How to Design a Mobile Enabled Website

26. July 2010 by admin.

Is your website mobile? Can your customers find you when they need you the most?

 

It is estimated that mobile advertising growth will continue at a rate of 10% each year throughout the next decade. With statistics like this, no business can afford not to jump on board and stay on top of this highly effective marketing method in this stage of the game.

 

Look around your business and note the people using a smart phone. Are some of your clientele mobile warriors? You might be surprised but odds are if you are one yourself, you are already aware of the growing numbers of people of every demographic that are using their mobile devices for much more than making phone calls.

 

Here are few import points to consider when designing a mobile enabled website for your organization.

 

1. Less is better. Plan your information architecture based upon what users typically want first when they go to your web site. Make a list and prioritize each page or function.

 

2. Minimal use of graphics. The on-the-go mobile user is not going to be wowed by images, pictures and graphics. They are browsing because they are looking for specific information. You want them in and out of your site. You’ll wow them with simplicity.

 

3. Button and font size. Eliminate wasting your visitor’s time by make links and buttons a size that is finger-friendly. Tiny text and button will just bring the visitor closer to exiting your web site.

 

4. If you want to sell products or services via your mobile website, think about using PayPal or Google Checkout. This eliminates the visitor from having to type in all contact and credit card information.

 

5. Promote your site through geo-targeted sites like Google Maps, Bing Maps and Yelp.

 

Your website should be able to read easily on a web capable phone or mobile internet device. If you’re equipped and capable enough to make your own mobile theme, the more power to you, for those of you who don’t have a designer’s or coder’s bone in your body, you have several viable options:

 

WPtouch is a hybrid Wordpress theme/plugin. It allows you to pick and choose what content you want to display to mobile browsers, and based on your formatting, plops your data into a beautiful, easy-to-read, mobile Wordpress theme. WPtouch loads lightning fast and shows your content beautifully, without interfering with your regular site theme. WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into a web-application experience when viewed from an iPhoneTM, iPod touchTM, AndroidTM, or BlackBerry StormTM touch mobile device.

http://www.bravenewcode.com/products/wptouch/

 

Mobify is more of a manual tool, you kind of have to know what you’re doing, or at least have someone who does at your disposal. It has a web editor that allows you to style your mobile them yourself. Just using the default style it has after choosing your content won’t cut it. You have to work some CSS magic.

http://mobify.me

 

Wordpress Mobile Edition will give your website an iPhone-like makeover. Not much room for customization here, but you can add more mobile user-agents via the settings page.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-edition/

 

Encouraging communication between yourself and your readers is an endless task, so give them more reason to respond to you by reversing the order of comments, displaying the newest comments on top, right below your post. It’s just a simple setting change, go to your Discussion Settings in the administration area, and choose to display newer comments at the top of each page.

 

Remember, the internet is always changing, and so are the ways we communicate on it. Show your readers you are informed and have an opinion about current events in your niche, and they will be drawn to speak to you.

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Purples Squirrels Discovered at RecruitDC

25. May 2010 by admin.

A purple squirrel is more than just an oddly colored rodent. In the recruiting vernacular, a “purple squirrel” is a metaphor for that very rare, highly sought after, almost extinct species of candidate, because finding this candidate is about as easy as finding a purple squirrel.

How to Find Polygraph Candidates on Google

The strategy I use is filtering all the things I don’t want to see like job postings, etc. Keep your basic skill set search simple. If you get too many results, you can always add more filters to target a specific location or type of polygraph (”full-scope” OR “fullscope” OR “life style” OR lifestyle).

clearance AND polygraph AND resume -recruiter -job -jobs -submit -apply -”looking for” -recruiting -hiring -send -”email to” -”email resume” -opening -”to resume” -”resume database” -”sample resume” -applicant -examiner -chartrecorder

clearance AND polygraph AND “about me” OR bio OR vitae OR cv OR homepage OR profile OR resume OR resumebook -recruiter -job -jobs -submit -apply -”looking for” -recruiting -hiring -send -”email to” -”email resume” -opening -”to resume” -”resume database” -”sample resume” -applicant -examiner -chartrecorder

Place this hyperlink in your browser. It’s a search for any resume that has the word “polygraph”.  Add more filters or come up with your own key words.

http://www.egrabber.com/resumefinder/widget/keycG9seWdyYXBotypegoogleurlsearch_popup.html

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Top 10 Technique - Honing In On That Elusive Resume

30. April 2010 by admin.

How many different words can be used to find a resume or candidate profile, only a resume or profile, and not a job announcement? Crafting a search string that returns only useful information about your intended target is not that hard.

