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We thought it about time we introduce you to some of the exciting companies Job Bounties is partnered with.

So meet Skrill (aka Moneybookers back in 2007).

If you’re a young professional looking for your big break, you’ve got some experience under your belt, you’re searching for something fresh, high-growth, challenging, this might well be the place for you …

With over 30million account holders worldwide, Skrill is one of Europe’s largest online payment systems and a leading independent Digital Wallet service.

Their simple Digital Wallet enables clients to make online payments conveniently, securely and economically without revealing personal financial data through the simple use of an email address. Because of this, 135,000 merchants use Skrill’s online payments service, including global partners such as eBay.com, Skype and Thomas Cook.

In February 2010, the Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100 league table ranked Skrill as the Number 1 fastest-growing, private equity-backed company in the UK based on profits. Since then, they have grown from around 100 employees to 600+ and increased their customer base from 5.5million to over 25million. If this doesn’t make them one of Europe’s hottest online companies … we’re not sure what would.

With offices in London, Berlin, Sofia, Sweden and the USA to name but a few, Skrill is a fast-paced, international and young company with amazing prospects.

And if that doesn’t grab you … why else should you join Skrill? Apart from a competitive salary and excellent career progression, working for Skrill would provide you with an opportunity to join one of the fastest growing technology companies in the UK and the chance to develop a new, truly innovative global product.

The other great thing about Skrill is that they’re always on the look-out for talented professionals who thrive in an evolving client-focused environment, and who what to make a real contribution to a business. To them, it’s not where you’re from but where you’re at that counts. So if you’re passionate, smart, hands-on, creative and a team player … there are some fantastic opportunities awaiting you.

To find out about these opportunities now, simply click here.

The post Meet Skrill appeared first on Bounty Network.

As with all new ideas – Job Bounties’ social referrals for a cash reward being one of them – people sometimes hesitate because they’re not sure how best to go about it. And given that you NOT making referrals is about the last thing we want, we thought we’d give a few tips on making successful referrals – thereby maximising your and your friends’ chances of success.

1) Active vs. passive

Who waxes lyrical about looking for a new job? Not many people we know. And in fact, many of them may not actively be looking, but that certainly does not mean they are not interested in hearing about new and exciting opportunities. In our experience, almost everyone we know is flattered that someone thinks about them as a good fit for a job and are only too pleased to be told about all the potential jobs out there which they now don’t have to hunt around on the internet and find for themselves. The thrill of the recommendation – someone else doing the hunting for you – is a a big one. Don’t estimate it, and don’t hesitate from putting opportunities under friends’ noses, whether actively looking of not, by sending them a quick referral.

2) Finding the right fit

True, however, that no one wants to receive an endless stream of irrelevant emails. So don’t randomly send referrals to friends, just because the cash reward is such a chunky, tempting-looking one. The likely thing is that your friend won’t apply for the role, and even if they do, they won’t get it. Instead, give a bit of thought to your friend’s experience and skill set. Maybe even check out their LinkedIn profile. Knowing what they might be good at will increase the chances that your friend will apply for roles your refer and therefore of ultimately earning the bounty reward.

3) Leverage your social networks

If you see a fantastic role on Job Bounties (and we think we’ve got some pretty top notch ones) but off the top of your head can’t think of anyone in your social network who might be just the person for it, why not post the opportunity to your timeline on Facebook or tweet if you’re a Twitterer. That way, your friends can look for themselves and let you know whether they’d be keen. You can still refer them once they’ve voiced an interest.

4) Get the timing right

Barely anyone thinks about their career on a Saturday, but roll on the working week and the landscape changes. Referrals sent out late on a Monday afternoon, when the clouds of job dissatisfaction have all too speedily descended, or on a early Friday afternoon, when the boredom is so deeply entrenched you’re not sure you’ll make it through until home time, are far more likely to catch your friends’ attention.

So we hope these ideas get you referring. As you become an experienced referrer – we’d love to hear your thoughts on what makes for the winning click. Share the love, and all of that.

