Bear with the me, this is not some real random, pointless sh@t blog post – there really is a real link between my new washing machine that was installed today & hiring, trying to do everything yourself.

In short, my washing machine broke last week, it was 10 years old and time for a new one.

I went on Curry’s website, searched for integrated machines and found one that fitted the gap, did more than I ever needed with various settings & 500 different types of washes, who uses these ffs.

Anyway, I’ll get to the point. There was an option of installation for an extra £115. I thought about it… well I can plug in, attach a couple of pipes and screw a door on & save myself the money? But pondering this, I thought no, let’s leave it to the experts who fit 5 of these a day, every day.

Bloody good job I did…. They had to take apart the adjoining kitchen cupboard to locate the hoses. Pulled the dryer out next to it as it was behind there. Move the waste pipe, plumb it in in limited space, screw the cabinet back together. Then the cupboard door did not line up with the existing hinge attachments, so they moved these on the door and fitted it. They then tested it, to make sure all was working okay & took all the packaging away and left my kitchen as they found it.

2 people, who knew what they were doing, were here over an hour… for £115.

I’d have still been there now, no doubt with a flooded kitchen & a wet dog.

So, what’s my point…. Simply, the same applies when recruiting yourself. You may not need the services of a traditional agency, charging thousands, but unless you are a hiring supremo and have lots of free time to dedicate to the process, I’d recommend you use a partner like Blue Rocket Recruitment where we can help every step of the way and take the burden away of going to all the job boards directly, writing and posting a good optimised advert, shortlisting, responding, arranging interviews, job offer management etc….

We charge from just £399….

And if things go smoothly, great – but if things prove difficult like thy did with my washing machine install… such as… no shows for interviews, counteroffers, ghosting, unexpected withdrawals, offer rejection and many more possibilities, we are here to step in and help, leaving you to do what you do best… running your business / department & keeping your clients happy.

So, I’d certainly recommend paying that little extra for that expertise, albeit having an appliance installed or recruiting for your next hire!

All the best,

Steve Wyeth 🚀

steve.wyeth@bluerocketrec.co.uk

Blue Rocket Recruitment was born out of SDW Recruitment, a traditional agency model specialising in the shipping & logistics sector. I started SDW back in 2002 back when we had a fax and advertised jobs in Thursday’s Echo. SDW is still going strong today, but I felt our recruitment solutions needed to evolve and be fit for 2024 & beyond.

Recruitment agencies play a critical role in bridging the gap between employers and job seekers, but many argue that the traditional recruitment agency model is fundamentally flawed & I am certainly one of them, even though I have run an agency for nearly 25 years.

Employers often express frustration about the high costs and the perceived lack of value from agencies. So, let’s explore the reasons behind this dissatisfaction and the deeper issues embedded within the traditional recruitment model.

Lack of Transparency

One of the main reasons employers feel dissatisfied with recruitment agencies is the lack of transparency. While recruiters put in significant effort—what employers see is often just a collection of CVs accompanied by a substantial bill.

From an employer’s perspective, the recruitment process seems simplified, leading them to question why they couldn’t simply use internal HR, LinkedIn, or job boards like indeed. What’s often overlooked is the value of the recruiter’s expertise in vetting candidates and understanding market trends, which directly affects the quality of the hire. However, this expertise can sometimes be overshadowed by the perceived cost of agency fees.

Recruitment as a “Necessary Evil”

Hiring staff is a constant need for any business, but it’s time-consuming and disruptive. Many employers feel as though recruitment is a “necessary evil,” something they must go through but don’t see as valuable. Even with a skilled recruiter involved, employers often still feel inconvenienced by the entire process and are left with a hefty bill at the end.

This sentiment is comparable to when a boiler breaks down at home. You have to spend days taking cold showers, hire an expert, pay a hefty bill, and at the end, you’re left exactly where you were before—with a working boiler, but significantly lighter in the wallet. The value, while necessary, doesn’t feel like a gain; it just restores a previous state.

