ECOM ARE TEN!!
ECOM ARE TEN!!
You may have seen the yellow banner on our site or elsewhere…ECOM are 10 years old this year!
Here are 10 things about ECOM you should know:
1 Date of Birth 01/01/00
2 We started in a tiny basement bedroom & now we are in a massive (but light & airy) basement office.
3 The Dot com crash happened & was way worse than the recent recession
4 We have made over 6000 placements
5 We have recruited for 85% of the NMA Top 100
6 ECOM recruit for ALL Permanent & Freelance Digital jobs
7 ECOM are no1 on Google for Digital Recruitment
8 ECOM are the 1st Digital Recruiter to launch a fully optimised site for the mobile platform
9 ECOM are the 1st Digital Recruiter to develop an iphone app
10 Over the last 10 years the Digital Market has changed enormously. ECOM has evolved unrecognisably too & we will continue to stay ahead of the game, embracing Digital Technology to improve our service. Coming out of the worst recession for 75 years, we are stronger & better placed than ever to help with all Digital Recruitment needs.
ECOM Recruitment launch an iPhone App
ECOM's new iPhone app is a unique tool within digital recruitment which
allows candidates to easily find the perfect permanent or freelance role.
Download for free at the app store now
http://itunes.com/apps/ecomdigitalrecruitment
Watch the video to see the app in action
http://vimeo.com/10867610
Permanent security or freelance freedom?
The dilemma for User Experience Architects
The recent downturn in the global economy has lead to a huge amount of flux in the UX market place in the last 18 months, with contract rates dropping, a drying up of permanent positions and even some (unenlightened) companies questioning the need for what some still see as a “fluffy” skill-set that shows no ROI and that any old designer should be capable of doing.
We have had freelancers who have worked solidly for years at good rates, asking us where the work is, why they can’t find anything, and most shockingly of all were considering looking at the few permanent roles that were available.
We have seen excellent permanent candidates become disillusioned, with that promised pay-rise not materialising, or extra responsibilities being forced upon them with no reward offered. Many have been unable to find something better, or have been unwilling to look for fear of losing their job as a result of being caught searching for something new and many have stayed put due to concerns about the stability of a potential future employer.
However the last few months have seen a dramatic turn around and things are very much on the up. This is now leading to an interesting question being asked amongst those in a permanent UX position – is now the time to go freelance?
Obviously there is no right or wrong answer to this question as it is clearly a hugely personal decision based on so many different factors, but there are several pointers that suggest now might just be the right time:
Freelancers are finding work immediately.
Demand is now consistently high, meaning the level of risk associated with leaving a permanent job is now much lower.
Rates are significantly up on 12 months ago, with the very best candidates now enjoying the highest rates seen for several years.
Freelancers get to work on a huge variety of projects, so not only is the pay and lifestyle better, the projects are often more interesting.
Also, there are loads of permanent roles available, both agency and client side, so should the worst happen and you do find yourself unable to secure a new contract, landing a new permanent role shouldn’t be too difficult.
Perhaps now is the time to seriously consider the freedom of a freelance lifestyle!!
What's in a name?
Posted by Dan de Lord.
I like to tell people where I'm sending their portfolio; it removes any awkward moments later when they realise too late that agency A is where that ex works, where they didn't quite manage to pick that development framework up on the job or where that HR director is with the pathological distrust of all developers. So it still amazes me that, on a daily basis, I come across so many people who don't know where they've had their details sent.
This may be due to a recruitment agency saying they have a range of clients who could be interested or simply refusing to say who the company is (apart from that they're excellent) until interview stage. On several occasions we've even heard from people who have interviews confirmed, but still aren't aware of the company in question and are waiting for details on email the same day as the meeting.
I'm sure that the company may be excellent, but I also think it's very bad practice for recruiters to adopt. It creates unnecessary confusion and undermines the efforts of those doing good work by creating situations where resumes are scattered gunned around and often duplicated with a client. A match in terms of skill set does not always mean a complete match as any client will tell you.
To look at it another way, would you ever agree to going on a date not knowing the name of who you were meeting, where you were going or anything at all about the other person for example? Your career in particular should be too important to play with blind date with though, particularly when there are more than enough opportunities in a growing and evolving market now.
Openness and dialogue are key foundations of this digital age so, if you weren't to get this from a recruitment agency, I wouldn't just cross your fingers and hope that whatever's behind the screen is going to be a good match.
The choice though is yours.
