Two hellos / welcomes from us today.

Firstly I’d like you all to meet Amy. “If it seems too good to be true then it most probably is” is something I’ve often heard said – well we’re hoping that Amy proves “them” wrong. A trilingual Project Manager with specific Recruitment and Start Up experience, who’s already spent some time using HARBOUR ATS and has experience of other ATS’ to bring to the party too. Oh – and she lives in our neck of the woods. I’ve had to make some tough calls in setting up this business – but I’m sure you’ll agree that this hire probably had to be one of the easiest. This is a great hire for our clients (existing & potential) as Amy can not only assist in delivery but also bring fresh perspective and relevant experience to the table, but I’m mostly hoping she’ll help maintain whatever shred of sanity I still have left 

Secondly – say hi to Kimberly. Kimberly Clark that is (of Kleenex and Andrex (amongst others) fame).

Screen grab of Kimberly-ClarkGraduate.com - Graduate recruitment site underpinned by HARBOUR ATS

www.Kimberly-ClarkGraduates.com – A nicely integrated grad recruitment site underpinned by a quickly turned around HARBOUR ATS – it’s so beautiful when things fit together so nicely it brings a tear to my eyes (reach for Kleenex – as the strapline says “it’s time to let it out”).

Quite a perky start to the month of March really

We’ve just delivered two nice little projects that I thought we should just tell you about – and as modest as they are (we’ll have a biggee to announce hopefully any day now – if size is your thing) they’re both still exciting and pleasing in their own right and for different reasons.

If you’ve been following our exploits then you’ll hopefully remember that one of our early successes was and on behalf of Weight Watchers (our instant ATS underpinning media activity by Beyond Interactive – assisting in processing over 500 applications and, through the hires made, the client reckoned saved them an estimated £30k that would have otherwise been spent through Recruitment Consultants).  This led to us building a more permanent solution – WeightWatchers-jobs.co.uk. And that’s all ticking along quite nicely – the client’s even starting to pull off speculative applicants for consideration in their current recruitment, which of course will send the ROI through the roof, which is nice

So that was for those employed by Weight Watchers. But the public face of Weight Watchers is perhaps most often associated with the meetings (helped by Matt Lucas I’m sure) and the se;f employed/franchise type Leaders who help motivate the attendees to succeed in their pursuit of weight loss. Well the team responsible for recruiting the Leaders were so impressed with what they saw we’d done for the other side of the business they wanted their own site and application facility – NO MORE TREE KILLING with paper application forms!! So WeightWatchers-leaders.co.uk was created. And whilst it’s a nice little site in itself, what we’re most pleased with is the fact our work got noticed and referred within the business – that kind of vote of confidence means the world.

The second piece of new business to tell you about came through the award winning digital team at Penna TCS. We’ve been chatting for a while, but an opportunity came to work together and show what we could do (at pace). Aviva have an arm of their business (or will do when this partner becomes as one as of April 1st this year) called Asprea. What do they do? well they’re the “property household claims management” side of the business. Anyway – Penna TCS built the site and we underpinned it with HARBOUR ATS at  www.fixhomesbuildcareers.com – and I challenge you to spot a join

But what we find most exciting about this particular project is that, even for this very “entry level” version of HARBOUR, we’ve worked (and I’d like to think pretty effortlessly from both our perspectives) with the Penna TCS Campaign Tracking team. So we’re getting to see first hand our facility working in conjunction with fully tracked campaign to give the client some very accurate and conclusive media source reporting – from qualified click thrus to actual bums on seats.
I love it when a spreadsheet comes together

Someone commented to me before Christmas on how, having won a mile-stone piece of business, they were surprised that we didn’t seem to allow ourselves any time to enjoy the moment. It’s true – we barely acknowledged let alone particularly celebrated the success.

The reality is that time for reflection and self congratulation is, as a start up business, something I consider to be a luxury, all be it one we’re working hard to earn. And whilst I can’t tell you whether this is something that is reflective of the current economic market or just the way that I approach building a business, what I do know is that right now just about every moment we have is about delivery (not that I’m in any way grumbling of course, but this also explains the tardy blogging of late too).

