Irish Jobs site!

JobsBoard.ie will let you wind the page 3 times faster than Irish Jobs site!

There is plenty of job sites in Ireland. Each of them has plenty of jobs. Most of the jobs are the same on the job sites. So what site to choose? Perhaps the one with the most jobs? Perhaps the one you find shows the best results? Jobs most relevant to you? Jobs advertised by the employers you like? There is plenty of choices when it comes to job sites in Ireland.

There is one thing to consider. It is the speed of the job site. If you visit it regularly, the more important it is. Will you wait for 10 seconds to see the jobs you want? Will you wait for 10 seconds every time you visit the site? Not if you can avoid it, and not if there are faster sites that will let you browse or search the jobs a few times quicker.

Here is the sample of the JobsBoard.ie and IrishJobs.ie web sites. The speed load comparison is done by www.whichloadsfaster.com:

Why wait for your job forever? Visit www.JobsBoard.ie today and register for the daily new jobs now!

Categories
Blogs

Irish Jobs feeling the heat from Facebook

The social media is leaving scars on the traditional advertising models. How your brand is represented on Facebook is far more important than the article in Irish Times. Why? Simply because of it far greater reach. Far more people read Facebook than Irish Times. Far, far more, and the gap is getting bigger each day.

In recruitment the social media is finding it’s place, and Irish Jobs Sites feel it on their skin. A dozen of small job boards simply vanished during the last year. The big national ones are in the panic mode. Here is the sample from Irish Jobs, how they are reacting to the recruiters and candidates embracing he social media sites, and just leaving their IrishJobs.ie web site. They publish a survey that shows people spend tons of time on Facebook, and less on LinkedIn and Twitter. But they take a protectionist view to try to save their (extincting) industry. So they say that the social media sites, with Facebok leading the game actually costs Irish industry – since people hang out on Facebook as opposed to work. Here is their story:

Findings from IrishJobs.ie’s social networking at work survey

Ninety per cent of all respondents said they used Facebook in general, while 39pc visit YouTube and 15pc use Twitter.
The survey found that workers were against the idea of banning these sites at work. Some 77pc were in favour of some sort of access to them during working hours.
More than half of the respondents felt they are just as productive as ever and 7pc feel that social networking sites make them more productive.
The 7pc claim that short breaks to check these sites help them concentrate better when they returned to work.
Five per cent of respondents claimed they were less productive, as they were constantly distracted.
It was also revealed that large companies were more inclined to have a social networking usage policy during work hours, with 58pc of those within these companies confirming it.
Usage among employees in these companies was lower, with 43pc logging onto social networking during work hours.
Some 27pc of SME employees said their workplace has a social networking policy and as a result, 55pc of employees admitted to using these services at work.

What this press release is supposed to achieve is a knee jerk reaction from the directors and business owners – to shut down access to Facebok (please correct me if I am wrong here)! It is the same surfers that Irish Jobs have lost over the last years, that went to Facebook. Facebook is more fun than boring jobs sites. And Irish Jobs and the likes are losing visitors, losing advertisers, and the revenue. Their business model is actually quite ‘Last Century’ really. And with no future. And it is a hard fact to swallow! Hence the scare tactics here by the Irish Jobs marketing gurus.

Categories
Job Site Jobs LinkedIN Recruitment SEO Social Networks

Jobs.ie and EmployIreland.com on the raise

Jobs.ie and EmployIreland.com are the only two web sites that recorded a growth of the unique visitors numbers during September this year. According to Complete who collects the public data, as opposed to the marketing messages from the job boards, Irish Jobs, RecruitIreland and Monster both recorded a significant drop of traffic during September 2009.

irishjobs.ie jobs.ie recruitireland.com monster.ie employireland.com

September is the very important month in the online recruitment industry. In the previous ten years, almost all leading job boards would have a record numbers of visitors in September. The current recession is obviously affecting the online recruitment industry.

Are the social recruitment sites like LinkedIN and even twitter, or Irish start-ups like Jobs Market stealing the traffic from the job boards? It certainly seems the case, since the traditional job boards are obviously getting less traffic.

So what have Jobs.ie and EmplyIreland.com done to keep the traffic rising during September? A bit of SEO perhaps? What do you think?

Categories
CV CV Database Internet Recruitment Social Networks Social Recruitment

Irish Jobs beat Worky on pricing

Irish Jobs had the approach ‘If you can’t beat them, buy them!’ for many years now. Then Worky came. With most likely slightly too big price tag for the current market. Remember Worky has the global ambitions.

