by Fiona Housiaux | Aug 9, 2018 | News
Building strong relationships with our clients is one of the most fundamental parts of the ThinkinCircles ethos. It’s particularly satisfying when those relationships blossom into communication thought leadership that drives one of our clients to greater and greater success.
One such client, IMS People are world leaders in Offshore Recruitment Services and work with resourcing and recruitment companies across the globe delivering a wide range of innovative and expertly managed resourcing solutions. Headquartered in India but speaking to a global audience it is vital that IMS People deliver marketing communications of the highest possible quality.
Their marketing approach is thorough. Exhibitions and conferences of course but at the heart of everything a well-crafted website with excellent optimisation, containing current and appropriate thought leading articles about the recruitment and resourcing sector backed up with well designed leaflets and emails. A combination which quite rightly has placed IMS People as a leader in the offshore industry.
ThinkinCircles have had the pleasure of working with IMS People for a number of years and from simple beginnings, writing a few blogs and articles for their website, we have developed into a communications partner who deliver the vast majority of IMS People’s online written communication. Over the past few years we have delivered copy for a number of IMS People brand websites as well as delivering thought leading articles, blogs and marketing emails that have served to place IMS People as a truly global expert in the recruitment sector.
In addition to the online based collateral ThinkinCircles has created copy for a wide range of marketing material including leaflets and brochures and in doing so we have built a relationship that keeps growing in line with the success of IMS People itself.
It’s just one example of how ThinkinCircles can deliver meaningful and effective online marketing for businesses across the recruitment, staffing and HR sectors.
To discuss how we can help you with any specific or general marketing challenge speak to our MD, James on james@thinkincircles-com.stackstaging.com
by Fiona Housiaux | Jul 12, 2018 | News
It’s difficult to think of an area of talent management more overlooked than learning and development.
Yes, some organisations are good at it when they can see direct benefits for themselves.
However, it is still rare to see employers investing in shaping the future direction of their employees’ careers, by offering them the best learning and development opportunities.
Unfortunately, few organisations actually realise that by ignoring it, or at best seeing it as an afterthought, the consequence is that they will not be seen as an employer of choice by either recruiters or candidates.
Ultimately, these organisations will pay a very high price: the loss of top talent.
Having a strong and successful employee learning and development plan helps to grow an organisation’s employer brand and ensures they are a prime consideration for recruiters and candidates alike.
A commitment to these areas is transmitted into the career marketplace, including to job seekers and recruiters, by means of positive feedback by current and past employees.
Increasingly, an organisation will be recognised by recruiters who seek to place ambitious candidates with them, on the strength of their employer brand and the quality of their learning and development offering.
The simple fact is that today’s employees care a great deal about professional development and want to develop more skills. It really is essential to make your organisation stand out by making the professional development of your employees a top priority.
Especially as 60% of millennials would rather work somewhere that offered professional development opportunities than somewhere that offered regular pay raises. Yet according to research only 25% of employees feel as though their current employers offer adequate development opportunities.
Plus, it’s not just about attracting the best candidates, it can also have an impact on retaining current employees as well, as aLinkedIn study found that a primary reason people leave their jobs is in pursuit of growth opportunities.
In addition to helping retain staff and make you an employer of choice for both recruiters and employees, having a learning and development plan has numerous other benefits, including:
- Improved productivity and adherence to quality standards allowing you to be more competitive due to efficient use of time and materials and improved customer satisfaction
- Employees develop skill sets that allow them to undertake a greater variety of work helping increase morale and lower staff turnover and absenteeism
- Improved ability to implement and realise specific goals outlined in a company’s business plan and increase market share and profitability
- Increased ability to respond effectively to change
I think we can all agree that learning and development isn’t just important to a business, it is vital.
by Fiona Housiaux | May 14, 2018 | News
With just under a year to go until Brexit, a worrying 96% of recruiters and HR managers are having to rethink their recruitment and hiring strategies to cope with Brexit, according to new research from LinkedIn.
Indeed, 46% of respondents are seeing a ‘big’ or ‘huge’ impact as the UK becomes less attractive to international talent.
The LinkedIn’s April Workforce Report, which examines job movement across the professional networking site’s 24m members in the UK and is designed to provide members, businesses and policymakers with evidence-based insights into the changing shape of the UK workforce, also shows that the UK is losing talent to the European Union.
This month the report also included the results of an independent ‘Recruiter Sentiment’ survey that gauges UK based in-house and agency recruiters’ confidence in their ability to fill available roles: reflecting the trends they are seeing in the marketplace.
The survey found that hiring professionals are seeing a negative impact on international hiring into the UK, with 37% of recruiters seeing a decrease in candidates from EU countries over the last quarter.