But it was in creating a presentation for some potential new business at the end of last week that I allowed myself a little swell of pride as I added a new slide to the now quite estalbished “About us” section. Up until now our client references have always had to be about the clients we’ve worked with in the past – something we termed our “pedigree”. And rightly too as we’ve delivered site’s and systems for some pretty impressive brands over the years (as displayed on our About Us page (note to self – make time to refresh that now as well)).

Since HARBOUR (our Applicant Tracking & Content Management  platform) was “born” and became pretty much the sole focus for the business, we’ve been working pretty damned hard to both evolve the system and build a portfolio – it was prepping for Friday’s meeting that helped me realise we’re probably not doing so bad, all things considered. Our first HARBOUR ATS facility went live back in August, and since then, through the worst economic depression since the second world war,  here’s who have used and proved it to date:

HARBOUR Clients (so far)

So whilst we rub our bleary eyes coming out of a very busy January and muster the energy for what could be an even busier February, during which we’ll also hopefully bolster our team with a new member, I hope you’ll allow us a bit of a public smile to ourselves. And if you don’t hear me waxing lyrical about how we’ve done this for these and that for those and delighted such and such over something or other – don’t mistake it for me not being immensely proud of all that we’ve done so far within our business – we’re just building a client at a time and know we’re only really as good as our last delivery.

Towards the end of last year we set about recruiting to expand our development capability (which has, thankfully and with some great results & delighted clients, been working flat out for some time). I can confirm what I’ve read other people reporting to be true, in that irrespective of the swelling ranks of the unemployed, when you’re looking for talent you’ve still got to search damned hard (although ironically in this instance it turned out we actually hired one of the very first applicants).

I have to say as well though,  the quality of many of the applications was appalling. I wonder if anyone could create an index for the %age of job seekers who deserve to stay where they are/without a job on the basis of number of random applications outside of skill set they make (many have a clear inability to read a simple job description), terrible overall presentation (be that CV or answering questions in legible English) and overall seeming apathy towards life?!  :-/

So firstly let’s welcome Brett on board. A few weeks in and he’s clearly a nice guy who, I think, has settled in well (certainly there’s plenty to keep him occupied) and quickly become part of the team, but most importantly he clearly “LOVES code” – which is what you want in a developer in our opinion. We all spend more than enough time doing our day to day, so having a passion for what you do makes such a difference to both your life and the end result, so here’s to many years of keeping his passion stoked and delivering great facilities and service for our clients.

Secondly – I thought I’d just share with you some of the recruitment MI, because that is, after all, what we built HARBOUR ATS to do, and because it’s good to share .

The media channels used were: our website; twitter; google docs; PHP forums; Gumtree; CWjobs; Planet Recruit (& Hot Group network); Jobserve.We paid for CW Jobs, Planet Recruit and tried the new Pay Per Application model with Jobserve (limiting it to 10).

The specifics were that this was a Junior Developer role in North Essex (although we were pretty flexible about remote working).

The applications came from:

• 3dmarcomms.com – 3
• Jobserve – 6
• Gumtree – 9
• Planetrecruit (et al) – 12
• CWjobs – 35

The campaign MI headlines are:

• Worth testing: Planet Recruit – 1; 3DMarComms.com – 2; Jobserve – 3; Gumtree – 5; CWjobs – 15
• Telephone interview: Jobserve – 1; Gumtree – 1; 3DMarComms – 2; CWjobs – 2
• Talent Banked: CWjobs – 2; 3DMarcomms – 3
• Hire: Gumtree (specific cost = £0)

My personal feedback:

I thought that Planet Recruit was, to be blunt, absolute bobbins. The team there were very nice and tried hard (with a lot of additional collateral), but for this role I was very disappointed with such a poor response (particularly in quality – but also in volume, which may, considering the quality, have been a blessing I guess). My conclusion is that Planet Recruit (& network) has a very poor for Junior PHP Developer reach, particularly in the East of England.

