tfpl blog

Youth Employment Meeting with Students from John Ruskin College

by Matt Woods, Recruitment Consultant, Temporary and Contracts Team

Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure of welcoming 13 students and two staff members from John Ruskin College in Croydon to TFPL to discuss job searching and employment for young people.

With youth employment very much in the news, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) keen to encourage Recruitment Companies to engage with schools and colleges to discuss the ways young people can make themselves more marketable in this the most challenging job market for many years.

Amidst the media gloom about the prospects for young people, it was great to meet such an enthusiastic and committed group, some of whom are looking forward to university, some to apprenticeships and others to getting straight into work.  It’s common to think about the barriers young people face when looking for work, but the students from John Ruskin College, being well-versed in the use of social media and having been well-guided by their tutors in the importance of networking, have many advantages and opportunities that other job-seekers won’t have.  We looked at CVs and interview skills, using the internet and social networks to find jobs and the importance of perseverance.

In the current job market, recruitment companies will need to play their part in helping schools and colleges to prepare young people for the job market.  It’s an area we’re expecting to hear a lot more about in the news and an area in which we expect to be working with the REC in future.

Library and Information Services Open Day at the House of Commons

House of Commons Department of Information Services Open Day for Librarians & Information Officers

by Helen Trudgeon, Recruitment Consultant

Last week saw the annual House of Commons Department of Information Services Open Day. Starting in the impressive Portcullis House, a group of around 60 librarians and information officers were  given a highly informative outline of the House of Commons’ library services by Bob Twigger, the Director of Information Services for Members, which was followed up by an interesting guide to the Reference Services Section by its head, Dora Clark. 

Employing a staggering 150 people made up of subject specialists, economists and IT experts as well as researchers, librarians and information specialists,  the department responds to around 30,000 enquiries annually - an average of around 56 a year for each of the 82% of MPs (and their aides) who use their services regularly.

Katharine Marke, Head of the Library Resources Section then gave us an overview of their services, which include acquisitions, LMS and catalogue management, conservation of parliamentary documents and disaster recovery planning. We were then given a brief overview of the Parliamentary Outreach Service by Matt Ringer, who outlined their work in encouraging greater public engagement with the House of Commons and the House of Lords across the country.

Following a demonstration of their online resources, he day was rounded off by a visit to the Members’ Library, which is situated very close to the chamber of the House of Commons itself. We heard it described as the only single quiet place in the whole of Parliament and enables members to avoid computers, phones and other noisy distractions for a few minutes’ peace and concentration.  Finally, we visited the floor of the House of Commons, although disappointingly, with Parliament in recess, we didn’t have the opportunity to listen to any debates.

The Growth of Social Media

by Denise Harmer, Recruitment Consultant

I attended my first NetikX event on Tuesday where Steve Dale and Geoff McCaleb (social media mobile consultant) shared some interesting statistics about social media which is undoubtedly here to stay given that staggeringly two thirds of the population visit a social network site once a month and Facebook has 800 million users...

The future of social media is clearly growth, Facebook’s strategy for example is to encourage users to spend more time on the site, this will soon be a a possibility as they are about to launch Timeline which will encourage the user to spend more time uploading and sharing information. Another major focus of social media will be its mobility -  by 2013, it is predicted that mobile devices will provide more people with their online experiences than desktops.

A few facts – 1 in 3 companies now use some form of social media to recruit (eg LinkedIn), 47% of journalists used twitter as a source in 2010, 50% of the population uses Facebook.
Its official – social media is here to stay and who knows, in ten years time email may be replaced and we could be operating in a Skype based in environment conversing face to face via a mobile platform.

The Annual SLA Winter Warmer Pub Quiz

by Helen Trudgeon, Contracts Recruitment Consultant

 

Last week saw SLA Europe’s Annual Winter Warmer Pub Quiz event take place, once again hosted by professional QuizMaster, AskTony and kindly sponsored by Swets and the Financial Times.

SLA President and TFPL Managing Director Darron Chapman welcomed the 16 teams, made up of SLA members and friends, all eager to be crowned Quiz Champions 2012.  So keen were staff at TFPL, that we were able to field 2 full teams – the IDOX Idles and TFPL & Back - competing not only for the main prize, but also to take home the honour of being TFPL’s own internal champion. Purely in the spirit of friendly rivalry, of course.

The quiz kicked off with an investigation of our knowledge of recent current affairs, which perhaps left a little to be desired, but the room soon warmed up as we were asked, amongst other things, to identify obscure television adverts, to get inside the heads of Sun readers  and to spot price an eyewateringly obscure range of commodities.  Smartphones were sadly banned, but our team nonetheless managed to achieve modest success, based on a sound knowledge of Asda pricing and at least one mathematical genius who knew the current price of Brent Crude.

