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David Hurst interviews Joe Slavin
Continuing my series of interviews with individuals responsible for shaping the online recruitment industry, in March I traveled to London to visit Joe Slavin, the UK managing director of Monster. For the record, Monster was established in 1994, globally employs 1300 people, with offices around the world, and is still the only global generalist online recruitment site.
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David Hurst interviews Mark Wainwright
I met Mark Wainwright at the GAAPweb offices on the Thames at Plantation Wharf. Mark has kept a low personal profile over the last few years. With his business partner and dedicated staff he has been hard at work since 1998 developing a well-respected niche site. An accountant by trade, he is always looking at the work they do from the jobseekers shoes, he says.
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David Hurst interviews Keith Potts
This month I travelled to Havant, Hampshire to meet Keith Potts the Managing Director of Jobsite.com Jobsite has been in business since1995 and the dawn of online recruitment in the UK.
Keith presides over a healthy growing profitable business. I am sure their success is directly linked to his irrepressible enthusiasm. Our discussion was wide ranging and open and gives an insight as to why they are successful. They have one of if not the largest marketing team in the industry and their depth of market analysis is impressive. With the NHS contract in the bag jobsite are looking in good shape for the upturn in UK recruitment.
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David Hurst interviews Harvey Sinclair
Continuing
my series of interviews with individuals responsible
for shaping the online recruitment industry, I travelled
to London to meet Harvey Sinclair at the hotgroup
at their new offices in Hammersmith. Since we met
its been announced that the hotgroup have acquired
Jobsin.
The recent deal is significant in that it gives them
a generalist platform built from niche markets. It's
a very good fit and comes with web posting technology,
as well as an original sound business model of building
and supporting trade association jobsites.
Harvey is on a roll and is gathering momentum. I believe
his timing is perfect, as buying now is great value
and as the economy picks up he is in a position to
capitalize
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David Hurst interviews Andy Baker
Andy has been MD at Workthing since its launch. He was the driving force in the purchase of PeopleBank and as a result, Workthing offers clients a complete online recruitment package.
They recently instigated and published The Workthing E-Recruitment Study, that gives a comprehensive insight into how the Internet is used for recruitment.Owned by Guardian Media Group, Workthing benefits from the depth of support most sites can only dream of.Andy was open and frank in his answers. He is passionate about the benefits online recruitment can bring to corporate recruiters as the market matures.
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David Hurst interviews Alex Sproat
I travelled to the outskirts of Coventry to meet Alex Sproat, the originator and driving force behind jobs.ac.uk. Why should I be interested in jobs.ac.uk? Firstly, I was interested to find out more about a company that in the last edition of our Top 100 report stated it had placed 10000 individuals in permanent positions in the previous year.Secondly, I was interested in the business model. Would it pass Hurst Law of a successful site?Alex Sproat is a thoughtful Scot who is an entrepreneur with the patience and understanding to work with achedmia.Based on a smart science park in an open plan busy office, jobs.ac has some obvious similarities to Jobserve. Not only are they both located on an industrial estate, they are both publishers of jobs who use the net to provide a cheaper and faster solution than the trade magazine or newspaper supplements.Neither are expensive to use, and both are profitable. Does it conform to Hurst Law? ie, that to be successful a site must have access to either candidates or jobs/advertisers for free. Because if you need to buy both your marketing expectations will never match reality. Alex has thought deeply about what the site and how it should work.He is passionate about the site, and I suspect, although we did not discuss it, is a thrifty chap despite a turnover last year of £900,000.How did I ascertain this. Well, in the room where we met, neatly tucked away in the corner, were the Christmas decorations stored in cardboard box, which had previously been used to transport Kaliber, non-alcoholic beer.Perhaps an indication of the way the business is run. Neat and tidy, happy to party, but with a deeply thought-out strategy for success.
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David Hurst interviews Robbie Cowling
In the first of a series of interviews with individuals responsible for creating and shaping the online recruitment market in the future, David Hurst, editor of onrec.com and Online recruitment magazine travelled to Tiptree, Essex to meet Robbie Cowling, managing director and owner of Jobserve.
Robbie is the 438th richest person in the UK, with his fortune being estimated by the Sunday Times at £75 million.
Next season, Jobserve will begin a two-year sponsorship of West Ham United.
He has made his fortune using the Internet. In 1993 he put his plan into action to publish IT jobs by using the fax machine, in order to beat the job adverts that were being advertised in the printed trade magazine, that he felt were too slow for both candidate and recruiter. Then along came the world's adoption of the Internet.
Robbie had been an IT contractor, so not only could he see the advantages of publishing jobs on the Internet, he was equipped with the technical ability to design and build a solution.
The company is now coming up for its 10th birthday and Robbie's a very rich man.
Why has he been so successful? How does his business work? What are his views on the online recruitment industry, partnerships, the competition, multiple posting and marketing? And what are his plans for the future?
To read the interview in full, click the link below where you can download the 7500 word article at a cost of £5.00.
If you are interested in the Internet, he has some good advice. If you are interested in online recruitment he has some very interesting views and if you are planning to make money from the net, he is living proof that it can be done.
The following interview took place in one of the meeting rooms in the Jobserve HQ on an industrial estate just outside Tiptree, Essex.
Robbie is not what you would expect. He doesn't look like one of the richest men in the country nor does he look like one of the elite few people in the world who have figured out how to make it from just the Internet, or more specifically, online recruitment.
In fact, he comes across as exactly what I think he is. A West Ham United supporter. I know this, because he is wearing one of their shirts, which is everyday attire and not for my benefit. He is also straight talking, tough, competitive, honest and passionate about what he does.
In that respect he is like the global businessmen Richard Branson and Terrance Conran. I have heard them both describe why they carry on when they have gone past the point where money is anything but a method of measuring success.
It's passion and pride.
A tough competitor. He is an unusual mix of IT contractor and entrepreneur.
You get the sense that if you are going to argue with him you had better be sure of your ground, if you pick a fight with Robbie don't expect him to back down, because he won't.
And he is disarmingly honest. The day I met him he was recovering from flu.
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