I went to The UK Sourcers event today, created and managed by @TheSourceress aka katherine Robinson . Katherine had secured Mind Candy in London as the meeting destination. For those who are unaware of Mind Candy, they are an online gaming company for 6-12 year olds.  They have had phenomenal success since their inception in 2004 with approximately 65 million registered users worldwide. To give you an idea of the environment in which our meeting took place, the reception desk is a tree trunk, the floor mimics grass and the bar area, yes, the bar area has a selection of fruit hanging from the walls. Needless to say it is a creative environment.  I have been in the recruitment industry for 15 years and have ample experience of headhunting and online sourcing, however nothing prepared me for what I was about to witness. It was like being in a room of magicians and all of them were breaking their code of practice by revealing their dark art. Although I should point out that we all swore to secrecy so I can’t relay any of these ‘bunny in hat’ moments, you’ll just have to ask Katherine if you can attend the next event. I never realised how many secret sourcing tools were available to recruiters and these guys really knew their stuff, no doubt about it, I was impressed. These are tools that every recruiter or in-house team should know, but I would be willing to bet my iPad that they don’t.  I always thought that sourcing was about cold calling and using pseudonym’s to get past the gate keeper, but oh boy was l wrong. Sourcing has moved on a lot since my day as a headhunter, helped mainly by the rise of digital and social media. Apart from sharing my own knowledge and skills my main reason for being part of this event was to see how some of these techniques could be integrated into our platform Plugin Recruiter. I asked the group if they felt any one technology had successfully aggregated search results from all the different channels into something more manageable, a resounding ‘no’ was the response. Another said ‘yer Google’.  I may not have found the answers to my own questions but what I did find was a great deal of respect for the silent assassins, digging up candidates that no headhunter or job board could possibly find.  I learnt that used properly technology allows you to avoid the gate keeper altogether. If you are working in the sourcing area either as an agency or in-house recruiter, I would strongly recommend you contact Katherine to see if she is prepared to unveil some of her magic tricks to you and your team. If you want to contact Katherine direct you can do so via her Linkedin profile uk.linkedin.com/in/katharinerobinson or via Twitter as mentioned at the beginning of this article.

Following the success of their May event, UK Recruiter are running a second Recruitment Software and Innovative Technologies Showcase event in September 2012 (http://recnet27sept.eventbrite.com).  The event is purely for recruiters (agency or inhouse) and offers an ideal opportunity for you to find the right IT solution to your business challenges. The event provides the perfect platform for you to gauge what technology is available to you and how it can enable you to become more productive and competitive.

The clever format of presentations by innovative technology providers and “speed-pitching” sessions from 20 database and technology companies means that recruiters can see a full range of providers in one afternoon.  Additionally during the afternoon the APSCo Technology Leadership Forum will host a debate on the subject of whether technology is fit for purpose. This will be hosted by the forum Chair and we will invite debate and discussion from the floor.  Non APSCo members are welcome to attend the session.

Technology Providers at the event include Monster, Colleague, Bullhorn, LaunchPad Recruits, Arithon, Crimson, idibu, Safe Screening, Bond Adapt, Microdec, TriSys, Influence, ebsta, iCIMS, Dillistone Systems, Plugin Recruiter, Cube19 and Voyager.  With all these leading suppliers under one roof recruiters can simply pick and choose which demonstrations to attend.

A must attend event for recruiters to see how technology is evolving in the recruitment space and how that relates to your business and get the full scope of what differentiates each recruitment technology provider in one short afternoon.

The event runs on 27th September 2012 from 12.30pm to 5.30pm in central London.  For more information or register at http://recnet27sept.eventbrite.com/

If you have any questions please email louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk or call 07724 197830.

A Cambridge startup is using cutting edge technology to revolutionise the UK recruitment industry after winning investment from ‘Asian angels’ based in the city.

Plugin Recruiter’s new online jobs site leverages social media and video content to put a human face on the recruitment process.

The novel platform fast-tracks applications through to multi-user, nationwide and international job networks to slash cost and eliminate expensive middlemen agencies.

The video CV and online interview technique is already speeding up engagement between companies needing to hire fast and job seekers. Its personalised approach puts the head into head hunting, according to founder and CEO Chris Heron.

Plugin Recruiter enables employers and job seekers to engage on an emotional level by helping them to tell their own unique stories through online video content, which can be continually updated.

This is accomplished by integrating social media, photos and videos seamlessly into jobs, company and job seeker profiles.

Nor is cost any longer a barrier to using video applications for vacancies as Plugin Recruiter customers can buy low cost videos from an in-house production team.

The week-old startup is being bankrolled by angels Sunil and Prashant Shah, who are neighbours of Plugin Recruiter at the Innovation Centre on Cambridge Science Park. Their company, Piramal Discovery Solutions (formerly O2h), is a globally successful life science business.

In an exclusive interview with Business Weekly, Chris Heron revealed that Plugin Recruiter was already in discussions with big-hitting international players to take the initiative global. The US is a prime market.

Heron has been involved in the recruitment industry for 15 years and the seeds of Plugin Recruiter were sown when he was winging between the company home in the South of France and the UK to ply his trade.

He decided to employ a UK-based colleague to tour Britain filming videos of both HR professionals seeking candidates for their companies and job hunters looking for roles that suited their skills sets.

The process highlighted the benefit to hiring companies of elevating their brand while job seekers recognised the initiative as a way of promoting their skills while eliminating head-to-head interview nerves. The online job interview was born.

Plugin Recruiter has since negotiated deals with all the leading jobs boards to buy in online CVs and sell them on at a mark-up. As a result, Plugin Recruiter can now push applicants’ videos and online CVs to all the top job boards at a fraction of the market going rate, creating unprecedented reach and for the first time leveraging the different add-ons from sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter along the way.

The strategy has created an unrivalled talent pool accessible through a one-stop resource, according to Chris Heron. And for companies that are hiring, they can filter all the relevant data through one secure online administration area.

Some of Cambridge’s top hi-tech and biotech companies are talking with Plugin Recruiter about handling their recruitment accounts. Heron says that the company is translating its offering into German, French and Spanish as a first step towards globalisation.

A US equivalent is scheduled to debut in six months and the company is talking to potential partners on the other side of the Atlantic regarding joint ventures.

A number of enhancements will be added to the site in the coming months. Headcount at the Cambridge company is heading into double figures after just one week since launch and the question of additional investment requirements will be discussed further down the turnpike.

Heron said: “We have a strong and proven business model and are already generating revenues. This is important to our long-term growth ambitions. For now, Sunil and Prashant’s angel investment and mentor skills are already taking us further than we hoped in such a short space of time.”

Sunil Shah has high hopes for Plugin Recruiter. He said: “The company provides an engaging visually interactive platform that could revolutionise the industry.

“However most important for us is that Chris has all the attributes to be a great entrepreneur; he is creative, hardworking, gets into the detail, has taken personal risk to start his business and has worked in the industry for many years.

“Chris is also based in the Science Park innovation cluster and it is exciting to part of an new tech-based startup in Cambridge in which we can leverage our past experience of working in this sector. You can expect more investments into the local area from Prashant and I.”

• PHOTOGRAPH: Chris Heron (standing) supervises a video production session