And it’s not just EU candidates being put off by Brexit either as recruiters are seeing a decrease in hires from such countries as the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa too. This offers the worrying prospect that any fall in EU candidates won’t be filled easily by those from non-EU countries.
The figures highlight the negative impact on international hiring into the UK from the following countries over the last quarter:
- Italy – 37%
- France – 35%
- Germany – 35%
- Netherlands – 32%
- Spain – 29%
- Other 27 EU countries – 33%
The decrease in hires from non-EU countries:
- South Africa – 27%
- Canada – 27%
- Australia – 26%
- USA – 25%
Josh Graff, UK Country Manager at LinkedIn commented on the results of the survey:
“Changes in migration take a long time to bear out – but today we can see that the UK has gone from being a country that gains talent from EU nations, to one that loses professionals to them. For business leaders there are three things you can do now: talk to your HR team and find out what impact this is having on you, consider new sources of talent – including upskilling existing employees, and make sure you have conveyed your talent needs to professional associations and the government.’’
Graff continued: “The last two years have also seen a fall in the number of workers moving to the UK from elsewhere in the world. This isn’t people anticipating new visa rules; instead the perception of the UK being a good place to advance your career appears to have faltered. The UK is still a fantastic place to do business, and those thinking about relocating here should bear in mind that the caution of others could be their opportunity.’’
The survey also found that hiring professionals found the following were the top factors impacting hiring strategies because of Brexit:
- The availability of talent – 40%
- Business uncertainty – 38%
- Reluctance of candidates to move to the UK – 36%
- Competition from international businesses – 28%
The top sectors which according to talent professionals are impacted because of Brexit are:
- Healthcare – 13%
- Manufacturing – 11%
- Construction – 11%
- Education – 11%
- Banking and finance – 11%
- Retail – 10%
Jon Addison, Head of Talent Solutions at LinkedIn UK, offered some tips to ensure that employers and recruiters can still find and attract the best talent.
“Make more of what you already have: think about how you could upskill your existing team to ensure that your business is well equipped to navigate the more competitive external hiring landscape,” he said.
“Elevate your brand beyond borders. Make it appealing to the talent you need now, and in the future, to ensure your access to the talent pool you need – from the UK and abroad – is maintained.”
Addison concluded: “There are three important steps businesses can and should be taking to address the ‘access to talent’ challenges they face since the Brexit vote. “First, ensuring that long-term hiring strategies and workforce planning are aligned with business priorities is vital. HR teams should be leveraging workforce insights and data to ensure that in combination with their recruiters’ instincts, they make informed decisions and plan to hire talent not just for skills their business needs now, but will need in six to 12 months time too.”
“Second, make more of what you already have: think about how you could upskill your existing team to ensure that your business is well equipped to navigate the more competitive external hiring landscape. Think learning and development first.”
“And third, elevate your brand beyond borders. Make it appealing to the talent you need now, and in the future, to ensure your access to the talent pool you need – from the UK and abroad – is maintained.”
The survey didn’t just highlight concerns, despite all the unease about the impact of Brexit the overall confidence amongst talent professionals is relatively high as 71% still feel ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ confident about their ability to recruit the right talent and 48% have seen an increase in hiring over the first quarter of 2018. Over two-fifths (44%) have seen no change in hiring rates.
For those who have seen an increase in hiring, the main reasons behind this have been:
- Business growth – 56%
- More vacancies – 45%
- More suitable candidates on the market – 32%
- Sector specific needs – 28%
by Fiona Housiaux | May 11, 2018 | News
Sometimes here at ThinkinCircles our clients come to us with a specific marketing problem they need to resolve swiftly and efficiently but without spending a fortune! It’s exactly the kind of challenge we relish and with our many years of experience we are always on hand to offer a prudent, well considered solution that achieves the desired results.
One such client, LMA Recruitment, an international multi award winning specialist recruiters had just such a challenge from their London based Secretarial recruitment team. The London market for secretarial staff (Secretaries, Personal Assistants, Executive Assistants, Receptionists etc.) is fiercely competitive and the talent in the marketplace tends to utilise search engine results to find the best recruiters and the latest vacancies – naturally then, the key way gain an advantage in the marketplace is to rank well on Google.
LMA were falling behind on that score and ranked midway on page four of the organic results. Simply not good enough for an agency that prides itself on the very highest standards in recruitment and a service level second to none.
The challenge was on, get LMA ranking significantly higher for their specialist sector within the capital, the most competitive region of all. Initial research showed their position for the vital keywords was poor, mid page four rankings – effectively lost on Google, we needed to achieve page one results, and quickly.
The team at ThinkinCircles devised a marketing strategy which included a carefully orchestrated mix of on-site search engine optimisation, social media marketing, blogging and article content creation and a small Google Adwords budget.
The results were stunning, after one month of activity the client had already moved up to page two on Google and by six weeks in they were on the first page ranking at position nine.