Let’s start with the different ways a resume or candidate profile can be found on the Internet. You want to find the following words in either the title of the web page or the within the URL or web address. Hence, the two commands to use will be “intitle:” and “inurl:”. These are generally universal commands among most of the major search and metasearch engines.

Here are some synonyms or alternative names for how resumes or candidate profiles can be found.

About Me
Bio(s)
Curriculum Vitae
CV(s)
Homepage
Profile(s)
Resume(s)
Resumebook
Vitae

You can further refine your search of that elusive resume or candidate profile by adding qualifiers that are generally found within the body of these pages.

Certification
Education
Experience
Objective
Overview
Qualifications
References
Summary of Qualifications
Work Experience
Work History

And finally, you will need to weed out all those JOBS with some choice words or phrases.

apply
benefits
email resume
email to
eoe
hiring
job
jobs
looking for
opening
recruiter
recruiting
requirements
send
submit
to resume

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Strategies - Unique Web Sites to Leverage Your Recruitment

6. January 2010 by admin.

Criminal Searches provides the scary-but-useful data on how many criminals live in your neighborhood, what crimes they were convicted of, and, in some cases, their names and personal info. It’s all culled from public records, and is presented as a Google Maps mashup. You can restrict your search to sex offenders, search on a specific name to get a criminal history, or do a general search for criminals by city or zip code.

We have stared into the social-networking abyss and it is the information overload named FriendFeed. The service aggregates all your social content and activity from Facebook, Flickr, Digg, YouTube, Twitter, Last.fm, blogs, and so on. It aggregates your friends’ activity, too, giving you a meta-feed of your online social life. Depending on how active your friends are, it can be a pleasant stream of sociality, or like trying to drink from a firehose.

Without a doubt, Howcast has the best-looking how-to videos on the Web. All kinds of topics like “The Questions That a Good Recruiter Asks a Hiring Manager”, “How To Automate the Resume Sourcing Process” or “How To Recruit With YouTube”. Sign up to get a How-To Video of the Day via e-mail, as well as to be able to edit their how-to wikis, talk to experts in the community area, or upload your own videos. The user-generated stuff is okay, but the Howcast-produced vids are particularly great.

PicApp can make a world of difference on your blog or Web site. It’s a free stock-photo service that lets you quickly and easily grab photos of whatever subject you need for use on your blog. PicApp has quite a large image catalog, and photos range from run-of-the-mill stock photos to celebrity pics.

Visual representations of data are nothing new, but Tag Galaxy takes it to new heights in searching Flickr photos. Enter a single keyword (I used “frog”) and you’ll see a 3D representation of a solar system with the keyword as the sun, orbited by related word “planets” (e.g., “amphibian,” “green,” and “toad”). Click a planet to combine keywords, or just click the sun (your main keyword) to get a unique photo-sphere covered with up to 236 images pulled from Flickr. Spin it in any direction with the mouse, clicking shots for close-ups. It takes a while to surf them all this way, but makes for a fascinating time waster.

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Strategies - Effective Recruiting Begins at Home

18. December 2009 by admin.

If you’re not collecting email addresses on your homepage (and anywhere else you can), you are missing out on opportunities to turn first-time job seekers into your best employees. No matter how they found you - maybe you rented an opt-in list, placed a banner ad or two, distributed a flyer or sent a postcard - if you’re not providing a way for passive/active job seekers and visitors to express interest in hearing from you in the future, that opt-in list rental, that banner ad, flyer or postcard was nothing more than a one-shot deal.

Here are some hints and tips on building your own opt-in emailing list.

Begin by asking for email addresses at every point of customer contact:

- On your company website
- In a guest book
- On customer service or support calls
- On invoices, brochures, customer surveys, feedback forms
- At tradeshows or events
- Place your email list sign-up on your homepage above the fold

You may also want to place it on other pages, like “careers” or “contact us” but whatever you do, don’t hide it! Same goes for your guest book. Place it prominently. Ask your employees to make it a part of their routine to ask friends if they would like to receive your newsletter, to receive special promotions, or to be notified of private events.

