No-one else knows your business, customers, suppliers and staff like you do.  No-one else built your business and no-one else makes it successful like you do.

I believe this also applies to any IT project, not just websites.  If management doesn't have buy in and if the business doesn't own the project then the outcome will rarely be satisfactory.  You just can't outsource business critical projects to third parties.  Even the very best of suppliers can't do much with this kind of brief.

In watching these busy families I couldn't help but be filled with admiration for the parents who would have been up hours before the rest of us, preparing and feeding children, packing bags, escorting them all to the ferry and then making the journey into the city to work all day while the kids play at a local daycare.

To a person these parents were busy feeding, playing, fussing, kissing and hugging their kids all the way to work yet at the same time they were happy, alert, immaculately groomed, and endlessly loving and attentive.   Not easy to pull off at 7am on a crowded boat on a rainy day when you've been up for hours. 

It struck me this morning that there is an entire section of the working populace who do this every morning all over the country.  We meet them and work with them every day but we wouldn't know because they are immaculate, in control and quietly, totally and absolutely committed to what they do. These people are performing an astonishing job but don't make a fuss about it.  They just get on with their business then pick up their children and head home for another day's work then repeat it all again the next day.

Judging by the families I observed this morning these parents are also raising a generation of happy, balanced, and extremely loved children.  I don't know what the social gurus will name this generation but I am delighted to have a daughter who is a part of it.

I for one am going to be a lot more mindful of these amazing people in the workforce.   

Well your website is exactly te same, only more so.

Your clients, prospects, business partners, potential employees and anyone else thinking about working with your business will look at your website.  They will judge you and your business by what they see there.  Scary but true.

{Unabashed sales pitch coming up.....}

The good news is if you are in recruitment then we have a solution for you.  JobAdder designs and develops professional websites from the ground up.  If image and experience are important to you then please call us before making a decision regarding your next website.

Here are just a few sites we have designed and developed for clients recently;

http://jobadder.com/recruitment-websites/portfolio

Contact us today to find out how JobAdder can help with your new website.

When a support ticket is closed in our system the user is notified and they have the option to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the support they received by clicking "good" or "bad" and then adding comments to support their selection.

In the last 3 months we have had 417 users express their opinion, and of those 22 clicked "bad" and 395 clicked "good", and overall satisfaction rating of 94.7%.

I am extremely pleased with this result, especially considering how fast we have grown in the last 2 years, and the fact that of our 4 support staff, 3 have been here for less than 12 months and 2 of them les than 6 months.  To be achieving these results so quickly is testament to their extreme commitment and sheer hard work.

Thanks to all clients who have given us their feedback (good and bad) and a public thanks to my amazing support team for their hard work.  

We look forward to improving these numbers in coming months.

Qualifying out of a deal can save your business and the prospective client's business a lot of time, money and heartache.  If you know the opportunity or relationship are not right then do not force a sales person to ram a square peg into a round hole.  That only leads to expensive tears down the track.

Here are some times when qualifying out might be winning;

1.  When you know your solution is not what the client needs.  No solution meets the needs of all businesses so don't be shy or embarrassed to say "you know what, I don't believe our solution is right for you."

2.  When you know you don't have the time or resources to service the opportunity.  There can be times when you are too busy, you have projects booked solidly or you are short on human or other resources.  If timelines can't be re-arranged then qualifying out can sometimes be the best option.

3.  When you don't believe you can build or retain a working relationship with the prospect. Sometimes you will have personality clashes, or even come across a psychopath when qualifying an opportunity.  If you are sure the problem is not you (and always seek a second opinion here), and you are sure it is something you can't resolve by getting other team members involved then move on.  Tell the prospect you don't believe you can work together and qualify out.  Failure to do this can lead to the nightmarish situation of having lunatics in your client base who you can never make happy.  These clients can have a devastating effect on staff morale and performance so weed them out early and do it without hesitation.

Qualifying out makes many sales managers and business owners extremely nervous but it shouldn't. Not all deals are meant to be.  If there are clear parameters around when and how to do it then I believe qualifying out of a deal is one of the most valuable and powerful tools a sales person has in their bag.

However you should go into it with your eyes wide open because the reality is that most new job boards fail, and generally in a spectacular exploding-rocket-like ball of flames.

I have been working in the job board space since I started my first site in 2002 and have observed hundreds if not thousands of sites come and go in the time. Here are some of the main reasons why a new job board will most likely fail;

1. Generating traffic is difficult. No doubt about it, generating significant traffic to a job board takes time, patience, careful planning and money. You won't do it in one year and it won't be cheap.

