Monster

[MarkP]

Anyone used monster before from the employer side, ie searching for cv's and potential candidates.

[JenniP]

Not personally although their recient security breach would put me off. What sector are you looking to recruit in?

Unfortunately when ever I've recruited I've had to use the dreaded agencies, pay them loads of cash for naff all.

Jen

[AdminSorted]

What is the best way you've found to recruit staff, apart from going through an agency?

Do you:
advertise in the local newspaper;
advertise on a website somewhere;
look at Monster or other related sites;
ask your employees if they know someone;
chat to your friends;
put an ad in your office window?

And then what are the methods you use for sifting through the chancers to find that one person you want to invest time and training in to keep your business running efficiently?

[JenniP]

It very much depends what your looking for, most people I've recruited have been IT professionals, and I use different methods for junior and senior staff.

Mostly we use agencies but they tend to be completely useless and really dont earn their money, I've had a bit of success using Jobsite and Jobserve, and we advertise on our website.

As for sorting them, I just take piles of CVs home with me then sort them into 3 piles

Not a Chance - Basically those who are complete chancers and those with very bad CVs. These pretty much get binned straight away.

Possibly - CV's which I'm undecided about. Normally a passable CV with relevant experience but who dont sell themselves to me from their CV. These get kept to one side and possibly used later.

Interested - CV's that impress me (and trust me thats not easy). If there is a resonable number of them invite them all for interview. If there are too many I narrow them down into a reasonable number. Next day I go through the "interested" pile with someone else to see if they come up with the same people, often they do but not always.

Once I've get people to interview it depends on the role, I had a hand in recruiting a wide range of technical positions. Generally though I do a fairly basic interview, the whole bunch of boring HR type questions which you dont want to ask but your really have to know. Then I do a technical test nothing normally too difficult but again to feed out the chancers who have made it through the CV sift IE people who say they are programmers who cant write a simple program.

Then its a mixture of the test results and gut feeling. So far I've hired around 20-25 people like this, and (touching all the wood I can find) never been wrong yet.

Yes I may miss out on some quality candidates, especially considering how harsh I am with CVs but people who earn 20-45k should be able to write a decient CV.

Jen

[scorpiox]

When i'm looking for emplooyees, i use forums, and i search through my friends, because i don't much like the employer end of Monster; although that's personal preference. I've also looked around local schools for the IT prodigies when they are leaving, because the think i want is fresh employees with fresh ideas