The High Risk for Recruiters

The recruitment industry often operates on a “no placement, no fee” model, which means agencies only get paid when they successfully place a candidate. This model places all the risk on the recruiter, who may invest hours of work for a potential hire that never materializes. As a result, agencies are forced to charge higher fees to offset the costs of failed placements. The reality is that recruitment is a high-risk, high-reward business, and the fees reflect that unpredictability.

On average an agency will fill 1 out of 5 jobs they work on, so basically they get paid for Monday and work the rest of the week for free.

So, the one paying client, gets charged more to cover the other 4 jobs worked on, that the agency is not getting paid a penny for.

Blue Rocket Offers an Alternative Solution to the Traditional Model, Where Everyone Wins.

Knowing that the traditional agency model required evolution, we’ve launched our recruitment solutions that combine the latest technology, utilising the leading job boards and platforms, along with keeping the personal human touch, with a dedicated consultant on hand to review / shortlist CVs, set up interviews, manage the offer process & everything else a traditional recruiter would do for you.

For us, we get paid for every role we work on. For our Essential Boost solution, that’s just a one off fee of £399 – a lot less than the £4000 average fee with the traditional model, but for us we are not working 4 days a week for free on roles that we won’t get paid for.

You, the client pay a fair fee on engagement, we get paid for all the job board credits we use & the work we do managing the whole process. You get a dedicated consultant to help in any way you wish, setting up interviews and offering advice. Ultimately, you hire the same candidate you would do with the traditional model but feel you have been provided a great service as a paying customer, for a fee that is not hard to justify.

Win, win.

Hopefully this blog, provides a little insight into why we have launched Blue Rocket.

My mission, is simple, to make recruitment better for everyone….

If you have any questions, would like to chat some more on how we can potentially help, give me a call on 023 8033 6633 or pop me an email to hi@bluerocketrec.co.uk

All the best

Steve Wyeth

It’s certainly a different recruitment market than it was 5 or even 10 years ago, with candidates and job seekers holding more power than ever before, due to a shortage in most sectors.

One our recruitment advertising partners, CV Library recently stated that poor hiring decisions are costing businesses up to £15,000 a year, so it certainly pays to get it right.

Candidates have made it well know that certain areas put them off applying for jobs, so we’ve put together 5 recruitment mistakes you could be making and how you can avoid them.

1. Badly written job adverts

94% of job seekers say they are more likely to apply for a role that has a clear job description, that explains the role in some detail along with an overview of the company. A well written advert is naturally more inviting. You need to point out key responsibilities, what skills are required, a little about the company and of course what the candidate can gain from working for you. Why is this a better opportunity than the job they are currently in. This is one area of our expertise, and now with the help of AI, you should be able to produce a marketing masterpiece.

2. A lengthy application process

Simplicity is the key. You need to be able to make the application process as easy as possible. Remember, most candidates are applying on their mobile, so they are not going to want to answer 20 questions, and if they do start, they’ll abandon the process half way through. Capture only the information you really need at the initial stage. CV, contact details etc… you can capture the rest later in the process.

3. Too many interviews

Do you really need to hold a telephone interview, an initial face to face, then a second interview, then come in and meet the MD at the final interview. If your hiring process has too many stages for candidates, they may well become impatient, or worse get snapped up by someone else. If they need to meet the MD, can he he be brought in at the end of the first interview?

4. Slow response rate

We see this all the time. The perfect candidate applies, it takes a week to acknowledge their application and a further 2 weeks to invite them in for an interview, then another week to put an offer together. If they are good, you are not going to the only party interested. Move fast.

5. Offer a good package

Consider the package you are offering. If the candidate is currently earning £30K, don’t offer them £30K and say you’ll have more progression opportunities here. The market is competitive, so you need to stay on top of current salary levels to make sure you stay in line with what your competitors are paying. Plus, what perks do you offer, what can set you apart from the crowd – it doesn’t always have to be about money.

Getting your hiring process right is key to recruiting the right person for your business, and well worth investing in – that’s where we come in, and can certainly add value to your recruitment campaign, ensuring the end result is not only a successful hire, but the right hire.