Chloe

The post Our tips on making a successful referral appeared first on Bounty Network.

For both, first impressions are make or break. Your first point of contact – a CV or an initial email – beyond being impeccable and stand out (both a given) must, must, must be relevant. Relevance is key. For your potential employer or client, it’s not so much about what you’ve done or do, but about how you and your experience are going to be able to help them achieve their goals. It’s up to you to position your track record in an easily accessible narrative of what you’ll achieve for them – whether as an employee or partner firm.

Nailing your phone technique is the next essential step. The chances are when applying for a job, you’ll have to leave at least one voicemail; same goes for when you’re working on business development. Most business people get tens of voicemails a day, especially if they’re recruiting for a specific role. Making your message stand out and fully convey your or your business potential can be really hard. Suddenly thrown at the mercy of an answering machine, we become tongue-tied, start to stammer and forget what it was we wanted to say.

Perfecting the art of leaving a compelling voicemail comes with planning and practice. Before you make the call, plan for the eventuality of not getting through. Write down the key snippets of information you think will be sufficient to entice the recipient to call you back, or at least remember your name. Then, as daft as it sounds, spend 15 minutes practising this and making a recording – so you know how it is going to sound to them. This article on www.careerealism.com gives some great tips.

Closing the deal is the final challenge. You’ve sparked an interest, securely got your foot in the door, the slalom of interview rounds is all that stands between you and the job or that promising new client. Specific advice on interviews or closing a deal is for another time, but your chances of doing either successfully are significantly higher, if the first impression you left indelibly on their minds is the best it can be.

Chloe

The post A foot in the door appeared first on Bounty Network.

The second article, in the FT this time, came at an interesting tangent: the brothers who made their fortune building up and selling the social networking site Bebo are now focusing their efforts offline. Inspired by a new wave of members’ clubs in London, such as Soho House and The Hospital, Michael and Xochi Birch are nearing completion of their own members club in San Francisco – The Battery. The club’s mission is to improve integration between Silicon Valley geeks and the rest of San Francisco. And, through this, the brothers hope to scale up real world connections in the same way that people can do online.

The message, as it appeared to me, is twofold. Connections are more important than ever in getting you a job. If you want to be on the list of people a recruiter calls when they have a top position then make sure you know the relevant people in that industry or company. Seek them out and listen to what they’re staying – whether you can see a specific role there or not. But this needs to be more than simply liking what they do on Facebook, reading their blog or connecting with them on LinkedIn – real connections are mutually beneficial and stem from a dialogue which goes both ways. Comment on blogs, retweet what other people say, share your learnings, and even more importantly (as the Birch brothers would advocate) meet face to face, especially in a space filled with ping pong tables, poker corners and outdoor heated swimming pools (that last bit might be pushing it). Seriously, though, pimp your network, make sure you’re on their referral list – it’s where your next job is waiting for you.

The post Pimp, eh hmm, invest in your network appeared first on Bounty Network.

One topic brought up was how our referrers can get the most interest from their networks (and therefore maximise their chances of getting a bounty!). In general terms, our merry band had found that just by posting a note on their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn feeds had received a lot of responses.

Unsurprisingly, the timing of the post had a big impact on the level of interest. Monday mornings were a no go! The best times to grab the attention of your network seem to be between 2-4pm Tuesday to Thursday.  One techy super-referrer mentioned Buffer, a great tool which analyses your social media networks and releases your posts/messages/tweets when your connections are at their most active and receptive.

Everyone left the dinner very excited about tapping into their networks and banking some serious bounties. Get referring and you too might be treated to a boozy dinner in Mayfair!

Nick

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And in his fascinating presentation, published on Business Insider today, he tells us all about how we should go about this. Reading the full slide deck is more than worth the 20 minute investment of your time, but I’ve pulled together the headlines here by way of a taster.