I didn’t take to the Jobserve experience at all really. The lack of ability to integrate directly into an ATS (something I’ve long rallied against as a real barrier to use on this site) proved an issue here where out of 10 applications I paid for (on the PPA model) 4 then couldn’t be arsed to complete a simple application form I directed them to (although of course I’m sure some bright spark at Jobserve will try and sell this as a useful “motivational fit” sift :-s). However when you’re on a Pay Per Application basis, that kind of lazy candidate reflects very badly on the site. The lack of human involvement I also found made it a poor overall posting experience & actually as it all worked out rather expensive for only 3 OK applicants (despite the filters set in the Jobserve facility) who were even worth inviting to partake in our online test. On this experience (and if I can make the time I’ll blog some more on this for sure ) – Pay/Cost Per Application isn’t a model I’ll be looking to use again (or at least certainly not on the Jobserve site).

I have to admit to always having like CWJobs as a site – but perhaps the thing I liked best about it was the fact that it generally delivered for my clients in the past. And I wasn’t let down this time either. Good service that delivered good volume and decent quality of applicants. Thanks guys.

And what can you say about Gumtree? Well for me it just emphasised what’s so difficult about the crowded web, proving that you have to do your damndest to think like a candidate in a very noisy market place – in this instance thinking local to “get our man”.

I also, of course, had quite a lot of interest from recruitment consultants trying to sell me their “stella” candidates. There’s probably a blog post there too in regards to how important it is to get the attention to detail right first time every time, particularly when you’re trying to open a door that’s pretty firmly closed anyway. All I can say is there are a lot of Recruitment Consultants out there who will rightfully (and hopefully) go out of business if their terrible attempts to win my business accurately demonstrates their overall integrity, ability & professionalism. However, it’s always good to find the exception that proves the rule – and I was so impressed with Kirsty Brewer’s quirky, personal & through that ultimately stand-out approach (she’s from Senitor (although god knows their website needs some serious overhaul!!)) – that I’ve made sure I’ve kept her details just in case.

Anyway – that’s more than enough reminiscing about how we stepped into this year. It’s back to the grind stone, but all very much feeling glad that we have a grindstone to return to and that it’s thankfully seeing some serious action already this year

As we approach the end of the year it is of course generally a time for reflection on the year passed and to look ahead to what the New Year may bring. I got the shock of my life when my wife told me the yesterday that Christmas Day was next Friday – I mean where the hell did that come from??!!

And that kinda sums up the end of the year for us. I think it’s fair to say that I have never worked as hard as I have over the past quarter in my life. Of course I’m not complaining, hell, if setting up a business was easy then everyone would do it and we’d all be driving around in nice cars etc etc. But it only seems that I’ve blinked and we’ve gone warp factor from September to December. WeightWatchers, Heinz, Environment Agency, Lebara, The Highways Agency & Comic Relief, amongst others, now grace our portfolio and the pace doesn’t look like letting up in (or indeed over) the New Year. But we appreciate that this is a formative period for a young business such as ours, so as such we’re ensuring we grab every opportunity that comes our way (as well as ones we drag kicking and screaming our way too) with both hands and not only evolving our core product (HARBOUR® ATS), but also ensuring we set a new standard for service within the ATS SaaS market.

However as it is in the gym, so it is business – and with every gain there comes a bit of pain – so whilst this week has seen a new recruit joining our development team (more on that again), it’s with a sad heart we’re saying “see you round” to Adam Gretton.

Adam joined us as Commercial Director in September, us having known each other for a number of years. After the FT closed the Bath office of Exec Appointments it seemed like the best timing in the world, but the reality is that as our product evolved at a breakneck speed with the focus from the founding team wholeheartedly on delivery, then clearly something had to give and it’s with regret that I’ll freely admit Adam didn’t receive the support he deserved.

