Online Business Blog

British Government intelligence organization GCHQ are to launch a recruitment advertising campaign through online gaming. GCHQ plan to use the hugely popular Xbox Live, the online gaming platform for the Xbox 360, as a new inventive way to display their ads. This will mark the first time that the organization, who works with the Foreign Office, MI5 & MI6, has targeted online gaming.

The adverts which will feature the strapline “Careers in British Intelligence” and will feature on poster in the backgrounds of game being played online in real-time. A number of top games are being lined up to carry the posters.

This move in to new territory shows that GCHQ are looking at new ways of attracting today’s techsavy graduates. While traditional forms of recruitment adverts still have a place in GCHQ’s future plans the orginisation is clearly looking beyond the traditional outlets advertising to target new audiences to find the employees of the future.

GCHQ has two remits to cover signals intelligence and information assurances. Signals intelligence provides information to support the government in national security, law enforcement and military operations. Information assurance helps keep the Government communications and IT systems safe from hackers and other threats.

If you are advertising a position within your organisation it could well be tempting to slightly embellish the role to make it sound more exciting or glamorous than it really is, after all you want to attract a lot of good people to apply. However this can easily backfire on you if the person you have employed decides that their new job does not match up to what was advertised and decides to leave. That’s why it’s always good to be honest about the job and the kind of skill you will be requiring.  You aren’t allowed to discriminate in your advertisement either, but you are allowed to talk about the skills, traits and education you are searching for from a candidate.

Targeting the right people with your vacancy advert is essential in recruiting the right person. After all there’s no point spending a lot of money placing an advertisement for a senior manager in a magazine read predominantly by people in there twenties, as the readers are not going to have the skills or experience necessary for the position. This will mean you have wasted hundreds or even thousands of pounds on an advert which returned no suitable applicants.

This is where a recruitment advertising agency will often provide invaluable expertise in targeting the right outlets to attract the right people and not wasting you money by placing expensive ads which don’t attract suitable recruits. They will have detailed knowledge and data to be able to target the right advertising opportunities to bring the right candidates to your business. Marketing recruitment agencies can also be great time savers as a simple phone call or two could result in your vacancy being placed in a number of different places via different medias, a task which completed by yourself could take hours if not days to complete.

Online based advertisements have become very popular with internet marketers and advertising agencies down to the fact that their usefulness is easy to track. The editor in chief for E Consultancy, Chris Lake believes that companies can follow a click on one of their adverts or if a phrase has been entered on Google, Yahoo or MSN should they want too.

In today’s cautionary financial climate advertising companies are being urged to consider putting more money into their online advertising strategies if they want to get the most out of their money. These methods are a lot easier to maintain and keep an eye on in comparison to more traditional versions of advertising.

This is understandable considering the fingers crossed mentality that is known with magazine, newspaper or print advertisements. How can you really be sure how popular one of those adverts has been? There is no page view data or sale rates with a print advert after all. One of the great things about online marketing is that any sort of company can access it be it a recruitment advertising agency, a well known brand or a art gallery the sky is the limit.

Mr Lake later concluded that “In a recessionary climate, we’ve got much more focus on proving return on investment. That’s pretty much why the internet has taken off in terms of advertising, because of measurability.”

It is also interesting to know that out of all forms of advertising, internet marketing was the only form to see an increase in spending over the third quarter of 2008.

Out of work? Struggling to find a new job? Don’t worry, there are a large variety of options available to you. Have you checked the local and national newspapers for job vacancies? Other ways to look for jobs are through a online recruitment advertising agency, there are hundreds online but the main 5-10 will generally have the most job roles and thus the best chance of finding the job for you.

If you have applied for work like this and are still struggling to find a job then visit your local recruitment agency. These companies can be found online but will require you to drop in to fill out personal details on yourself and your work history.(this eliminates the chance of the agency putting you forward for the wrong role) The larger and better recruitment agencies are the ones that get approached from the major companies looking for the best possible employee, hopefully that could be you! Often the most effective and easiest method of finding work is leaving it to a professional to find it for you.

A recruitment agency is a useful medium for all parties. The job searcher, future employer and the recruitment advertising agency all benefit from you walking through the agency doors. (obviously you will benefit in finding work!) Most agencies will find a job opening for you and should an interview come up, give you plenty of information on the job role and the company. At the end of the day their interest is in you getting the role as they are paid bonuses per successful applicant.

Here are a few tips for you to help find the best job role for you:

1. Never pay a recruitment agency to find you a job as they are being paid by the employers to find an applicant like you.
2. Don’t be shy in putting yourself forward for roles that you like the look of.
3. Design your C.V around the kind of job you will be applying for. If you need help on this the recruitment agency should help you create a new one.
4. Be sure to build a strong relationship with your recruiter as they will be the one finding you work. The more often you talk to them the more often they will think of you should a new job possibility arise.