For starters, you must see your professional self as a permanent beta version, requiring constant updates, adaptions, new skill sets and fresh approaches, rather than as a static finished product. Then you need to start thinking about how to set this beta product apart from the rest of the competition. This is not about becoming a world expert in your field, but more about finding just one clear reason that makes you better than the rest in your niche local environment. What can you do differently compared to your peers?

To find this out, you should start assessing what you bring to the table, covered by these three main areas: (1) your assets (skills and experience); (2) your aspirations and values (what you want to achieve and your drive to get there) and (3) the market realities (no point dreaming about becoming a sumo wrestler if you’re never going to be higher than the knees of a grasshopper).

These points established, you then have to work out where to apply yourself. Contrary to common wisdom, finding your ideal role does not come from a great deal of introspection, but instead through experimentation – trying out your qualities in a variety of roles in the real world. When applying for these roles in which to ‘experiment’, you should focus on opportunities for learning rather than the highest remuneration package. Going for the cash is tempting, but ultimately learning and engaging your mind is a greater guarantor of both longer term satisfaction and steady financial gain. It’s about the long term rather than the quick win.

From here, it’s all about seizing opportunities and realistically assessing risk. When weighing up whether or not to pursue an opportunity, try to think two steps ahead – whichever option you take must be the one that both maximises the quality and quantity of follow-on opportunities. As for risks, they can often seem much greater than they are, but if you’re not going to end up homeless and potentially in prison if it all goes wrong, then the chances are it’s a risk you can afford to take. What’s the worse that can happen, other than starting over again with a whole new set of learnings added to your assets.

A beacon in the snow flurries and somewhat bleak economic news, I think there is an enormous amount in this presentation from which to take heed and use as a divining rod for seeking out your next opportunity at whatever point you stand at in your career. So read it, take the risk and put your beta product out to the people.

Chloe

The post Rediscovering your entrepreneurial roots appeared first on Bounty Network.

Here at Job Bounties, we recognise that power of the recommendation goes two ways – both of which are completely relevant in the world of job hunting. It’s not just about being financially rewarded for who you know (though we think that’s kind of a nice sweetener to the whole thing as well), but also about getting people to spread the word about superb job opportunities in just the same way they might an interesting article or funny video. If you spot a role that one of your friends might be interested in or a job that’s just the trick for your younger brother who has just graduated but hasn’t quite got his head round to seriously applying for jobs yet, then we want you to be able to recommend it easily and be rewarded for your efforts.

Job hunting by searching through lists of opportunities randomly applying for things you might or might not be well-suited for is increasingly a a thing of the past – just as you’re increasingly less likely to sit down with only the Sunday Times piled around you at the weekend – instead, it’s about being open to recommendations and putting the interesting stuff out there for your friends as well.

Chloe

The post Recommendation appeared first on Bounty Network.

It’s hard not to love Fridays, but the last day of the week and the start of the weekend is about to become even sweeter. Every Friday, you have the chance to get double the bounty for the referrals you make.

All you need to do is to go on to Job Bounties, hit the refer button and make sure your friend applies for the job on that same Friday. Easy. If your friend then gets the job, you get double the bounty.

There is really no better way to spend those last few minutes at work before heading off for the weekend. And what a bonus it’s going to be the next weekend, when you get your bounty and go out celebrating your friend’s shiny new job … So get ready, get set for Double Bounties Friday – come see it for yourself on Friday 8th February!

Florian

The post Introducing… Double Bounties Friday! appeared first on Bounty Network.

In short, recruiters have to remember that a company’s brand extends right down to the very periphery of its recruitment process – from the wording of and grammatical accuracy in a job profile, to how long it takes a company to respond to an initial application. Once into the process itself, interviews need to be both informative and well-structured, providing a chance for prospective employees to see what working that company could really be like, and feedback must be constructive and forthcoming. Getting it right is important for big brands who have the resources to throw behind it, but even more so for smaller, less well-known brands, who lack the clout of their name for attracting potential employees.