If we can be of any assistance, or offer any advice on any thing recruitment related, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with either myself or one of the team.

All the best,

Steve Wyeth 🚀

The Blue Rocket Recruitment August 2024 Recruitment Trends Snapshot highlights significant changes in the job market. Here are the key points:

1. Rise in Applications: There has been a notable increase in job applications, suggesting more competition among job seekers. This uptick is particularly evident in sectors like healthcare, manufacturing, and education.
2. Decline in Job Postings: Job ads have slightly decreased, indicating that employers may be more cautious with their hiring. This decline could be due to economic factors, plus August being the main holiday month, which is traditionally quiet for recruitment.
3. Remote Work Trends: Although remote roles remain popular, there has been a slight drop in their numbers. This could reflect a shift towards hybrid working models or a stabilizing demand for remote work.
4. Sector-Specific Insights:
   • Healthcare and Manufacturing: These sectors continue to see high activity, both in job postings and applications, highlighting their ongoing demand.
   • Logistics: There has been a modest increase in the number of roles, from warehouse operatives to freight & logistics coordinators, indicating companies could be getting ready for a busier Q4
   • IT and Finance: These sectors are experiencing fewer applications, possibly due to market saturation or shifts in job seeker interest.
5. Adaptation and Strategy: The report emphasizes the need for targeted recruitment strategies. Understanding candidate behaviour, such as the preference for flexible work arrangements, is crucial for successful hiring.

In conclusion, the August 2024 trends indicate a competitive job market with sector-specific dynamics. Employers should adapt their recruitment strategies to stay ahead, focusing on visibility and candidate engagement. Our team here at Blue Rocket Recruitment are ideally placed to provide you with a complete, simple direct hiring solution.

Ready to find out more?

Please call 023 8033 6633, email hi@bluerocketrec.co.uk

We understand, £399 is  lot to spend without any guarantee of receiving a good pool of candidates to hire from…

So, what happens if your job ad doesn’t generate the candidates you need?

Recruitment can be tricky. The right candidates must see your job ad at the right time. If they can’t see it, they can’t apply – that simple. This is why we post your job advert on all the leading job boards, including reed.co.uk, indeed, CV-Library, TotalJobs & many more, plus across all social channels.

So, any candidates looking for a job role like yours, are going to see it, regardless of their job search platform of choice. If you do get limited responses, we will work closely with you acting as a trusted advisor to maybe tweak your requirement a little, and we will be honest (but tactful). Maybe you are asking for too many essential skills opposed to making some desirable? Perhaps should make clear you are happy to train in certain areas? Make your advert more about what’s in it for them, opposed to all about you? Perhaps the salary is way under market average for similar roles?

Rest assured… if the campaign is not attracting the candidates you need, we are here to help and it’s all part of our service, combing human expertise with technology.

But if you are not happy with the responses and the work we have put in to attract the candidates you are looking for, for peace of mind we have our 100% No Fee, Happiness Guarantee.

While recruitment is never risk-free, our approach minimises your risk, offering tailored campaigns and a commitment to your satisfaction.

Ready to hire?

Please call 023 8033 6633, email hi@bluerocketrec.co.uk or complete advertise a job form

In today’s competitive job market, finding the right candidates to hire can be both time-consuming and expensive. Many businesses turn to job boards, believing this to be the most straightforward approach. However, navigating multiple job boards comes with significant hidden costs and hassles. Here’s why using our comprehensive hiring service is not only more cost-effective but also saves you from the headache of dealing with multiple platforms.

1. Our solutions save you time and money

When you choose our direct hiring solution, we post your job to all the leading job boards for you, for just a one-time, all-inclusive fee of £399. This means you don’t have to pay each job board individually, which can quickly add up. Our service offers bundled pricing that’s significantly lower than the cumulative cost of going to each job board directly.

If you go direct, it will cost you:

Reed.co.uk:       £150

CV Library:         £99

Totaljobs:           £219

Indeed:                £50 (same budget as we apply)

Total                     £518     

So, just by using our Essential Boost package, you save £199 without including free access to your very own branded ATS / Candidate Dashboard, social media exposure, expert advice & full dedicated support.

