Reed this site if you need a job! (reed.co.uk)

Member Name: Fishbulb

Product:	reed.co.uk
Date:	02/06/03 (660 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nationwide/worldwide, Excellent choice, Easy to use

Disadvantages: Not the same as applying 'in person', can be cumbersome ploughing through lists, ?

It's weird y'know. I've never been a great fan of working although of course, I always have. But now, just as I find the perfect job, well paid, great hours, lots of freedom, fun boss etc after a couple of short years it has come to an end. I must say though, it's a frightening prospect looking for a new job. A task I really haven't relished, but with a couple of weeks still stuck in my old job (just for the internet and telephone perks) I thought that I'd start looking online for my new career. This is where www.reed.co.uk came into the frame.

I actually work in a business exchange and on the ground floor there are three branches of Reed recruitment. One specialising in insurance, one in accounts & one in administration in general. I only really looked at their website as I couldn't be bothered to stand and stare in each of the three windows and I was most pleasantly surprised, let me tell you more.

Firstly, for those of you who don't know Reed is an employment agency, they seem to have various branches specialising in different sectors, and their company colours are royal blue and white. The site reflects the company colours (obviously, it wouldn't make sense if it didn't) and the front page is in varying shades of blue with a banner along the top in blue with the motto "reed.co.uk - where the right jobs look for you" Wow - that's some promise, lets see what else there is here.

Features include a listing of the various sectors with jobs available in them - next to each sector is the number of vacancies advertised on the site these figures are at the present date (30/05/03) between about 1,500 in the education section ranging up to approximately 17,600 in the engineering section. That's a fair few jobs.

The sectors are. Accountancy & Banking; Admin, Secretarial & Customer Service; Catering & Hospitality; Education; Engineering, Property & Construction; Graduates;
Health & Social Care; HR, Recruitment & Training, Insurance & Finance Services; IT & Comms; Legal; Marketing & PR; Public Sector; Sales & Retail; Scientific & finally Temping.

If you click on any of the Featured Sectors on the main page you're transported to that section (duh) anyway, each section is set out exactly the same with the same features in it, just relating to that sector only. Also, a rather nice touch is that each section has been given a different colour so you don't get confused as to where you are. The banner at the top that on the front page said "reed.co.uk - where the right job finds you" says "reed.co.uk - 'name of section'" handy no? Under each of these sections you will find relevant advice and links to associated bodies for example under Accountancy there?s a links page including links to http://www.acca.co.uk (The association of Chartered Certified Accountants) along with sector news and who's recruiting in this particular field too.

A lot of the information on the site is duplicated on all of the pages, including the links to these sectors and the search facility. An excellent feature is the CV Builder, basically it asks you a bunch of relevant questions of which only the bare minimum is mandatory and then gives you the option of saving it as a word document, an email or saving it online to your 'reed.co.uk' registered account.

Speaking of registering accounts, that's something you'll have to do if you want to apply directly through the site to any of the positions. Registering is a fairly simple process involving all the usual questions. Name; contact details; work experience etc, again, you can fill in as little or as much as you choose, although I would personally recommend being as thorough as possible as the more details you provide the more ways of a prospective employer contacting you. If you provide a mobile number here, then you can receive job aler
t text messages too! (Just in case your boss decides to take a peak at your work email, this isn't such a bad thing)

When you've registered, you can upload your CV to the site in preparation for your job hunting. This means that you don?t have to carry it around with you on a disk and if you are still in employment it also means that there is no copy on your work computer.

Now the thing that really swung this site for me is the search facilities. You can perform a search for a vacancy in a number of different ways. There is a set of drop-down boxes at the top-left of each screen called 'Quick Search' I've found this to more than meet my searching desires. With the quick search you can search using a number of criteria including Sector; (admin, engineering etc) Location, Job Type (permanent, temporary etc) and Salary Range. The most impressive thing for me in this is the accuracy of the searching. For those of you who are unfortunate/fortunate** not to know me I live in Milton Keynes, no don't cry for me, it's not that bad! The problem with Milton Keynes is no one seems to know where it is. What I mean is, if I'm looking for something on the Internet in my area Milton Keynes is difficult to classify. Some folks say we're Midlands, some say we're Anglia, and some say we're South East, most recently I've found a site that classifies us as the Home Counties so it's an uphill struggle trying to search for stuff around here unless you use a dedicated website. Reed.co.uk however comes up trumps on this every time. So long as I use the keywords 'Milton Keynes' in the search box it throws back loads of vacancies.

**Delete as appropriate ;o)

As far as jobs are concerned, there is a regular stream of new ones advertised everyday, the list is clear depicting next to each job, the date it was added, where it's located and the salary. The name of the job is the link to th
e full description and from the description page you have the option to either apply directly or shortlist the job for viewing later. Although there does appear to be an infinite number of vacancies on the site, I have noticed while looking through some of the newest advertised ones that I have applied for them over a week ago, but there is a big line of red text in the body of the description of the job that tells you that you've previously applied (so you don't waste your time and look daft re-applying)

On the individual description pages there's a line that tells you which agency is dealing with the position as reed.co.uk are a hub for a huge number of agencies to post their vacancies the quality of service you may receive from anyone who isn't 'Reed' advertising on the site isn't guaranteed.

When you apply for a job all the details are kept in your 'Snapshot' section (which is basically your onsite records) At these you can see an overview of your profile your saved searches and you can view the copy of your CV you've submitted to the site - all the usual stuff really you'd expect from a profile page.

There is all manner of information for employers too and for agencies wishing to use the site as a porthole for their vacancies, but I cannot really comment on this feature much as I haven't used it. Although I notice that in Milton Keynes there has been about 7 different agencies I have noticed using it so it can't be that bad. According to the site right now there's 39,279 recruiters using it at the moment, so that's going to be more than a handful of agencies. Although I feel it fair to point out that although predominantly the jobs are in the UK you can also search for positions in various countries in Europe/Canada/New Zealand etc so that figure may be a little disproportionate & misleading.

In general, this site is so easy to use, it's quick to load and I
have had several responses to jobs I have applied for online so it does work. (Although I haven't actually got any of the jobs) Now www.reed.co.uk is up there with DooYoo and TooYoo and Yahoo as the sites I log onto first thing in the morning, I can't help but hope for a time when I don?t have to make it part of my everyday routine, and I can just go back to logging into sites that rhyme with Goo, Boo & Moo!

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