And, crucially, word spreads. 88% of professionals discuss their experience with friends and colleagues. So give a few people a bad experience and you’re potentially turning off many – for the long term. Such word of mouth influence is yet more relevant when you start thinking, like we do all the time, about the power of referrals. Why would you refer a friend for a role, for which you know the recruitment process is likely to be a bit of a nightmare, and not really set up to reward the very best candidates for their efforts. Chances are you won’t. It is the companies getting right for whom you and your friends will want to apply.

Chloe (COO)

The post The power of recruitment processes appeared first on Bounty Network.

Based on historical patterns 2008-2012, two in five of the workforce look for new work or new jobs in January. With 29.6 million people in employment in December 2012 aged 16 or over, this creates a job-hunting market of 11.84 million people in January 2013.

Monday 7th January is the recruitment equivalent of the ‘Cyber Monday’ online retail surge before Christmas. It is the perfect storm of employees searching for work and employers searching for workers. Let’s face it most people are driven by “back to work blues” and the desire for a fresh challenge in the New Year, while employers need to fill roles post-holiday. This meeting of supply and demand leads to a job market that is predicted to be more buoyant and mobile in January than throughout the rest of the year.

Our research also confirms that online and offline social networks will provide better returns this year than traditional internet searches. Four in ten (41%) of Brits have found recent jobs through their personal networks. This compares to 34% of respondents, who gained employment through adverts posted on traditional job boards and only 8% who found success through approaches from professional recruiters.

The Job Bounties research also shows that the likelihood of finding a job via personal networks has quadrupled in the time of people’s last three jobs. Three jobs ago, only 7% of the UK found a job through their network; now 34% have. Almost a third of people (31%) say that sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have positively impacted their recruitment process.

And if you’re looking for a job, our advice is to look close to home. Your personal network knows you better than anyone else, and friends and family can be a great source for hunting out job opportunities that are perfect for you. The age-old saying: “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” has more relevance now than at any other time in the internet age.

So, what are you waiting for: if you’re thinking of looking for a job, find out what’s out there. And if you’re currently happily in employment or business, then why not help someone else find a role. If you use Job Bounties, it could earn you a referral fee – or bounty – of up to £2,000.

Job Bounties Team

The post National Job Hunt Day 2013 appeared first on Bounty Network.

So, while many things about the workplace may have changed unrecognisably in the last few decades, it seems that what hasn’t is the age-old saying: “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”.  A national omnibus survey was conducted for Job Bounties which found that 41% of Brits have found recent jobs through their personal networks.  This is significantly higher than 34% of people who have found recent roles through traditional jobs boards and only 8% of people who have been approached from professional recruiters.

On average, more than two in five Brits will look for a new job in January, and the way we are finding job vacancies is changing.  We believe that the increasing use of social media when job hunting is facilitating the rising trend in job referrals amongst personal networks.

It seems that personal networks have increasingly become the most utilised source of finding employment, rising from 34% to 43% during the time period of people’s last three job moves.

Our research also found that social media had helped one in four people aged between 18 and 34 to personally get a job – with sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter positively impacting the recruitment process for a third of people surveyed.

Pay it forward
Brits have on average referred three people in their personal network for a job, through official job applications.  Already 6% of Brits aged 18-34 have passed interesting jobs on via social media, confirming that social media is making it easier to help your personal network to find new career opportunities. And while only 5% of people have received a financial reward for a job referral to date, a fifth of 18-34 year olds would refer more people if they knew the financial gain of doing so.

Job Bounties offers people interested in ‘head hunting’ their friends a great opportunity to make some money in the process.  We have taken the concept of social recruitment popularised by businesses such as LinkedIn, and introduced a new marketplace-style recruitment model for job seekers.

There are currently over 150 jobs with job bounties totalling £175,000 up for grabs.  Don’t forget, we are offering double-bounties to ‘bounty hunters’ through to the end of the New Year job hunt season on 31^st January 2013. It might make you think twice if you’re squabbling with your family over a game of Monopoly this Christmas – they could help you get your next job!

The Job Bounties Team

The post How did you get your last job? 41% of Brits say through people they know appeared first on Bounty Network.