2. No contract and one payment

Setting up and managing contracts with different job boards is a hassle. Each platform has its own terms, payment schedules, and invoicing systems. By using our service there are no contracts to sign and you make one payment directly to us. We handle all the interactions with the job boards, so you don’t have to.

3. Candidate management in one place

Managing applicants from multiple job boards can be chaotic. Different platforms mean different interfaces, tracking systems, and candidate pools. Our service provides a unified candidate management system where all applications filter into a one easy-to-use dashboard. This not only saves you time but also ensures you don’t miss out on any potential hires due to oversight, confusion or an overzealous spam filter.

4. Full exposure

Job boards have different audiences. Posting on just one might not give you access to the full spectrum of potential candidates. With our service, your job listings are automatically distributed across all the main job boards, maximising your reach ensuring you attract a diverse pool of candidates, increasing your chances of finding the perfect fit.

5. Expertise and support always on hand

Navigating the complexities of job advertising can be overwhelming, especially if you’re not familiar with how each platform works. Our team of experts are here to guide you through the process, offering support and insights to optimise your job postings & assist with any aspects of hiring. This expertise can be the difference between a successful hire and a prolonged search.

So, hopefully you agree that using our service is a smarter, more economical choice than going to job boards directly. You save money by consolidating costs, reduce administrative headaches, and gain access to a broader pool of candidates. Plus, having a fully account managed service you can focus on doing what you do best.

For more information, please call Steve on 023 8033 6633 or email hi@bluerocketrec.co.uk for a no obligation chat on how it works, if it is suited to your particular role / sector & how we can help.

We’d love to tell you that the recruitment process is as simple as posting a job advert and then sitting back, waiting for the applications to start flowing in, just leaving you to pick the best candidate for the job.

It’s not…

However, with a little help from an online recruitment provider like Blue Rocket, we can make sure you are on your way to making a successful hire – quickly and easily, for just £399.

The main reasons why most hiring managers & business owners really struggle to recruit themselves are:

1. They spend 5 minutes putting a quick paragraph together, explaining roughly what the job entails and use this as a job advert.

Recruitment advertising is marketing – you need to first get attention, create desire, and then sell the opportunity. Why is this job better than their current one.

2. They choose to run their advert on just one job board, leaving it to chance, that is where their ideal candidates are looking. Or, even worse – they choose a ‘Free to Advertise’ option, for       example with indeed – where after 15 minutes of posting, their job advert falls off a cliff onto page 12 or beyond.

3. Speed & communication (more a lack of) – hiring managers & business owners fail to communicate with applicants, acknowledging applications, updating applicants on the status of the role / their application. Plus, above all – not reviewing & interviewing candidates in a timely fashion. Waiting 3 weeks to contact the ideal applicant, only to find out that they got snapped up and started with a competitor a week ago.

We get it – business owners, hiring manager & entrepreneurs are busy getting on with running their business, looking after their customers and haven’t got time to invest in the recruitment process.

But… You need to invest in the recruitment process, and if you engage the services of Blue Rocket Recruitment, for just £399:

• We’ll write you a compelling, fully optimised job advert from scratch, that will get the right candidates applying to your job
• We’ll advertise your job across all the leading job boards, online platforms and social media – not only attracting the best candidates, but more of them
• All applications come with full CVs and the applicant’s contact details
• Our simple, cloud-based dashboard allows you to manage all applicants in one place
• For a limited time, we’ll arrange all interviews on your behalf for FREE
• Fully account managed – support only ever a call a way
• We offer a recruit of your money back guarantee

So, if you are looking to recruit directly, but don’t have the expertise or the time to ensure your campaign is a success – engage Blue Rocket Recruitment.

For just a one-off fee of £399 (no more to pay), no contract, no commitments – you’ll be on your way to making your next great hire, fast.