The Christmas Crunch
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics
tell a familiar story – unemployment is at its highest level for 12 years,
up by 232,000 for the three months to April. Job vacancies, which peaked a
year-and-a-half ago at 700,000, were down to 444,000 in May 2009.1
The smell of negativity, self pity and lack of hope lingers in the air but this Christmas seems to endure a sparkle of change. Forgive me for being sheltered but when was the last time you heard the latest job cut update on the news? Early 2009 oozed day after day updates of the economic downfall being what we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but what about now?
For those of you abiding by the stereotype that Christmas is a quiet time for recruitment and plan to sit back and wallow it then what can I say, your loss! This Christmas is a great time for those wanting contract work in the digital arena at great daily rates and proactively showing interest in companies before the January job boom. A large amount of clients are taking on extra help over Christmas which is a blooming period compared to the dark times of 2008.
Advice to Graduates launching their career in digital? Start off with a smaller employer, as opposed to trying to get a place on a graduate scheme with a large corporate; it is a very competitive time. Often this attains faster results and can offer a broader overall experience.
On the whole be proactive and use December wisely. January will be as busy as the January sales. It is the busiest month of the year for recruitment and this 2010 has a smell of promise and optimism for the digital job market. So guarantee you are fully equipped, so that you can take advantage of whatever job opportunities crop up.
Don’t forget to party too! Parties are perfect venues for getting on your networking hat because networking is all about making connections with people, sharing interests and finding common grounds, you never know where this may lead you and your career!
One final important tip to all: Get in touch! We speak to specialist digital candidates all day/every day which means we have immediate access to the crème of the digital crop that is available now when you need them along with the top agencies and digital clients in London. It’s all about the right people in the right place. And the right place for the right people.
Merry Christmas to you all. Minus the crunch.
By Katrina Maratheftis
1-Dave
Cohen (The Guardian Website 2009)
Are Recruitment Consultancies in trouble?
Following on from Annabel's
previous post about a candidate finding work for himself using Twitter it leads
nicely to the question: In these days of Social Networking, why do we need
Recruitment Consultancies?
Recruitment agencies pride
themselves on being able to offer their clients access to databases jam packed
with talented individuals looking for work. Whilst for candidates there is the
opportunity to gain access to companies offering work.
Now that everyone has a
presence on at least one, if not all of the famous Online Networks; Facebook,
Linkedin & Twitter...now that we are all connected to everyone in the world
it seems through the power of linking & following...now that clients can
easily find candidate profiles on the internet & people looking for work
can search to find companies who are on the look out for employees….
If it isn’t a question of
facilitating access to loads of talent because our clients already have direct
access? If it isn’t a matter of simply being able to offer introductions to a
list of successful businesses because individuals can make contact themselves?
Where does that leave Recruitment Consultants? What is it that they offer?
Clients
CV Filter
We submit the most suitable
candidates for the role.
Shortlist Individuals
who are actively looking for work, not just connected on a social network but
actually in the market for a job right now.
Submit Candidates that have already been interviewed with their skills & experience assessed
Personalities that are a
good fit for the client’s particular culture & environment
ID & visa status that has been checked
Freelancers that are
reference checked who have often worked for other clients of ours means we
have a good grasp of their strengths & weaknesses
Payroll service for all
Freelancers saving time, money & hassle for you the client
Quick turnaround; we
are speaking to specialist digital candidates all day/every day which means we have
immediate access to the best Digital talent that is available now when you need
them!!!
Candidates
Job Filter
Clients that we have already met so
we can help you decide where you are best suited
By working with us,
candidates are offered a selection of roles with several companies from one
point of contact.
Consultancy & advice, saying this is not right for you can be as important as shouting this is the
perfect role!
Freelancers get paid by
us quicker, it’s then down to us to collect the
money from the client.
YOU get paid even if the
client doesn’t pay us! In these days of controversial prepack administration, we
have had several instances where our clients have put themselves into
administration owing us money for freelancers that we have already paid. We take the risk!
Quick turnaround, by
keeping in touch with the leading names in Digital all day every day, it means
that we can get your job search up & running immediately. Whether you’ve
been let down at the last minute by a cancelled freelance booking or if you’ve
been unfortunate enough to be made redundant, one call to us & we can brief
you on a multitude of roles all in one go…no need to send multiple
applications, or spend hours searching job boards, or firing out countless messages to your Linkedin connections or Twitter followers in the hope that one
of them just might have a job for you right now when you need one!
Recruitment is about people not online connections. Building up a
massive network on Linkedin is not an end in itself, although you could easily
think that there are recruiters out there whose focus is building up
connections for the sake of it rather than focusing on bringing together talent & business.
Yes we can & should use digital channels to facilitate
the recruitment process but it’s about how we use it that counts…it’s the
combination of technology & the human touch that works best.
