NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 12:44:35 GMT

Update ... We've just added a new banner advert on the right hand side into which you can enter a location, press submit, and it opens the job section with the jobs already ordered by distance from that location. Also displays the latest 5 jobs posted.

(The banner is titled "Who's hiring near you", and if you don't see it, it's because they rotate on each page view, so you may need to refresh the page till you do see it).

Also lists the latest 5 jobs posted.

(a little more tweaking needed to get the layout just right, but it works!)

Subscription upgrade should be along soon too ...

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Arlo Guthrie — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 16:56:55 GMT

And just to let everyone know, we discovered we had a little glitch in the job section which was screwing up our geographically ordered list. That has now been fixed.

I've also had the parameters changed. In the past, when you ordered by distance, it actually ordered by both distance and recency of posting. We're now doing it strictly by geographical distance, regardless of posting date (since all are posted within the last 60 days, anyway).

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Anthony Todd — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 16:52:56 GMT

Sorry Arlo, I was concurrently trying to get an electricity account but my place doesn't exist, according to the supplier, [for 6 months] so I overreacted when I saw another mongrel word ie "geosearch".

"Portree" is some place on a Scottish island, says he, trying to make a bad point.

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 12:40:53 GMT

[quote user="Anthony Todd"]Surely that's more intuitive than a "geosearch" which gives the locum's location as a place name, I assume, and if it doesn't it, is no help at all, and "Portree" for a locum in Sarf London......???[/quote]

Uh?

I don't understand. We don't call it geosearch on the job page itself! That was just the terminology I used to describe a geographical search when talking about it in the forum. It already says 're-order list by distance from'!

[quote user="Anthony Todd"]more intuitive than a "geosearch" which gives the locum's location as a place name, I assume,[/quote]

Um, geosearch, or rather, 'reorder list by distance from' simply reorders the list by distance from the entered location. Each entry on the list is accompanied by the place name prominently.

[quote user="Anthony Todd"]and "Portree" for a locum in Sarf London......???[/quote]

I'll see your ??? and raise you ????????

Don't understand what you mean! There are no locum positions listed as 'Portree' as far as I can see!

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Anthony Todd — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 12:32:08 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]By distance from). [/quote]

Surely that's more intuitive than a "geosearch" which gives the locum's location as a place name, I assume, and if it doesn't it, is no help at all, and "Portree" for a locum in Sarf London......???

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 10:27:12 GMT

[quote user="Anthony Todd"]No website should require any explanation or any instructions to use. If it does it is bad! [see above!][/quote]

I was going to say that I can't think of a way of making it clearer than with the words 're-order list by distance from' above the geo search box.

But then thought again: I'll ask the techies to see how easy it would be to add a sub heading above the actual list, which can tell what parameters you've set and titles the list accordingly (ie By post date or By distance from).

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Anthony Todd — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 10:10:59 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]

If you ONLY use the contract type criteria to select for a job type (or any other of the drop down selectors), then jobs do appear in date order (well they should, and did when I just tried it).

If you enter a location (either alone, or in combination with drop down filter), then jobs are ordered by distance from that location, with that given priority over the date posted.

As you glance down the list with a geosearch, it should quite quickly become apparent when you're reaching the geographical limit of where you'd want to work, and I suspect that in most cases (except perhaps very highly populated areas), the jobs you'll be wanting to look at will be on the first page of the re-ordered list.

[/quote]

[this is not just directed to you, Arlo but is generic!]

No website should require any explanation or any instructions to use. If it does it is bad! [see above!] and WTF is a "geosearch"?

Or ,if it does, there should be instructions and the certainty that the terminology is consistent between the instructions and the box concerned.

The classic is the "amount" box on bank sites. If you put in the "£" in the box it is invalid but there is no "£" outside the box, and many sites deal in all sorts of currency.....frustrating.

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Mark Hedberg — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 15:01:26 GMT

12 vets with a 1 in 3 rota? What a deal!

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Arlo Guthrie — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 14:28:54 GMT

[quote user="Phil Hyde"]I asked my manager to try it out. I gave no instructions at all. Her first comment was "Ha ha well for starters I’m clicking ‘Advertise Now’ and nothing is happening. So I’ve set up an account, it’s pending approval so once I can sign in, hopefully it will work and I’ll keep you posted!"[/quote]

Yes, I had spotted that :)

Techies are now working on that button so that it prompts the user to register or login if they press when logged out.

[quote user="Phil Hyde"]it was easy to complete and looks good. I like it, I was impressed,[/quote] Great.

I thought her choice of proposition was eye-catching (https://www.vetsurgeon.org/jobs/1591/). In fact, I wondered whether I might pop off to vet school so I can apply for the job myself! One thing - she only uploaded your logo. If you scroll down the list, see the ones where photos have been uploaded.

My advice: upload a photo of the team. So much more compelling to see the people you could be working alongside, like this example (small image enlarges on click). https://www.vetsurgeon.org/jobs/1588/.

Or an image which illustrated another compelling reason for working for you.

[quote user="Phil Hyde"]I just hope people will see it![/quote]

They will. The question is only how many. At the moment, probably not enough. But give me a little while longer (two more - relatively small - things to do to it before I start shouting about it).

