Profiled - The IT Job Board - The blog created for the IT recruitment industry
An interview with Teresa Sperti, head of international marketing at The IT Job Board
The Social Media Portal talks to Teresa Sperti from The IT Job Board blog about IT recruitment, social media and how it is used to connect job seekers with recruiters
Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your full job title and role at The IT Job Board?Teresa Sperti (TS): Teresa Sperti, head of international marketing, The IT Job Board.
My role is to develop the strategic direction of the online marketing function, the primary purpose being candidate attraction across Europe.
SMP: Briefly tell us about The IT Job Board, what does it do?TS: Essentially, The IT Job Board is an online job hunting tool. It enables IT professionals to find and apply for new career opportunities. At all times we try to provide candidates with information that is useful to them at all stages in their IT career.
SMP: What made you start IT Job Board?TS: The IT Job Board group of companies was set up in April 2002. The founders recognised the impact that the internet was beginning to have on IT recruitment, and set about creating an online job board to service both clients and candidates.
SMP: Why did you start The IT Job Board blog and how do you know it?s the first of this nature?
TS: We appreciated that IT professionals are finding it hard to make their next career move, particularly in the current climate. And, we were keen to create a platform that they could turn to, not only for advice, but for trends also.
Job sites are only relevant when you are looking for a new job, but what we wanted to do was extend our brand, and to make it relevant throughout someone?s career.
And, from canvassing the UK market, we could see that no one was offering anything specific to IT recruitment (from a blogging perspective).
SMP: What was the most challenging part of building the blog?TS: The IT community is very opinionated, which is a good thing when compiling an industry blog. As a result, one of the main challenges has been finding the right content that works for the target audience.
SMP: Who are your target audience and why?TS: IT professionals are the main audience, but the blog is also relevant for recruiters. If you have a job board that candidates like using, the other parts of the site will take care of themselves. So far, we have received some excellent feedback regarding the launch of the blog, and it is already creating real traction.
SMP: How are you initially attract users to your blog, and how do you continue to do it?TS: One of the main ways of promoting it has been through our LinkedIn profile, where we have established more than 2000 connections. We also send out weekly research and trends emails to our candidate base, where there are click throughs to the blog. The site also has a well-rounded SEO strategy that has and will continue to be implemented.
SMP: What are the low moments of what you have been doing so far?TS: After investing significant time loading the content and ensuring the blog was ready for launch at the last minute one of the main sections: ?have your say? ceased working, so we had to delay the launch by a week, which was very frustrating.
SMP: What are the high moments of what you have been doing so far?TS: I haven?t reached the high point as yet. It is one thing to launch the blog, the high points will be down to how successful it is.
SMP: What do you see as your biggest challenges and opportunities?TS: The biggest challenge for any blogger is the content; you have to deliver something unique to the market. In terms of opportunities, I am hoping the blog will lead to a deeper level of candidate interaction.
SMP: What?s the next big step for social media and networks and what roles does IT play in this?TS: Technically there will be obviously be a lot more innovation moving forward. In the immediate future tools such as social advertising will reach wider adoption, and there will be better utilisation and integration of real time search into existing search platforms.
From a client side perspective however the industry needs to support client side marketers to demonstrate how social media can deliver value to a business. As some client side marketers are still not convinced about the opportunity I see the next big step being the truly innovative adoption of the medium by organisations.
SMP: What?s going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media / technology throughout 2009?TS: I believe the social media sector will go through consolidation over the coming year. People can?t be expected to have 10-15 profiles across different websites ? at the moment, there are too many options. It will change and is already starting to with the recent acquisition of FriendFeed by Facebook.
SMP: What impact is the global recession having and what do you think the best way is to manage it for businesses such as yours?TS: Any marketing department (across any industry), is likely to be feeling the pinch in the current global recession. Social media has presented a cost effective way of undertaking marketing, and ? if carried out properly ? it can result in huge benefits.
SMP: How does this fit into plans at The IT Job Board?
TS: The media landscape is a fragmented one. At The IT Job Board, we have a strategy in place that works across all online channels, we don?t simply rely on social media, but we recognise the significant role it plays.
SMP: What are the next moves for The IT Job Board?TS: Wait and see
SMP: Best way to contact you?TS: s.jones @ theitjobboard.co.uk
Now some questions for fun
SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?TS: I skipped breakfast, and for lunch I had a bowl of tomato soup
SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone?
TS: I helped my husband with his homework
SMP: How many hours to you work a week?
TS: My MD knows I am a workaholic
SMP: If you weren?t running IT Job Board what would you be doing?
TS: I run the marketing department at The IT Job Board, and if I wasn?t doing that I would be a hip hop dancer, so if you know of anyone looking for one. But seriously I would be running a digital department elsewhere as it?s my true passion.
SMP: When and where did you go on your last holiday?
TS: I went to Montenegro in July
SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?
TS: I check my email
SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?
TS: To make myself invisible
SMP: Are there a corporate or personal blog/s we should know about?
TS: http://blog.theitjobboard.co.uk and my own personal blog is
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