The final round remains memorable, if only for the noise of over 80 people singing along to Chas n’ Dave and the Rocky soundtrack.  Possibly with more enthusiasm than any inherent musical ability. Or perhaps that was just me.

The eventual and well deserved winners were the Film Club, captained by Mark Haines, whilst both of TFPL’s teams managed a respectable mid-table ranking, with IDOX Idles pipping TFPL & Back by just 1 point.  We are already anticipating next year’s re-match.

Ultimate winners the Film Club https://picasaweb.google.com/asktony.co.uk/Sla2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrUv8Dvu5285AE#5698928439449238770

https://picasaweb.google.com/asktony.co.uk/Sla2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrUv8Dvu5285AE#5698928397971520194

Social Media adoption research

Author: Claire Valentine, Training Manager

We at TFPL have long be interested in the impact social media has on organisations.  Following on from a survey that was conducted with Edinburgh Napier Univeristy in 2008, we are now happy to promote further post graduate research that they are conducting. 

Are you interested in how social media can support information and knowledge management? Would you have 15-20 minutes to spare to complete a short survey to help us enhance our understanding of the role of social media in organisational settings?

A postgraduate student supervised by Professor Hazel Hall at Edinburgh Napier University is conducting research into the opportunities and risks of social media tools to support information and knowledge management. You can find further information on the previous work that was undertaken jointly by TFPL with Edinburgh Napier University in 2008 here  http://www.soc.napier.ac.uk/~hazelh/esis/soc_comp_proj_rep_public.pdf.  

We would be most grateful if you would contribute to this project by completing the online survey at http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/672848/5b1b3dc8a308.

All responses will be aggregated and no individual or organisation will be identifiable in the results. The findings will be shared with the broader information and knowledge management community after the project is completed.

Capitalising on Social Media – Recruitment in a Digital Era

by Luisa Jefford, Director, TFPL

The emergence of social and professional networking tools has had a profound effect on the way the world collaborates and shares knowledge and expertise.  TFPL, are more aware of this than most, we have daily contact with organisations and employees whose roles are to aid the transfer of knowledge, information, intelligence and insight within their domain. 

Having celebrated 20 years in recruitment this year I have seen the landscape change dramatically.  My introduction into recruitment was a folder full of CVs that got added to and searched on a daily basis by the Consultants, people were contacted, submitted and roles obtained. 

Working in a market where demand far outstripped supply there was little need to have a more pro-active approach when meeting your clients requirements, you matched people looking to recruit staff with people who were actively looking for work.  Fast forward 20 years and you are sitting in a market where there is a war for talent and the recruitment business is a competitive one.  People looking for work are and should continue to be prized assets for any employment business and having a strategy for attracting talent is vital for an organisation that wants to stay ahead of the competition. 

These days the competition comes in many guises and perhaps one of the largest impacts on the recruitment industry has been a sharp increase in people leveraging their own professional network to widen the opportunities available, combine this with astute organisations and their hiring managers effectively using a variety of tools and techniques as part of their talent management strategy and as the middle man you are in danger of being kept out of the loop. 

These tools include Linked In, Viadeo, Twitter, Monster, Facebook to name a few and reach an audience that perhaps aren’t always aware they are actively job seeking.   The power of a casual internet search for a new opportunity should not be underestimated by any recruiter.  These are the people we need to work hard to attract.  In addition they allow individuals to maintain contact with organisations and colleagues that perhaps would not have happened before the emergence of these tools. 

So in today’s world, with much talk about Recruitment 3.0, what should we be doing?  At TFPL we believe that the combination of our expertise, market knowledge and strongly developed professional relationships with our clients and a robust strategy for using social media tools and techniques is truly the winning combination. 

From a job hunters perspective these tools give you valuable market insight into roles that are being recruited and salaries being offered  but also offer organisational intelligence, who are the growing organisations and which industries do they operate in.  They should certainly be in your job hunting strategy.  However, it is worth remembering that a TFPL can and will offer you this and more.

At TFPL we use a variety of tools and techniques to manage existing relationships with our clients and candidates, sell our services, give distinct marketing and pr messages to a wider audience whilst remembering that doing all of this makes us more visible to our market place and also people sitting on the edges of current market.  In addition we also remember that doing this makes us more visible to the masses than a well developed website ever will, so quality assurance of our message is an important part of this.