Recruiting is about relationships.
It’s about people.
Mobile Site Launch
The year of the mobile!? What again? Didn't we have that every year for the
last x years? Well it does seem to be finally here, in full digital colour at
long last.
ECOM have had more Mobile UI Designer, User Experience, Objective C Developer,
iphone app creator type roles this year than ever before. The demand is there!
The briefs are coming in & the work needs doing. So if you are in any doubt
as to what skills would be useful for you to learn? if you are wondering what
you should do to make yourself more in demand in Digital Recruitment land: it's
mobile.
Thomas Husson, analyst at Forrester Research, recently said: "In the
next decade the mobile Internet will replicate the success story of the
PC-based Internet"
It's for this reason that we are taking the lead by being the 1st
Digital Recruitment Specialist to launch a fully optimized site for the mobile
platform. Get your iphone or Blackberry out & keep in touch with us on the
move:
The original pure play Digital Recruitment Consultancy.
We’ve been around for longer than the rest. We’ve lived the dot com
revolution for real & not just been told about it! And we are proud to be
right in amongst it at this early stage in the take up of mobile as a real
business tool.
Keep up with us online wherever you are.
Web Design and The Recession
The recession is apparently over and Web Design has taken a hit but, in comparison to other industries, it has fared well and seems to be bouncing back faster than we would have expected. There’s always going to be a need for advertising to create revenue and digital is seen as a cheaper way to do this. Digital is a constantly evolving industry; there are always new ways to reach out to consumers, new web trends and agencies have no choice but to keep up with the latest trends. Over the last year we’ve seen a boom in ecommerce, social media and mobile. These are areas that consumers are investing their money in and clients don’t want to be left behind...just yesterday it was announced that Apple had broken the 2 billion barrier for downloaded apps.
Obviously it’s been a difficult time for all. Clients have reduced their ad spend and this has had a knock on effect throughout the industry. Mass redundancies have been made; agencies are now left with smaller, but stronger design teams. In some cases they have sorted “wheat from chaff”, in other cases really top creatives have been left without work as there hasn’t been the same amount of demand for senior level creatives. However, some agencies have actually benefited from the economic downturn by picking up clients where other agencies have gone under.
Compared to last year there are definitely fewer jobs around particularly permanent briefs. However, compared to 5 or 6 months ago there is a huge amount more. Since we saw mass redundancies at the beginning of the year agencies are less able to manage things in house and in turn we’ve seen an increased demand for freelancers.
The last few months have really picked up speed. A lot of recruitment freezes are thawing out and, having tightened their belts for the first two quarters, agencies and companies are ready to expand their teams to meet demand from their clients. There is a sense that any redundancies that are happening at the moment will be the last wave. Let’s hope so anyway! Certainly we are way busier now than at any point since last Summer. There’s plenty of work out there if you have the right skills and know where to look.
We’ve seen a massive increase in demand for Information Designers over the last year; web user interface design is on the up as it ties in with ecommerce, social media and mobile. We’ve also seen an increased demand for designers with a range of front end development skills, things like Content Management Systems and Wordpress design experience have also proved popular and there has been a steady increase in demand for Motion Graphics designers, again with a range of skills like Max/Maya and Cinema 4D. If you have the skills that are in demand then you’re in a much better position money wise and salaries won’t be affected that much.
We aren’t seeing the same sharp jumps in salary as we did two years ago. Generally salaries have experienced downward pressure with mid-weight and the top end being most affected. However if an individual is supremely talented or skilled with emerging technologies then they may find that they can negotiate an increased salary! Some of our agency clients are offering attractive packages like performance-related benefits, share options, your choice of benefits in order to cut costs, employers are also more conscious of checking out current salaries before making an offer to make sure that they are not paying over the odds.
So all in all the outlook is pretty positive, the recession is bottoming out, digital has fared well and there is always going to be a need for great design skills and creative flair. There is an increasing amount of digital creative roles available but the competition is hot - certain skills are in huge demand, we can help you find what you are looking for though so don’t forget to keep in touch at creative@ecomrecruitment.com and keep up to date with the latest freelance creative roles at http://twitter.com/ecomcreative.
And if you want to hear more about web
design and the recession you can catch me in this week’s Web
Designer Mag “brightening up” Chris Wright’s article on the
issue!
Good news!
Group M predicting growth and positive future prospects for the online and mobile advertising. This kind of good news for our clients is likely to fuel a boom in the demand for our specialist digital candidates! Good news all round!!
Specialists in finding the best places to work for both freelance and permanent digital people.
Our bulging contacts book means we have access to the best digital talent to help you grow your business.