2. Getting job content is difficult and expensive. On the one hand multi posting systems have made it easier for advertisers to post jobs to more job boards, however as a result of this advertisers are constantly bombarded by new job boards wanting their job ads and have become cynical.

3. Your pants are down. Recruiting and job posting systems now measure applicant numbers, placement data and a range of other stats that show the advertiser how your job board is performing. So there is no hiding. If your job board is all pants then you will not retain customers past an initial 30 or 60 day free trial.

4. You will probably run out of money. Not because it is incredibly expensive to run a job board but because you have most likely not factored in the time it takes and the realistic amount of money you need to generate traffic and integrate to all the third party platforms. Advertisers rarely post job ads manually these days so if you want their ads you must integrate to their recruitment system or their job posting systems right from the outset. This costs money both at your end in dev and testing and also at their end. Most third party systems will ask you to share the cost of the initial integration so you must be sure to budget for this.

5. There's not much love. All business owners want love. A bit of appreciation and an occasional pat on the back go a long way when you work your butt off.  Unfortunately no one is going to share any love with you in the job board game. Advertisers don't really value what you do even if they make hires or placements from it. They will always want more from you for less. And job seekers are busy searching for a job so they don't stop by to say "hey nice site" and "thanks for helping me find a job". So if it's love you seek then a job board is a blow up doll.

If this article discourages you then that's cool. It means you are most likely delusional and I have just saved you a LOT of money.

However if you have read this and are still on your horse with your visor down, charging the line then I slap your horse's arse and wish you safe passage. 

Most people are aware that many job boards (e.g. SEEK) have both a "Job Title" and a "Search Results Title" field.  These are not the same thing and you should NOT just copy and paste one into the other.

The Search Results title is the job title the job seeker sees when the search results are returned, not the Job Title.  More importantly however the Search Results Title is also one of the most important fields,along with the short description in determining whether your job ad is a good match for a job search done using key words.

In other words if a job seeker searches for a job using keywords then the job board will return the most relevant ads for that search first, NOT the ads posted most recently as most consultants seem to think. Therefore it is vital to write your search results title and short descriptions carefully, ensuring your search results title contains the key words that your perfect job seeker is likely to type in when they search for job ads.  The easiest way to do this is to put yourself in the job seeker's shoes and ask yourself "if I was this person, what would I type in to Google or SEEK if I was looking for a new job"? You then need to ensure you get those words and phrases into your search results title.  If you do this you will consistently out rank your competitors and you will consistently get more applications.

As an example look at the search below.  I typed in three words - recruitment mining engineering.  Note the job ad that comes up first was posted on January 9, over 3 weeks ago and the job that appears 4th was posted only a few days ago.  The reason the Hudson job ad appears first is because the search results title AND the short description contain all three of the words I typed in.  Therefore it is deemed to be extremely relevant.  It doesn't matter that is a few weeks old because the search engine is showing me the most revlevant ads first, not just the latest ones.

A word to the wise though - do not just keyword load your search results title to try to manipulate search results.  It is vital that your search results title and short description read well and are attractive and enticing to a job seeker.  There is no point coming first if your ads look like garbage because no self respecting job seeker is going to click on them and apply.

Check out your job ads today and see how your ads rank compared to your competition.

This year instead of the usual new year's resolutions we decided to raise the bar and aim for something a little more motivating and a little more tangible.

This year we created LifeAdder.  LifeAdder is a program where each staff member sets 1 or more personal goals and then sets out to achieve them.  Each person has listed their goals for the year where everyone at JA can see them and we are all encouraging each other to achieve these goals.

The conditions are that the goals must be something above and beyond what you would ordinarily do, or beyond what you believe you are capable of doing.

For each person who achieves their goal(s) JobAdder is paying $1000 towards a training course or conference of their choice.

I have been amazed at how keen everyone is and the incredible range of goals people have set publicly.

Here are just some of the things JobAdder people will be achieving this year;

1.  Ride a motorcross bike from Cairns to Cape York (the person has never ridden a motorbike before)

2.  Run a marathon in under 4 hours

3.  Complete a 15 hour kayak marathon event (never kayaked before)

4.  Become a qualified dance therapist

5.  Take up archery, go in a tournament and not come last  (never shot an arrow)

6.  Organise 2 x father son outdoor long weekends and get 10 or more father / sons involved

7.  Learn and master the saxophone

8.  Donate bone marrow

9.  Volunteer abroad for 1 week

10.  Achieve chain saw operations and first aid certificates and join SES

11.  Write 50,000 words of a novel in 1 month

12.  Qualify for the national Irish Dancing champs

and on and on they go....

It is incredible to see the wide array of interests that people have, most of which we would never know about our colleagues.  It is also amazing to see the incredible goals people are setting and will achieve this year.