I want confidentiality

Just get the email address to start. Your visitors’ and jobseekers’ trust must be earned and this only happens over time. To that end, also make your privacy policy clear up front. Make sure they understand how you will be using their email address, that it won’t be sold or traded and that they can decide to “opt-out” of further communications at any time.

Why should I sign up?

If the lure of private events or promotions isn’t enough, email list sign-up success can be achieved with sweepstakes, drawings or the like. Make sure your incentive is closely related to your product or service. That way, you’ll end up with an audience interested in you, not just the latest gadget.

No matter what you’re recruiting and no matter what your size, your goal should be to make the most of every visitor and every job seeker. Make your site traffic and/or foot traffic, work for you by building your own opt-in email list and communicating with your visitors and job seekers.

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Strategies - Online Job Postings

17. December 2009 by admin.

Great online recruitment advertising can be the key to attracting the “A”-list talent your company needs. Here are 9 tips for maximizing your advertising budget.

1. No misspellings in your job posting.
2. Specify a salary range for your job posting.
3. Disclose your company name in the job posting.
4. Put as many keywords in your job description as you can.
5. Promote your company in the job posting.
6. Explain what makes your company unique and attractive to applicants.
7. Describe your benefits, emphasizing any special perks your company may have.
8. Use a more traditional job title so applicants understand what the position is.
9. Make sure the job posting is not too lengthy.

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Strategies - Free Video Tutorials

7. December 2009 by admin.

Knowledge is power. And free knowledge aint so bad either. Butterscotch offers lots of free video tutorials that can greatly improve your social networking and further leverage your company’s recruiting muscle. Here are a few of the many subjects presented, most having 10 or more episodes per subject.

Advanced Twitter Tips
Craigslist Fundamentals
The Finer Points of Facebook
Introduction to Flickr
Getting connected with LinkedIn
Beginner’s guide to YouTube
Facebook for grownups
Get Twittering - Twitter for Beginners

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Strategies - eGrabber Newsletter

2. December 2009 by admin.

Smart companies know that to effectively sell their product they must provide value-added content for their readers that is both valuable and completely free. eGrabber publishes its Tips for Recruiters newsletter twice a month. Here is a sampling of what they’ve offered up over the last year.

Use Google to Build Lists of Targeted Companies, July 2008

Industry-related conferences and the companies taking part in them are a good way to build a list of targeted companies.

The Google search syntax to find information on conferences pertaining to a particular industry is

(intitle:conference OR intitle:symposium OR intitle:expo) Industry

For example, to find information on conferences about the pharmaceutical industry, the search string will be

(intitle:conference OR intitle:symposium OR intitle:expo) pharmaceutical

Of particular interest would be the speakers, industry experts, sponsors and the companies they represent.

+++++

‘linkdomain’ Command in Yahoo!, September 2008

The linkdomain is a lesser known command in Yahoo!. It finds resumes that contain links to a particular website. The search syntax for this command is as follows:

linkdomain:website intitle:resume keyword

For example, if you are looking for the resume of a software engineer who is related in some way to projects at IBM, the search string is as follows

linkdomain:www.ibm.com intitle:resume “Software Engineer”

This could be a great way for you to get in touch with corporate alumni.

+++++

Find Companies that Layoff or Downsize in your State, October 2008

A recession is a time when top talent finds itself unexpectedly out of work. This provides an opportunity for you to hire them. Do a search on Google News to find companies in your city or state that layoff or downsize their staff. The Google search syntax is as follows:

Company Name/ Industry (layoff OR downsize) (State)

For example, if you are looking for layoff related news in the manufacturing sector, the search string will be

Manufacturing (layoff OR downsize)

You can also set Google Alerts to receive news on current and future planned layoffs.