But beyond the four walls of Job Bounties HQ, it got me thinking that it’s not just entrepreneurs who need to strive for balance, clarity of thought and continued high achievement in their day-to-day. Job hunters do too: being in a very similar position of needing to constantly prove themselves, use their time as efficiently as possible and come up with some truly creative ideas.

We see plenty of applications at Job Bounties. Many (most, in fact) are stunning – beautifully presented and well-structured CVs, splendid professional track records, targeted and comprehensive covering letters laced with clever ways of standing out of the crowd. But a handful are far too ordinary – which is surprising, I think, given what’s at stake when applying for a new job.

With lacklustre applications, I often wonder if the candidate has given much thought to whether they really want that particular role. Because if they did, they’d certainly want to try a lot harder.

Our idea with Job Bounties is that via referrals, candidates will apply for roles they really care about. Friends and family, incentivised by the financial reward and the altruistic purpose of helping someone progress professionally, will send on roles that are directly relevant to the potential candidates they know. And when these potential candidates are introduced to a really fascinating role, they need to find a sustainable approach to consistently performing in their applications – taking care of themselves, keeping their ideas fresh, and staying positive throughout. You can start helping your friends today by finding jobs here.

Chloe (COO)

The post The challenges of job hunting appeared first on Bounty Network.

Further welfare cuts will fall hard on many people. But such a prospect also serves as a reminder that when money is tight, it is essential that those precious pennies are spent incredibly wisely. This is true for governments, businesses and families, and happens to tie in with a major part of our thinking behind Job Bounties.

To be honest, it’s a part of the business we feel like shouting from the rooftops about. When posting a job with us, recruiters get to set their own recruitment fee and only pay if they hire. So businesses pay what they can afford, and only pay out if they find the right candidate, making it an entirely risk-free proposition. Money spent wisely to our minds.

And, to lend another perspective, in these hard times personal networks for job hunters are becoming ever more valuable. A tip off from a friend about an exciting opportunity, or a nudge in the direction of a company hiring, could prove a maker or breaker in your career. That extra cash you might earn from helping a friend find a job should make Christmas shopping slightly less painful too.

We’ve set out to cut recruitment costs and give people the chance to be rewarded for who they know – it just might seem there is reason for merriment after all. So don an uplifting Christmas woolly, crack open the chocolates a day early and start bounty hunting.

Chloe (COO)

The post ‘Tis the season appeared first on Bounty Network.

The sheer mass of information out there in the ether – on jobs boards, company careers pages, recruitment consultancies, university careers sites, in newspapers – can be overwhelming. It’s hard to know where to start. Finding the right role becomes more a hunt for a needle in a haystack, than a careful, considered whittling down to the most suited role for you – the chances that you’ll end up grasping straws than finding your prized possession being great.

The many layers of marketing blurb can make understanding what a company and specific role is really like a bit tricky too. Companies, under pressure to make their opportunities stand out from the crowd, often end up writing long descriptions of company culture and putting up glossy photos, which are so similar to their immediate competitors that you don’t come much closer to understanding why that organisation might be for you. Deciding which one to apply for is random rather than informed.

Given the complex technicalities of the digital age, roles in all sorts of business areas – from finance to online marketing – can be pretty niche. Job profiles are awash with jargon, which, as a new starter, can feel as foreign and impenetrable as a language you didn’t even get to study at GCSE. It’s often hard to tell whether you’d be well-suited to a role, or excel in particular aspects of it, because untangling the language is just too hard. Rather, you take a punt and hope that you’ll be good enough and like it well enough too.

And, with frequent company restructures and a generation which does not expect to slowly creep up the career ladder in a single organisation for the next forty years, you’re on the hunt so much more frequently than in days gone by. Not only is competition stiff, but also, in order to get ahead, you have to launch yourself into this competition in a time and energy consuming way multiple times in the space of, for instance, ten short years.