For those of you who know Adam you know that it won’t be long until you see him around again as I’m certain he’ll bounce up somewhere soon as he remains one of the top Media Relationship Managers (and down right industry good guys) that I’ve had the pleasure to work with over 14 odd years in Rec Ad. So all that’s left to be said is: thanks for everything you’ve input Adam – we’ll miss your tree planting ways

It’s been a tough couple of weeks (hence the recent silence on here and other social media avenues) whilst we’ve been ridiculously busy turning around a brace of significant requirements with near impossible timings. Not that I’m in anyway complaining because, especially in these times, we know all too well you have to seize every opportunity that comes your way – & we’re just a hairs breadth away from pulling off something I think will have been massively impressive by anyone’s standards, giving us some great names to add to our portfolio too.

But amongst it all – whilst trying to keep new business plates spinning and a couple of other nearly completed negotiations progressing too – an email popped in from Claire at Sculptured Sweetness (read about the project here).

Let’s be straight – this was project for a friend, but when you get a testimonial sent back like this, whoever it’s from, it makes you remember why you do what you do. It’s what we started the company to do – taking pride in a job well done, no matter how modest or how sophisticated. And with top listing in Google and a nice professional site with an easy to administer CMS, I think even at our most modest we’d say we’re happy with that!

“3D Marcomms listened carefully to my business plan and were very effective in helping build a website that catered for my fledgling company’s needs perfectly.  From the start to our current position, 3DMC explained everything clearly without using jargon and ensured that I knew how to manage my website on a daily basis.  3DMC are always at the end of an email should I have any questions and requests and have always been very helpful.

I find the Harbour CMS very easy to use and very clear, enabling me to keep my website fresh and up to date.  I am thrilled with the design of my website and how much traffic it has generated.  The website has played a major part in getting my business off the ground and presenting my business to prospective customers. It has achieved results in a very short space of time.  It looks professional and works quickly and smoothly for my customers which in turn promotes a professional appearance for my business.  I am happy to recommend to anyone thinking of using 3D Marcomms that by trusting Alex and his team, you will get the results that you are after as they certainly do not disappoint.”

Are you:

• looking for an opportunity to prove yourself?
• interested in getting in early with something that will certainly test you?
• hungry to build something you can put your mark on? Something that you can be proud of?

If you are and PHP means something different to you than the alkalinity or acidity of a swimming pool you’ve just used as a toilet, and Linux isn’t just a misspelling of a kid with a blanket in the peanuts cartoons – then we could be looking for you & you could have been waiting for us. Check out the opportunity here

One of the things that Alex and Tony told me about 3D MarComms and HARBOUR was the speed at which they could deploy a facility. And not just an off-the-shelf system, but a bespoke system designed to fit a client’s particular recruitment requirement like a glove. AND not just a great back-end , but a front-end that looks just like the rest of the clients’ site, meaning seamless integration, improving the candidate experience. AND I’ve just witnessed first hand what they mean.

So let me introduce you to our www.heinzgraduates.co.uk

Heinz Graduate Recruitment site 2009/10 (c/o ThirtyThree & 3D MarComms)

ThirtyThree created the quirky but very on brand design and our job was to create an application facility to seamlessly underpin this – and so only those of you with the keenest of eyes (fixed on the URL bar) will spot the transition to www.heinzgraduates-apply.co.uk for the application section.

Happy client and happy Ad Agency – what a nice combination.

So it seems that 3D MarComms do indeed ‘walk the walk’ as well as ‘talk the talk’, but hey – if I had doubted that I really shouldn’t be here anyway. However, it’s still good to see first hand how the 3 pillars of the 3D MarComms Ethos (Dynamic solutions; Delivery focussed; Digitally-centric) translates to delighted clients – maybe that’s the 4th D?.

OK – week 2 and I’m like Johnny 5 in Short Circuit – input, input and more input!  (furrowed brow? click here).  In any case, what I mean is that I’m immersing myself in 3D MarComms, HARBOUR® and the whole ATS market, so that I can add value to our client base as quickly as possible (and add a few clients too, of course).

