getting the word out about my website

[Ed Thomas]

I recently launched an innovative new jobsite called CareerIndex.co.uk in September, and could do with some ideas as to how to improve our marketing strategy. My background is as a Structural Engineer, so much of my experience developing the business has been learnt on the job.

A quick synopsis of the business: We're a 'recruitment agent' free jobsite aimed at the engineering and technical industries where employers can list unlimited jobs for free, search unlimited CVs for free, and if they do decide to place a candidate who they found through us, we will charge them a flat fee of £2000. Half of which we give to the candidate as a 'golden hello'. We essentially provide a platform for employers and candidates to meet directly.

So far, we have attracted a healthy number of employer members through simply cold calling them. We have attracted our candidate members through listing the jobs with other jobsites, Gumtree, and social media such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Utilising these forms of advertising has provided us with a steady stream of visitors, but not the large numbers we need to really fill up our databases. Recently we have also started forming links with universities who will promote us to their students. However it is too early to see the results of this. We may also be utilising adwords soon, but with such a competitive market, i'm not convinced it will improve our google rankings enough. So my question is, does anyone have any good ideas for more time and cost efficient ways of getting the word out to more candidates?

Thanks,

Ed

[ricardas]

Hi Ed,

Welcome to the forum!
I like the idea that you only allow direct employers. Only one thing that concerns me is that your flat fee is quite high. I have recently worked with a flat fee recruiting agency that charges from £500 upwards, depending on the advertised salary. I am sure you know who I am talking about.

In terms of finding candidates through Twitter, how exactly did you approach this? I would suggest automating this by searching for posts containing keywords like "looking for a job" etc. and replying to them with a message straight away.

Please let me know if you are looking to target more companies to apply. I may have a few options for you.

Kind Regards,

[Ed Thomas]

Thanks for the swift reply Ricardas,

Within the Engineering/Technical sectors, the fees charged by recruitment agencies tend to be nearer 15-20% of salary. Although we charge £2000, half of this is given to the candidate as a golden hello when they join the company, so essentially it costs the company £1000.

With regards to Twitter, we've been listing the jobs (mainly using twitterjobsearch.com) and then waiting for people to find them. Its been of limited use. I think that directly contacting candidates through Twitter as you suggest would allow us to find candidates, but i'm really looking for something more time efficient. You can spend a long time searching for individuals and getting them on board, but just not in the numbers we need. I will definately give it a go though and see how much we generate from that approach.

With regards to getting more employers on, we are always keen to increase our employer database. Without their jobs, we have nothing to offer the candidates who we are trying to get on board.

thanks again for your response

Ed

[ricardas]

My appologies. I did not associate your background with the nature of the recruitment website.

To apply my suggestion practically you can use http://www.tweetdeck.com/
This will allow you to view multiple keywords as soon as they are posted.
I guess I will take some time to find the most effective keywords and come up with an effective "hello" message.

Good luck!

Kind Regards,

[tophatandwellies]

Have you got a quick 'suggest a friend for this role' type button on the website?

[ricardas]

Have you got a quick 'suggest a friend for this role' type button on the website?

Even better, he is paying £100 for reffering a candidate that finds a job :) quite generous

[Ed Thomas]

yeah, all candidates can refer their friends simply by forwarding an email with a link in it which is unique to the candidate sending it. when the person receiving it, clicks on the link it takes them to the registration page where a referal code is automatically inputted. The candidate referring their friends can then go to their candidate homepage and see a list of friends they have referred to the site. As these friends then get a job through us, it will be indicated here, allowing candidates to claim £100 for each of their friends successfully referred.

[eventdomain]

Nice design, but you've got some major hurdles to overcome:

Basically, what you have is a general job site, so you're competing with Monster and Totaljobs and thats for starters.....

Currently, I don't see what I can get from yours that I can't get from Totaljobs, SO, why dont you at least specialise in a sector, then you'll be very different & have something to sell!

Tried a basic search for 'Sales Advisors', no results for that search. I keep advising people that before doing this publishing game lark, that they must get the website filled before promoting it.

You need a shed load of content, er, but must be the RIGHT content/industry - and copying the general jobsite model is always the wrong thing.

[XanderMarketing]

Hi Ed,

I've just had a quick look at your website. It looks nice but doesn't appear to be well optimised for SEO. A simple thing you could do is change your title tags. If you had something like 'structural engineer jobs | careerindex | you would start moving up the search engines. Do this for every page and every job and you will start to see more traffic organically.

There is plenty more you could do but this is a start.

Alex

[Ed Thomas]

Thanks Alex,

I'll get our web guy to have a look at this.

Ed

[Bri]

Carry on with the leg work, recruitment fairs, the jobcentre often host these, have a stall in the local uni's & colleges, seminars like CPD courses which invite companies etc.

[David White]

Hi Ed, first thing to do is put yourself in the job seekers role and advertise in the places they will be, sounds obvious but many people don't think of this when advertising. You might well pay some excessive adword rates but get yourself an adword campaign on Google, Yahoo and the other engines.

You can take a look on our website for a huge variety of advertising options which you can buy online starting from only £5. The worst it can do is give you some new ideas on where or how to advertise. Good luck.