Web TV channel to educate jobseekers
Keith Robinson: investment needed
The founder of an online career resource believes a lack of investment by the recruitment industry in training jobseekers to search for a job online is making life more difficult for the UK’s 2.2m unemployed.
“Some of these people haven’t looked for a job in 10 years and are using the internet as a tool to search for a position for only the first or second time,” said Keith Robinson, founder of Careersiteadvisor. com, which has launched a Web TV channel that aims to offer expert advice to jobseekers.
“We haven’t trained anyone to do a Boolean search on Google, or build a profile on Facebook or LinkedIn, we just hope they can. We intend to change this.”
The first Career Site Advisor TV careers cast was broadcast on 3 June and Robinson plans to run the free-to-attend online events monthly. The first cast featured Luke Mckend, industry head, careers and classifieds at Google; Don Leslie, director of the management consultancy recruitment division of BLT; and jobseeker Dave King, recently made redundant, who shared his experience of online jobseeking.
Leslie told Recruiter that while recruiters are paid by their clients, they also have a part to play in the “education system” for online jobseekers.
King, who was last on the job market in 1982, welcomed the new service because there was “definitely a lack of how-to or why-to” information.
“[There’s] an ocean of jobs information but currently very few pilot boats out there to help even get in the right shipping lane,” he said, adding: “Good recruitment sites that are well designed, person-focused and helpful are rarer that average ones.”
Robinson believes that recruitment will go through a radical change which will see the jobseeker more in control of their “content and branding” online, and he said he will adapt the channel to reflect this shift: “We will build a jobseeker community-type wall so they can post ‘I am looking for a job’ and we will stream their details while running our careers cast.”
The next careers cast will take place on 9 July and Robinson is keen to hear from any recruiters with specific sector experience who might want to take part in future events.