In the meantime, Alex took part in the first ever Recruiter Cast (61 mins) as put on by CareerSiteAdvisor last week.  I thought it might be useful to link to this, to demonstrate the angle that we are coming from.

An abridged version of just Alex’s input (10 mins – quite succinct for him! ) can be seen below, covering where 3D MarComms and HARBOUR® ATS came from, to the state of the economy and the future for job boards:

Last week I read an article from the Daily Mail (a link I followed I don’t hesitate to add) from the inimitable Theo Paphitis entitled “Why ALL bosses should copy me and ban Facebook from the workplace”. I think it’s fair to say that it wound me up. REALLY wound me up. It’s true that many articles I happen across from that “journalistic (and I use the expression in it’s loosest sense) stable” do, and that why I try to give it a wide berth – but this one got me fired. His key points were:

1. the internet is responsible for “an orgy of self-indulgence and exhibitionism”.
2. Ryman stopped all time-wasting by imposing a “non-draconian” ban on ALL websites that couldn’t be justified as useful for work.
3. The internet has undermined dialogue in so many ways.
4. Online socialising (unchecked) could cause the end of the world – or something like that.

And just in case you were unaware of what sparked this typically Daily Mail one eyed opinion venting by Mr Paphitis, it was the news that Portsmouth City Council had carte blanche banned facebook after discovering that their staff were “wasting” on average 400 hours on the site every month (PTod article here).

Now never ones to let the facts get in the way of a good sensationalist headline, or indeed the sum total of a Daily Mail story, you don’t have to look too hard in other press to see that this actually equates to just 5-6minutes a month PER staff member. But more on that later.

- The Internet is responsible for “an orgy of self-indulgence and exhibitionism”

This was one of the most reprehensible elements of the article for me – mainly because of its un-abashed hypocrisy from someone who profits from participating in a programme that is itself a platform that encourages this very “self-indulgence and exhibitionism”.

The Internet elements collectively termed as social media simply provide a more accessible and inclusive window for and onto social interaction for those that are willing to do so electronically. Some people do, I’m sure, delude themselves that this channel for communication (or “egomaniacal drivel” as Mr Paphitis prefers to tar it all as) is the route to fame and success – but I’m sure most people using it (other than those already anointed “celebs” by whatever media powers that decide such things) actually see it for what it is: a way to stay in touch with a social &/or professional circle(s), potentially expanding your horizons and perspective along the way, sometimes to business or personal gain too, but most often it’s just about light hearted engagement.

And don’t even pretend to hide behind the “we’re a serious business programme giving people valuable business insight”. If that’s the case why is the programme the same week in week out, changing only the supporting cast of moron’s, the clinically deluded and the painfully naive, smattered, of course, with the odd sprinkling of genuine prospects? Because you profit directly from people’s hunger to get rich quicker and snatch their 15minutes of fame along the way.

- Ryman stopped all time-wasting by imposing a “non-draconian” ban on ALL websites that couldn’t be justified as useful for work.

So, if I understand this correctly, Theo felt that stopping EVERY website other than those that passed some “Paphitis management check list of suitability” was in some way “non-draconian” – as opposed to putting a block on a particular site/s which may have been discovered to be attracting too much of your employees attention. I clearly have no idea how you define “draconian” Theo – but might I suggest you check the dictionary, because I wouldn’t be surprised to find your staff referring to you as Theo “Draco” Paphitis.

And are you really that arrogant and / or ignorant to think that by putting a stop to what has appeared to you as a visible metric of “time wasting” you’ve done anything to address any time wasting propensity at all? I guess at least now your own staff are more likely to up the circulation of The Mail.

- The Internet has undermined dialogue in so many ways.

You state in your article that you are “never ceased to be amazed at the way people will email each other, even though their desks are only a few yards away” and that “Technological progress has brought linguistic regression”. I guess if you’re taking a very squinty eyed look at things over a short time lapse (very Daily Mail for sure) then it could seem like that, but what about appreciating the sheer volume and speed of interaction that modern communication technology enables and the fact that common human interaction protocols are also having to evolve as this advances?