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Phil Hyde — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 14:11:54 GMT

I asked my manager to try it out. I gave no instructions at all. Her first comment was "Ha ha well for starters I’m clicking ‘Advertise Now’ and nothing is happening. So I’ve set up an account, it’s pending approval so once I can sign in, hopefully it will work and I’ll keep you posted!"

Her next comment was "once I was accepted as a member it worked fine, it was easy to complete and looks good. I like it, I was impressed, I just hope people will see it!"

She's not easy to impress...

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Arlo Guthrie — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 13:52:11 GMT

[quote user="Sophie Aylett"]Very easy to use and upload pictures, [/quote]

Thanks Sophie.

[quote user="Michael Woodhouse"]can a job hunter set up alerts? A new small animal job is posted within miles of Basingstoke.....[/quote]

Michael Woodhouse Coming soon. Thanks for the prompt! (thought about it, and decided geographically specified email subscriptions required).

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Sophie Aylett — Sat, 28 Nov 2015 14:30:53 GMT

Very easy to use and upload pictures, like the "number of views" counter, like the statement that appears on the initial all jobs listed page.

We have tried other avenues of advertising but rejected them due to cost/not being able to judge the impact/lack of response although we are targeting a very small audience of farm vets, which seems to be decreasing all the time!

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Arlo Guthrie — Sat, 28 Nov 2015 07:51:50 GMT

Currently, we just offer the ability to subscribe to email alerts for all jobs posted. But I've put the request in for emails based on search parameters.

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Michael Woodhouse — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 22:22:42 GMT

Arlo - can a job hunter set up alerts? A new small animal job is posted within miles of Basingstoke.....

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Arlo Guthrie — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 21:19:04 GMT

A few more tweaks today. We've now got the icons at the top of the jobs page correctly displaying the number of jobs by job type rather than practice type, which we had accidentally set in error. So you can now see straight away what the breakdown of jobs is. And we've got it set now so that the photos are displayed in list view (unless there is only a logo, in which case that shows).

Oh, and we've now gone all encrypted. If you look at the address bar of the browser you'll see vetsurgeon.org is https (not http any more) which means all data between your computer and vetsurgeon.org is encrypted.

Oh and at last, the font size when you reply doesn't need a microscope!

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 20:12:29 GMT

[quote user="Phil Hyde"]WE will try it. How much will it cost when up and running?[/quote]

Well, it is up and running already, just ironing out the snags. But certainly OK to use.

Before I charge anything, I want to get the job section established as THE place to look. Various things I'm doing achieve that. Price? Well, when I (more importantly, you) am happy with the traffic levels, I'm thinking flat rate of a max of £150 for six weeks. Maybe a bit less. Probably in the New Year some time.

I might introduce a small admin fee before then. Something more like £20-£50 for six weeks, in order to get people to fpcus their minds a bit more on their advert, and (hopefully) have a bit more balance between independents and corporates.

I run a very lean operation here, so the bottom line is that I believe I can offer the job board at a much lower cost than charged by my competitors - so if you want somewhere you can advertise cheaply, then please, email this link:

http://www.vetsurgeon.org/jobs/

to every vet you know - and tell them to support us by making it their first port of call for a job. That's the best way you can help me keep your recruitment costs as low as they can be.

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

grumpyoldman — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 19:05:14 GMT

you could subdivide corporate and none-corporate and +/- OOH. For me its a massive waste of time getting people to come to an interview only to find they have not really read the job spec and did not want any OOH . You could also divide prospects for advancement versus those that just want a monthly cheque.

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Phil Hyde — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 18:28:35 GMT

WE will try it. How much will it cost when up and running?

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 14:09:48 GMT

[quote user="Joyce Whitehead"]I like it, looks visually much more appealing[/quote]

Thanks!

[quote user="Joyce Whitehead"]hopefully will increase traffic flow. Our previous adverts have not led to employment, but we certainly feel that the audience is increasing here.[/quote]

I hope improving design / usability will help on its own, but also doing a lot of other stuff to improve traffic flow to that section.

[quote user="Neil Wheadon"]Very slick[/quote]

Thanks Neil. As well as wanting to improve the user experience, I wanted it to convey the (real) impression that I'm not basket weaving at home any more, so to speak, this is a proper service.

[quote user="Neil Wheadon"]If you plug in locum you get 23 jobs but these aren't in date order so you have to go through the lot to find the recent ones. Presumably once filled they disappear? but there could be quite a few to go through.[/quote]

If you ONLY use the contract type criteria to select for a job type (or any other of the drop down selectors), then jobs do appear in date order (well they should, and did when I just tried it).

If you enter a location (either alone, or in combination with drop down filter), then jobs are ordered by distance from that location, with that given priority over the date posted.

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Neil Wheadon — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 13:52:15 GMT

Very slick

If you plug in locum you get 23 jobs but these aren't in date order so you have to go through the lot to find the recent ones. Presumably once filled they disappear? but there could be quite a few to go through.

Plugging in a Bath postcode initially it searches distance from home which is really useful, then towards the end puts in closer ones than Aberdeen, so not quite sure on this?

Neil

RE: NEW Job section, your thoughts please ...

Joyce Whitehead — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 13:46:58 GMT

I like it, looks visually much more appealing, and hopefully will increase traffic flow. Our previous adverts have not led to employment, but we certainly feel that the audience is increasing here.