Not ones to rest on our laurels, through ongoing delivery of high quality content marketing and ongoing search engine optimisation ThinkinCircles have managed to drive the client even further up page one for their key search phrases.
For the client the increase in traffic to their website, specifically the key market sectors they wanted to boost, has been significant and this has reflected in meaningful returns for the client in terms of successful hires and placements.
It’s just one example of how ThinkinCircles can deliver meaningful and effective online marketing for businesses across the recruitment, staffing and HR sectors.
To discuss how we can help you with any specific or general marketing challenge speak to our MD, James on james@thinkncircles.com
by Fiona Housiaux | Apr 30, 2018 | News
For most of us, the Facebook scandal is current and significant news, however the full details, the size, reach and impacts of the controversy are in many ways somewhat of a mystery.
Ok, yes we get that the personal data of Facebook users has been mishandled and that there have long been reservations about the enormous amount of information Facebook collects. Plus, we grasp that this is a big deal as Facebook has nearly two billion users around the globe. Plus, we are aware that for Facebook this is a total branding nightmare.
Yet, you could be forgiven for not being fully aware that when you delve deeper into the scandal it actually starts to read like the script of a Hollywood blockbuster, involving the most controversial and nasty US presidential campaigner ever, allegations that the world’s largest social network listens to users’ conversations through the microphone on their smart phones and after much speculation, the revelation that during the 2016 U.S. election a handful of Russian actors manipulated Facebook users by spreading misinformation on the social network.
See what I mean, I’m even thinking Matt Damon for the lead, how about you?
So, let’s look at how all this started
The whole scandal stems from news that in 2007 Facebook allowed access to the data they held on their users. App creators, developers of games, social software and dating apps, plus academics, researchers and marketers all gained access to the data of Facebook’s users.
In 2015 Facebook learnt that Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge had broken its data policies when he shared user data gleaned from his personality prediction app with others, including Cambridge Analytica, a data firm with ties to President Donald
Trump’s 2016 campaign.
This led to Facebook clamping down on access, citing user privacy concern, although it was too late to stop the data, including not just information on people who downloaded the app but also those people’s Facebook friends.
Facebook said it had received assurances the improperly accessed data had been deleted. However, the company later learned that this wasn’t true and they couldn’t independently confirm what data had been scrubbed.
So, what does the data shared contain?
When you join and use Facebook you provide them with information which becomes your public profile. This includes your name, profile picture, cover photo, gender, networks and user ID.
However, this is just the tip of information stored as Facebook also retains data on your hometown, religion, political affiliations, work and education histories and your relationship interests i.e. your sexual orientation.
Their monitoring of you and your information doesn’t stop there either. Facebook keeps a record of every photo and video that has been uploaded, every post ever written, every place on the map that has been tagged and every page, on Facebook and on the web that users have ever ‘liked’.
Put simply, whatever users have volunteered to Facebook or interacted with on Facebook becomes part of a profile that can be accessed by developers, app creators, academics, researchers and marketers and targeted by advertisers.
Facebook also uses the profile they develop to interact with you by suggesting friends to tag in photos posted. Indeed, this is the feature that ignited concerns that the company was monitoring people’s data and gave birth to the conspiracy theory suggesting Facebook listens to people’s through microphones on their smart phones.
So, does Facebook just hand this data over: how is it access?
Facebook executives stress the company doesn’t sell data directly to advertisers. Handing over user data would be bad for Facebook’s business model, they argue.
What Facebook does is use the information given by a user to build targeting tools that can be used by advertisers.
Plus, many apps and websites offer the option, or indeed require people to login with Facebook and by doing so it allows the app or website to access to the information in the public profiles and ask for specifics such as a friend list, birthday or political beliefs. Before 2015, Facebook even let developers pull detailed information about friends, too.
The user data collected is meant to enhance the user experience by only showing adverts that you would actually click on. However, marketers can also pay to promote non advertising content, such as a post containing a news article. Facebook also uses data in other ways, including creating a personalised news feed for you, every time you log on.
What have Facebook proposed they do about the scandal?
Facebook Chief Executive, Mr Zuckerberg has admitted that Facebook has made mistakes and apologised for the controversy over how its user data has been handled. He has also said that Facebook will investigate any other potential abuses by app developers who have had access to large amounts of people’s data.
Facebook also plans to map out the quantity and type of data app developers requested between 2007 and 2015 and will start by examining apps that had large user bases, 100,000 people or more, and those apps that pulled extensive data about a smaller group of people.
Going forward, Zuckerberg has said that the only information apps and websites will receive by default will be a person’s name, profile picture and email address, plus they will control an app’s access to data if a person hasn’t used that app in three months.
Although there are those still with significant concerns as Zuckerberg added “Like any security precaution, it’s not that this is a bulletproof solve.”
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