+++++

Automate Part of your Sourcing Process, November 2008

Sourcing candidates manually from the Internet is a time consuming process, even if you have the right search strings. But, there are ways to automate parts of the process. For example, you can use Google Alerts to receive links to new resume postings straight to your inbox. Here’s how:

1) Go to the Google Alerts website
2) In the ‘Search terms’ box, enter your search string. For example, if you would like to receive information in new resume postings/ updates for Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) in the state of California, enter the following search string* in the box

intitle:resume (CPA) (California | CA)
3) In the ‘Type’ box, select Web from the drop-down
4) Enter your email and click on the Create Alert button

Now you will start receiving updates from Google through emails. All you need to do is check your inbox for info on links to new / updated resumes.

+++++

Search College Honor Societies for Resumes, December 2008

You can use the intitle and inurl command in Google to look for resumes in College Honor societies. The Google syntax is as follows:

(intitle:resume | inurl:resume | inurl:cv | intitle:cv) “Society name” (keyword)

For example, Alpha Sigma Mu is the Honor Society for Metallurgy and Materials Engineering. If you are searching for someone with experience in Metallurgical engineering, the syntax will be

(intitle:resume | inurl:resume | inurl:cv | intitle:cv) “Alpha Sigma Mu” (Metallurgy | Metallurgical) Industrial Design

Similarly, there are societies for Business and Management, Criminal Justice, Journalism and more.

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Using Social Networks for Background Screening, April 2009

A recent survey titled “Background Screening - Top Technology Trends 2009″ said that 1 in 5 employers use social networking sites to make a hiring decision. The trends indicate a considerable, if not major, shift in focus to using non traditional sources - social networks, forums and blogs - for background screening.

Here is a simple Google search script that will help you research people’s profiles on LinkedIn, MySpace, ZoomInfo, etc.

<Candidate’s Name> site:xyz.com

For example, to search for Chandra Bodapati’s (Founder & CEO of eGrabber) profile on LinkedIn, the script will be

Chandra Bodapati site:linkedin.com

Similarly you can use zoominfo.com, myspace.com, friendster.com and more.

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Search Resumes on Free-For-Recruiters.com, May 2009

Free-For-Recruiters.com has a resume directory with thousands of resumes. The Google syntax to search resumes on Free-For-Recruiters.com is as follows:

Keyword site:Free-For-Recruiters.com inurl:resumes State

For example, to search for resumes of software engineers in the state of California, your search script will be

Software Engineer site:Free-For-Recruiters.com inurl:resumes CA

You can replace the keyword and the state in the above script to search for resumes of your choice from preferred locations.

Note: You can also use the inbuilt Google search option on this website to search resumes.

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Include Related Job Titles in your Resume Search, July 2009

You might sometimes have the tendency to get stuck by a single title that your client (company) may use to describe a job position. In today’s industry, job titles are changing frequently. For example, software programmer, software developer, software engineer, etc. are different job titles for the same job function. So, unless you use all the related titles in your search, you are likely to miss out on some good candidate leads.

One way to find all relevant job titles is to first search the career sites using the (only) job title given by your client. Take note of the job titles that come up. Most sites provide a “View similar jobs” link beside the job titles in the results. Clicking that link will get you a series of similar positions categorized by Freshness, Overlooked, Relevant, etc. Under the Relevant category, you will find jobs similar in content to the position you are searching for.

You can include all such relevant job titles to expand your search.

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Search profiles on Pipl.com using Google, October 2009

Pipl is a search engine to find addresses and other information that can help locate someone - a business contact or a prospective candidate.

The Google search syntax to find profiles on pipl.com is

site:pipl.com (inurl:people OR intitle:profile) -jobs

For example, to search for profiles of Business Analysts, the search string will be

Business Analyst site:pipl.com (inurl:people OR intitle:profile) -jobs

You can even make the search location specific as follows

(Business Analyst) (California OR CA) site:pipl.com (inurl:people OR intitle:profile) -jobs

Try different variations of the above search string or replace the keyword with related terms to get desired search results.

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Use Online News Sites to Find Passive Candidates, December 2009

Did you know that you can use online news websites to prospect for passive candidates? The Google search syntax to search news sites is

site:online news website “keyword”

For example, if you are interested in sourcing Software Architects from The Seattle Times’ website, the search string will be as follows

site:seattletimes.nwsource.com “software architect”

You can also use the OR operator to search multiple news sites

(site:seattletimes.nwsource.com OR site:al.com) “software architect”

If you do not know the URLs of websites of newspapers, go to www.onlinenewspapers.com to look them up.

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