Search Engine Optimisation, most commonly referred to as SEO, is the art of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
So you've invested your time and money in designing and building a website. The next phase is ensuring that this content can be seen and accessed by the audience you are trying to target.
Unfortunately, there is no magic SEO wand. Volcanic, an Access company and global leader in recruitment websites, often encourages clients to think about their website in the same way as a gym membership. If you use all of the gym equipment available to you in the right way, you will soon start to see results. If you don't attend the gym, or use the equipment effectively, you won't see the results you're hoping for. In a similar way, your recruitment website CMS gives you all the tools you need to optimise any content you produce on your website. If you utilise these effectively, you will soon be rewarded with improved visibility and conversions.
So, what is SEO? It stands for Search Engine Optimisation, and in short is the art of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
- Topic:
- Recruitment
Few recruitment businesses can function without their systems up and running. It isn’t just about the protection against a potential disaster, a malicious attack, or a catastrophic error that is important, it’s the action plan for getting back up and running as quickly as possible. Speed of recovery can make a huge difference. Take too long and your agency could quickly lose money and clients, and bad experiences can lead to potentially reputational damage.
One of the advantages of moving business systems and software into the cloud is that the IT headaches associated with back-up and recovery planning are simply removed.
What’s more, the cloud is the simplest and most effective way to deal with crucial problems.
- Topic:
- Recruitment
Feeling tired all the time? Do you go into the office everyday feeling micromanaged? Are you fearing the worst from all candidates you send to new roles?
Then you could be well on the way to a nasty case of recruiter burnout. And trust us - nobody wants that.
Review your answers to our seven quick questions to spot whether you or one of your colleagues is suffering from burnout blues.
Just answer the questions below and then read what the results have to say about what we like to call your burnoutability…
- Topic:
- Recruitment
Just a few months ago it was reported that the UK job market is at a record high of 76.2% with the lowest level of unemployment since 1974.
Add into the mix the fact that those in those in employment are changing jobs less often. Even millennials, once seen as constantly on the move with their portfolio careers and gig economy opportunities, are actually now switching roles far less than they used to.
So with UK employment booming and people sticking with what they know, the pressure of candidate shortage is not going to let up anytime soon. To make matters worse for recruiters, competition is fiercer than ever – with around eight and a half thousand new agencies having set up last year – more than a 200% increase in less than ten years.
The bottom line: recruitment businesses need to ensure they can operate as competitively as possible. But when margins are tight and candidates are in short supply, it’s a big ask.
So, what can be done?
- Topic:
- Recruitment
You’re probably thinking there’s nothing rock and roll about payroll, right? Rock and Roll is for bands, who play live shows, record albums and release music videos to keep their fans happy. Devoted fans, in return, give unconditional loyalty, merch/record sales and collectively sing less tuneful, passionate renditions of their songs back to them at gigs.
So how does payroll fit in?
Just as bands are influencers to their fans, your payroll team has a huge influence on your company’s morale. Efficient payroll keeps your clients stress free, your contractors cared for and your employees happy. Put it this way, a band might have the looks, but if they can’t play their instruments the fans obviously won’t listen. Similarly, no matter how great your recruitment business is, how much your employees enjoy the culture, or your contractors take on more roles, no one works for free.
So, don’t let your recruitment business slip down the charts with our tips for managing your payroll that we’ve learnt from experience:
- Topic:
- Recruitment
Your back office is the back bone of your business.
It will determine whether you grow straight and strong, or whether it’s a rocky and bent ride that throws you off balance at some point.
A huge part of that back bone is your payroll systems and processes, and your ability to bring in, and send out, the right amount of cash at the right times. Thankfully, the days of filling in the ledger with ink by candlelight are long gone and technology has made life easier, but that’s not to say we still don’t face challenges. A host of common mistakes and challenges remain and how we deal with them says a lot about the type of employer you are and will be.
Here’s some challenges and what you can do to conquer them:
- Topic:
- Recruitment
Do you know what the hardest part of running a recruitment agency is? It’s not finding the right office, or finding candidates or even getting clients. It’s not even retaining your recruiters. With enough persuasive arguments, charm and wit, you can keep anyone in the door. However, no amount of smart talking is going to keep cash in your business.
You cannot talk your way out of invoicing someone and nor can you tell contractors to wait for their paycheck at the end of the month. Cash is king for a reason, because it keeps everything working, and as long as you have cash in your agency, you have the ability to operate.
This is why payrolling becomes one of the biggest headaches for us all, especially if we’re recruiting in the contractor market. Money is flying out of your business before you have time to invoice clients for it.
- Topic:
- Recruitment
When you work in recruitment you know the value of employer branding. It’s the reason you have clients that are always a breeze to fill, and why other clients are an uphill slog. A strong employer brand helps organisations compete in a busy labour market and drive employee loyalty and engagement. In short, a strong employer brand does half the work for you. The CIPD recently released a report stating that employer branding is more important than ever before in such uncertain economic times. But often, we’re so focused on our client’s brand, that we forget to dedicate time to our own agency. Here’s a few tips you can start with to ensure that your recruitment business is always building a conscious and strong brand to attract the best consultants:
- Topic:
- Recruitment
As our workforce continues to change and evolve, it’s clear that contractors are not slowing down. Every year their numbers are increasing as more and more workers desire more balance in their lives and work, or just the freedom to work from wherever they want.
According to a study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the contractor industry makes up 15% of the UK workforce. This doesn’t sound like much, but if you think about the size of the UK workforce you’re essentially looking at around 5 million workers. That's a lot.
If you’re recruiting contractors you’ll know they’re a different breed from the temp lot. They require different approaches, but if you get it right, the rewards are far higher once you start looking at day rates and margins. Here's a few things to bear in mind when sourcing and engaging contractors today:
- Topic:
- Recruitment
When it comes to the busy world of a recruitment consultant, a recruitment database is often something to groan over. It means admin, and lord knows recruiters hate admin more than anything else. When you’re jumping from exciting meeting to the next, having great conversations with candidates and taking clients for drinks and fancy dinners, admin is basically the devil's work and, therefore, so is a CRM. However, that was the CRMs of yesteryear. Now they’re designed to make recruiters lives easier, and the one thing that will make their lives easier is hiring great candidates, quickly. When building Access Recruitment CRM, we made sure that it took candidates to cash both quickly and seamlessly. So, here’s some ways your recruitment software can help you do just that.
- Topic:
- Recruitment