Call one of our friendly team on 023 8033 6633 or email hi@bluerocketrec.co.uk to find out more or to get cracking. 🚀

The key component of making any recruitment campaign a success is sourcing the right candidates in which to shortlist & interview from. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But if it is so obvious, surely common sense would ensure that the advertising process is fundamental to any recruitment campaign – attracting the right candidates!

You’d of thought… but time & time again we see poorly written adverts written on company websites, job boards, social media & all over the internet. It’s not just employers who are guilty of this – some of the worst we’ve seen have been poorly written adverts by recruitment agencies.

If you are responsible for recruiting, or looking to recruit any time soon – complete the below form and receive your free eBook & template to use, to ensure you are on your way to recruiting success and making your next great hire.

When hiring a new employee, it is important to ask the right questions.

But how do you really dig into what makes someone tick as an employee, and how do you determine if they’ll be a good fit for your business — not only in terms of their skills, but also their personality, and as a part of your company culture?

To help you come up with the perfect list of interview questions to ask potential employees, we’ve come up with 40, and divided this list into five categories; basic interview questions, behavioural interview questions, salary & career development questions and getting started questions. Pick and choose a handful that feel most applicable from each list.

Complete the below form and your eBook, with 40 questions you can ask candidates during an interview will be in your inbox in minutes.

Happy interviewing 🚀

Speaking to a number of owners, directors and hiring managers, we often get asked – are job boards really the best way to recruit?

A lot of recruitment agencies will say, job boards are a thing of the past, it’s all about tapping into our little black book, the under the radar pool of candidates that they have access to, and yes, when recruiting at CEO or Director level, especially for big organisations paying salaries of £100K plus, yes. But for your more general roles, albeit office based admin, accounting, trades & construction, hospitality, sales (I could go on), job boards are by far the best source of candidates. Job Boards are where the majority or recruitment agencies get 95% of their candidates from – but they wont tell you that, why would they – then you could cut out the middle man, and recruit direct 😉

Over the past 5 years, I must say that with unemployment at an all time low, there has been big skill shortages which has not made it easy to recruit for many roles, across various sectors. But now, as we emerge from the pandemic, and with more and more good employees unfortunately being made redundant, there is a pool of good candidates, looking for a new job across the majority of sectors – and where do they go first to look for a job, you’ve got it – job boards.

Don’t just take it from me, here is some data from the job boards to back this up.

Indeed (data updated for March 2020)

With a strong worldwide presence, Indeed continues to lead in the market overall:

• 250 million unique monthly visitors
• Database of 175 million CVs
• 10 jobs added per second globally

However, the data from three of the UK’s other leading job boards is also hugely positive:

Totaljobs (data provided for May 2020)

• 5 million visits
• 5 CVs in their database
• 8m applications made
• 66,376 jobs posted

CV-Library (year-on-year data provided for June 2020)

• Website traffic up by 5.9%
• CV registrations increased by 19.2%
• Average applications per vacancy increased by a massive 106%, with an average 30+ applications per job

Reed (data updated for June 2020)

• 70% increase in clicks from Google through to their website
• Some sectors, such as social care, has seen the number of jobs posted more than double in June 2020 (year-on-year)

These impressive figures for job board interest show that these platforms are still by far one of the most effective tools to use for your recruitment.

However, we fully understand that it is not only time consuming to reach out to all of the individual job boards, pay them all separate, then right a fully optimised advert that really sells your opportunity, post it on each one, then watch sporadic applications come in to your inbox – if it’s not something you are familiar with, it can be a real headache. That’s why we’ve launched Blue Rocket Recruitment 🚀 –  we do it all for you, write your advert, post it across all the job boards, plus give you access to your own fully branded, cloud candidate dashboard which ranks all candidates in order of suitability, just leaving you to recruit as many candidates into you would like into your business, and for just £399 – no more.

Attract. Engage. Hire. Grow 🚀🚀

If you’d like to learn more, require any more information or simply have a vacancy that you’d like us to advertise for you, please do not hesitate to contact either myself of one of the team on 023 8033 6633 or email hi@bluerocketrec.co.uk 

All the best,

Steve Wyeth

Founder 🚀