Posts from recruiters

StuartW

Hi everyone,

How do you feel about these? Are they welcome, or an annoyance? Should we be providing a dedicated area for them?

Thoughts and suggestions welcome.

Stuart

BeccaLouJ9

I find them quite annoying, but then I have a job, so they aren't aimed at me! I think they are becoming more frequent which is the reason it's becoming annoying.

A dedicated area would be a good idea.

I've noticed that they post them in multiple areas as well which again is a bit of a frustration. Would a dedicated area stop this? Or just give them another place to post the message!

(Maybe I'll come back again later and respond a bit nicer... CTA exam in 4 hours is putting me in a bad mood!!)

B x

StuartW

Thanks @BeccaLouJ9 - and best of luck!

MarieNoelle

I think they do have their place here as can not remember seeing a "job" or "opportunities" section on the AAT website. As long as they come from genuine members of the AAT community (and not agencies) I personally don't mind them. I would agree that they should have their own dedicated area on the forum. Members looking for work experience could also post in that section?

Good luck @BeccaLouJ9 ;-)

BeccaLouJ9

Yes I agree that the ones from members saying something like ' job going in wherever a place for someone studying AAT.. Blah blah.. Contact me ' Is fine, but as you say the ones from agencies, like the one earlier this week I saw just looks a bit spammy

Ta guys x

StuartW

How about if we created a category within which we laid out formats for thread titles - similar to the Books to buy/sell guidelines - that people need adhere to?

e.g.

• AAT member vacancy: Assistant Accountant, Carlisle
  
• Recruiter vacancy: Payroll Assistant, Chester
  

I dare say we might need a term for someone who is neither an AAT member nor a recruiter, but who thinks their vacancy may be of interest to AAT members...

welshwizard

Having a forum area for recruiters is a good idea and it may encourage people to use the other forums relevant to them. It's interesting how the usage here appears to have dropped off in the last three or four years. This used to be a very busy place - maybe Facebook/Twitter has taken over...?

As stated by Stuart, clear postings on vacancies will be useful too.

burg

Stuart,

A dedicated area would be great. They are a bit of annoyance to me but coming from the other angle of someone who has just posted one of the vacancy posts I didn't want to miss out on the potential of the online AAT community and wanted to post. With nowhere dedicated I simply used the most appropriate place.

If we had a dedicated section then those who were looking could simply go there and the rest of us could politely ignore them.

burg

@welshwizard regarding the forum usage I must say I agree. I was around back then and it was a far busier place particularly in the MIP forums. For me part of the problem was the original change to the current edition of the forums. For quite some time I had great difficulty in posting. It would work sometimes and not others and if it did work after typing for some time it could then take 10mins to decide if it would post or not. Tried from vaious locations and computers with little/no difference and it was highly frustrating.

I left it for a while and have since returned but it is a much quieter place now.

StuartW

Hi folks,

Thanks for your opinions on recruitment posts. If I've understood correctly, the notion of a separate section for job postings - comprising posts from recruiters, members and others - is something you'd be interested in as long as there's a way to clearly signal who the post is coming from?

With regards the level of activity on the forums... Yes, the quieter state is partly a result of the software we were using for the last couple of years. It was no good, which is why we moved to the current platform late last year (more info on that here). Since then everything's been stable and people seem to find it relatively straightforward to use.

But obviously we lost a bit of trust in the ensuing time, which, while a shame, is understandable. And yes, the number of options for people to share info online nowadays has grown which means things are a bit more fragmented across different channels.

While we're not back at the level of activity of a few years back, I would mention that a look at the Recent discussions section shows that the first two pages comprise comments/discussions created within the last week, which I think suggests a decent level of activity. Perhaps we need to look at how we can more widely expose the sub-forums to relevant audiences - I'm keen to expose the MIP sub-forum to more of that audience, for example. @burg's fees survey was a great opportunity to do that - we were able to get it into The Professional newsletter which meant more of that newsletter audience found their way here to the forums.

You might also be interested to know that 100+ new people are signing up for the forums regularly each week. Now, a lot of these people will be 'lurkers' (for want of a better term!), possibly attracted by the wealth of searchable material on the site - there will always be a large proportion of people who use a forum site that way. And while that's good for AAT (we can track what draws people into the site, where they come from and what they're most interested in), it's less good for people who want to have actual conversations. So we're also thinking about ways to incentivise people to get involved in discussions.

It all takes a bit of time, but I think it's coming along. Having said that, I'm always open to new ideas and ways of making this a better place for members at all levels! If you have suggestions or would like to talk over an idea, drop me a line at stuart.waterman@aat.org.uk and we can discuss (I can also give you a call if you'd prefer).

Thanks for taking an active interest in the health of the forums - you set a great example to newbies!

Stuart

PS: Perhaps you could contact former users of the forums and invite them back, telling them how easy it is to use nowadays? We'll roll out the welcome MAAT...

StuartW

New category for job postings is now here:

http://forums.aat.org.uk/categories/job-postings

Thanks for your input everyone.