Sending an email or text gives an instant, clear and auditable record of that engagement. Should it replace face-to-face dialogue (or even voice-to-voice)? It depends on the situation is the honest answer. And sure people get it wrong, but that’s who we are and what we learn from. So don’t give up on us just yet – when you started out I bet it was just phone and Royal Mail.

- Online socialising (unchecked) could cause the end of the world – or something like that.

“In the end, businesses and public services cannot survive if staff prefer to be socialising online rather than doing the job for which they are paid.” We’re talking 6 minutes per employee a month!!!! If you, Theo, or indeed anyone (even the most radical/crazed public sector union representative), can tell me convincingly whilst looking me straight in the eyes that the vast majority of council staff don’t lose more time on cigarette breaks, getting in late, sloping off early, having an extended lunch break, taking a personal call or 6, chatting over a photocopier or generally mopping up after other council incompetence in so many other ways – then you can have the deeds to my house!

Now I’m not going to go the other way and, for the sake of making a cheap point, pretend that every single Portsmouth Council employee has access to the Internet and a facebook account. But even if we assume just 10% of the workforce have that’s still not much over an hour a month – or 15-20 mins. a week.

Are some senior council officials and businessman / celebrity wanna-be’s trying a bit too hard to grab the headlines with misdirected draconian policies and commentary pieces?

What this really told me

So firstly I surmised that both Ryman’s and Portsmouth Council would be a pretty rubbish place to work. Why? Well not least because the middle management can’t tell who’s wasting time and who’s pulling their weight. If they could / did then they’d not judge performance on website logs, but rather by metrics that actually matter and then reward or sack appropriately.

When I was last an employee I probably strayed onto personal business or internet distractions a couple of times a day – but I also arrived early, didn’t smoke (no smoke breaks), generally ate lunch at my desk, generally stayed late, worked on the train on the way into and out-of the office and carried on working late into the night / early morning as the workload (quite often) required. Oh, and I also (I’d like to think) added a level of intellectual input and steering to the business over and above anything that could be judged purely on an hour by hour rate. What would a log looking at my social media access tell you of that?

If there are people taking the Michael within your business then shame on you and your inadequate management and personnel policies for not being able to highlight where that’s happening and take appropriate action against those individuals.

Through these actions you are quite simply, and very publicly, treating your employees like children – so expect them to behave even more as such. I have always worked damned hard, and been rewarded accordingly when appropriate, but if your management can’t sort the wheat from the chaff and you are happy bragging about this managerial inadequacy, then why would I want to work anywhere where I’ll clearly be carrying a load of slackers – because even without the internet then I’m afraid that “not pulling your weight” (might I be so bold as to suggest particularly in some corners of local government) has become a skill set in itself.

Secondly, by closing the door to accessing social media you’re demonstrating, in spades, your ignorance to the benefit social media can bring to your business. Even if we look at the tiny world in which I (and readers of this blog) operate – namely Recruitment / Employee Communications – it’s easy to conceive a bottom line benefit you’d miss out on. Let’s go back to my assertion that perhaps there are 450 staff spending 15-20 minutes a week on facebook (potentially within their own lunch time or before the 9am hooter starts or after the 5pm hometime bell!!) and let’s imagine that perhaps 10% of those people actually enjoyed their job (go on – go with me on this). Perhaps they mention how much they enjoy their job to their network (perhaps 100 strong each?) and then maybe a job arises: what-do-you-know – immediate audience of 4,500 who have already been positively engaged by your employer brand from afar.

So whilst I never had you down as a Mail reader Mr Paphitis – it seems to me that perhaps under your broadsheet-esque Dragons Den persona you’ve so lovingly nurtured, you’ve indeed found your true home writing the kind of brainless sensationalist knee-jerk integrity-less hyperbole-laden cr*p that the Daily Mail has become famous for trotting out to whip up middle Britain to sell more hatred based papers.

Only one question remains for me – anyone got any tips on how I can stop my Dad from reading The Mail?!