In this issue we examine CV databases and how to use them to recruit. We also take a look at ABC Electronic and why you'll see their logo on so many job sites and job boards. And we welcome two new job site partners to whatjobsite.

Please feel free to forward this issue to a colleague, and let us know if there are any topics you'd like to see us cover in upcoming issues. We'd love your feedback.

Editor
Karl Schweppe

As more and more employers move their recruitment online, it is only natural that they begin to use more and more of the recruitment products that are available online. One product that is increasing in popularity is the CV database search.

A CV database is simply a collection of online CVs that job sites, job boards and CV database websites hold of their candidates. Online CVs are similar to the traditional paper CVs and outline a candidate's career history, skill set, education etc. However, because they are electronic rather than paper, searching them is easy, offering you another way to find employees for your company.

Rather like job sites, CV databases come in various flavours. There are generalist and specialist; there are those that are aimed at recruitment consultants and those for employers; and there are straightforward text-based CV databases as well as video CVs.

What CV database you choose will depend on your needs but, just like choosing the right job site, a CV database is only as good as the relevant candidates it can supply. To find out if a CV databse has the people for you, there is nothing for it but to get on the phone and talk to them. Any CV database worth its salt should be able to tell you exactly how many CVs they have for your job. Talking to a few different databases will quickly give you an idea of what one is best.

Another important factor in choosing a CV databsase is how up-to-date the CVs are. A candidate may have submitted a CV many months ago and subsequently got a job, but the CV remains in the database. That CV is effectively out-of-date and, therefore, largely useless. Many CV databases are purged of old CVs, but many are not. Again, this is something you have to ask about when you make that call.

Naturally, prices will also weigh on your decision and they really do vary. In our research for this article, for instance, we found prices starting at nothing at all going to many thousands of pounds. In Ireland the price range was similar.

In general, CV databases charge by "views" or "downloads." That is, when you search for CVs the contact details of the candidates are removed or blacked out. If you like the look of a CV and want to "view" or "download" the contact information you have to purchase it. You can be charged a one-off fee for (say) 100 "views" of CVs you like; or you might have to sign up to a monthly contract (not to be recommended if you only have one or two jobs); but more and more job boards are offering CV database search as either a free or an inexpensive bolt-on to their standard job posting product.

Once you have chosen your CV database, using it is usually pretty straightforward. You search for suitable CVs by inputting your requirements such as job function, industry sector, salary, location etc. The CV database search engine then finds the CVs that match your requirements and brings them back to you. Quite a number of CV databases also allow you to set up alerts so that, as a candidate uploads a CV that matches your requirements, you are notified. Once you have found the CV you like, all that's left is to contact the candidate to arrange the interview.

CV databases offer employers another valuable recruitment channel. But the are considerations that apply in choosing which one to use: establish the relevance of their candidate database for your job and whether those relevant candidate details are up-to-date. We would encourage you to talk to a number of different job sites, job boards and CV databases to get an idea of what's available before you spend your money. Indeed, our advice in all matters of online recruitment is to talk to as many potential suppliers as possible about your needs before your buy.

Why is this little logo on so many job sites? What does it mean? And is it important in choosing the right job site?

In previous newsletters we looked at website traffic and we saw that the commonly-used "unique user" metric could be seen as a count of how many people actually use a job site. If one site says it has 1 million unique users and another says that it has just 50,000 unique users, we know that the first site has more people looking at it. Of course, in making our advertising decision there are many other issues that are important, but the unique user figure does allow us to compare the popularity of job sites.

However, we can only truly compare job sites if we can be sure that the unique user figures they quote are accurate. This is where the little ABC Electronic logo comes in. ABC Electronic is an independent organisation that counts and certifies web site traffic. How it does this is rather technical and we don't need to look at it here. The important thing is that it counts the traffic and that it counts the traffic in the same way for all the websites it audits. Therefore, when it comes to comparing sites we know we have reliable and trustworthy data.

Job sites that submit themselves to the ABC Electronic process are allowed use the logo above. The logo should have a month and year on it to let you know when the audit was carried out. You will see other ABC Electronic logos that do not have the month and year and instead have "certified" and "registered" on them. These are older logos that are no longer used by ABC Electronic. Sites which use these logos may have had their traffic audited many many years ago and the figures are too old to be reliable.

We at whatjobsite view an up-to-date ABC Electronic audit (in the last 12 months) as a stamp of quality for a job site. By submitting to an audit, a job site is accepting independent verification of its traffic. It's a sign that the site is confident in its traffic and also confident in itself. For this reason, we recommend that you always check that a job site has been audited. And we've made this bit easy for you: all job site profiles on whatjobsite will let you know if the job site you are interested in has been audited or not.

This month we have two new Featured Job Sites on whatjobsite. Both sites are highly-regarded in their respective fields and if you are hiring in their particular areas, be sure to take a look at them:

JobsGroup.net™ is the UK’s leading niche online recruitment network attracting over 380,000 unique users per month and has 200,000 registered jobseekers across ten niche jobsites. Launched in 2000, JobsGroup.net has won numerous awards, including the Orange Best Use of Technology in Business, Best Online Service, Best Technical Innovation and Best Specialist Website. Go to JobsGroup.net profile

eFinancialCareerse.com serves the global financial community as the leading network of career sites for professionals working in banking and the financial markets. Leading specialist sectors include Asset Management, Investment Banking, Accounting, IT and Hedge Funds. Go to eFinancialCareerse.com profile