Worky opened up a new model of sourcing. A Pay as you Go model. You can do what you like, and you pay only when you want to contact the candidate. €20 per contact. Not much for a perfect candidate, wouldn’t you agree?

Well Irish Jobs realised, – Hey we have a bigger database. Thousands of CVs parsed in database. Why don’t we sell that?

Here is what Irish Jobs ofers:

IrishJobs.ie is proud to launch our brand new ‘Pay as you go’ CV database system enabling you to cherry pick the candidates you want.

The IrishJobs.ie CV Database has proven to be a highly successful tool for both jobseekers and recruiters. Over 35,000 high calibre candidates across all industry sectors in Ireland have recently uploaded their CV onto IrishJobs.ie and this database is continually growing.

With our CV database you can

-tailor your search requirements by selecting the job category; roles, minimum -experience and salary range, plus include specific keywords.
qu-ickly identify CVs matching your criteria as search results are displayed as a -snapshot overview including the candidate’s objectives
-search for suitable candidates in complete confidentiality – an excellent tool for times when you do not want to advertise a position

With our new ‘pay as you go’ model you only pay for the CVs you pick (Just €15 + VAT per CV).

Get ahead of the competition by targeting quality candidates instantly and efficiently. Check out our database in RMS today.

Kindest Regards,
The IrishJobs.ie Team

I am not sure if that includes a Jobs.ie database as well. That would be the first question I would ask.

Then again compared to Worky – Irish Jobs is cheaper. €15 per CV from Irish Jobs, against €20 per contact on Worky.

A leading Irish jobs site and a start-up social network – both charging for selling the private data. I still think it should be free.

Categories
Blogs

SnazzyJobs

I guess some people will say I like writing about the Irish Jobs boards. The funny thing is that there is so many popping out, it is almost every week you hear about a new one. This is just in the last month or so:
TheJobs.ie, JobisJob.ie, Jobs2do.ie aka Spamers, Monster Finance, urHired

So here goes an interesting one. The Irish .ie domain seemed a bit too expensive so it is called SnazzyJobs.com. At least it is Hosted in Cork, so Google.ie might actually not ban it completely, if Google Webmaster Tools is to be believed.

Here are the first impressions:
1. Logo resembles any other stock logo sample, not really inspiring (as was the case with a number of the recruiters logos earlier this year).
2. Legal Stuff – company registration number and the registered address nowhere to be seen on the site.
3. Why publish so many pages to have only Coming Soon text on them?
4. The site is actually designed in some ’90-ies style. It is really hard to read the font in the menu. Green font with the green shadow on the green background? Here are some Design ideas: Jobs Board.
5. The code is not as messy as most of the jobs sites are actually, but a bit too much of that Java code all over. It is an interesting choice to have the jobs board in php, while all the leading job boards are the powered by the Microsoft .NET. Another interesting choice is
6. StatCounter as opposed to Google Analytics? Interesting choice. I would still use both, since the speed the Google Analytics is being developed at the moment, with stuff like Data Visualisation (Google Analytics Motion Chart), will overshadow most of the aspects of otherwise very useful StatCounter.

You need to be brave to show your price list online where there is nothing really anyone can buy for less than a thousand euro. It could actually be used as a company slogan:

Snazzy Jobs
Where prices start at thousand Euro

Or maybe not?

There seems to be some 250 jobs advertised. Considering the time of the year and the (econ)comic situation in the country it is not bad really. There is also 2 jobs advertised in the last 7 days, so the site is not dead!

But honestly it will not be much more if some serious effort is not applied. The designers have decided to ignore a few important facts. SEO and Usability. The URL’s look like this:
snazzyjobs.com/jobsearch.php?ok=1&v000=&v001=1&v010=0&v011=&v101=&v111=....

To find the job search you need to click on some well hidden green button on the green background. And that button is one the single page on the site? Perhaps this is a part of the screening process: If you manage to apply – you must be a smart person, so we will look at your CV!

And,… you also need to create and account with Snazzy Jobs to be able to apply for the job. That last hurdle in the application process will definitely go well with the applicant. If banks and governments are losing the personal data, should I be leaving it on the web site that even does not confirm the company registration number required by the CRO?

Snazy Jobs we honestly wish you the best!!!