One of our major aims at Job Bounties is to try and ease this process. Your friends, who know or already work in a specific industry are brilliantly placed to spot opportunities on your behalf. That’s why we’re incentivising them to refer jobs to you (remember – double bounties through January 31st!). This simplifies the job hunting process – you receive relevant job profiles in your inbox, without having to wade through the masses of information out there on the web. What’s more, the job profiles we feature are edited to be straightforward, informative and easily digestible. And, we also think it’s important to highlight what type of person a company is looking for, not just what that person is going to do – which is where our headline sentence on each job profile comes in. This way you can find the right jobs for you more easily, work out whether it’s a good fit and apply directly, all in a focused and efficient way. We think it helps, and hope you do too.

Chloe (COO)

The post Making job hunting that bit easier appeared first on Bounty Network.

All of sudden, there’s nothing abstract about it anymore – we have a real life website, being used by real people to refer their real (we hope … ) friends for real (and jolly good) job opportunities, for which their friends are really applying. Amazing! After months of conceptualising, designing, coding, testing, tweaking, uploading, drafting we now have something we can really grab hold of.

And a week in, our mission to disrupt the recruitment industry with a crowd-sourcing referral platform, which cuts recruitment costs, finds better candidates more quickly and helps people earn themselves an extra quid or two thousand along the way has suddenly become a whole lot more tangible.

Just watching Google Analytics (the Job Bounties Team’s new latest form of favourite entertainment … pedants and proud), we can see that users get it. People want to help their friends and family find jobs. The people they refer to are more open to the recommendations sent over, because they come from trusted contacts who know their experience and understand their motivations. And recruiters get it too – they see an opportunity to hire more effectively and for less money.

The result? We’ve got more great jobs on here, more interest from journalists and other friendly folk, and more referrals and applications flying, than we ever could have anticipated having in our first week of business. So thank you for giving us the satisfaction of seeing our mission start to take hold, and don’t stop now – there’s still plenty of bounties up for grabs (£175,000 to be completely accurate) and we’re offering double bounties all the way through to 31st January. Well and truly can’t wait to see what happens next.

Chloe Daniel (COO)

The post Seeing an idea come to life appeared first on Bounty Network.

Exciting times for us, but probably not that interesting for you – yet. So we thought we would let you know why we went to all in the effort and what’s in it for you.

Well, we have three (such a lovely number) big, whopping aims:

1)      Massive Disruption. We don’t do things by halves. We aim to fundamentally disrupt the global recruitment industry, an industry that in the UK alone is worth £24.6 billion at the last count. Having talked with thousands of job hunters and hundreds of recruiters, we think recruitment can be done differently, and better. It’s not our idea, it has come from the people we work with and the firms that want to hire them. There is a smarter way for firms and job hunters to connect – it’s called referrals. And the great news is that it’s already happening offline…. we’ve just put it online.

2)       Job Growth. We want to help drive the economy forward by cutting the cost per hire for firms. One estimate puts the UK cost per hire at £5,311 – which is twice that of US. We need to get people back to work and if we’re going to do that we need to bring down the costs of finding great people.

3)      Wealth Creation. We want to help you, our users, make some extra pocket money. After all, we all need some extra cash in times like these. And when we say pocket money, we actually mean anything more like £1000 upwards, so less ‘pocket money’, more ‘pay for your next holiday’ money – not joking.

All grand and noble aims, I hear you say, but how exactly are we going to do this? That’s the clever part. We’re making you a headhunter so you can be rewarded for who you know.

It’s pretty simple really. Firms name a price ‘a bounty’ for getting someone into a job and they only pay if they hire. Firms set the cost of recruiting, not us, making it a completely risk free proposition for them (we also screen all applications, which means its not only risk free, but also a better guarantee of quality than a conventional jobs board.) You, the Job Bounties user, refer these jobs to your friends via Facebook and email. If they get hired, you get the cash (and make your friend smile). Not hard is it.

When you thought it couldn’t get better, it does. To celebrate our launch we’re offering double bounties – that’s right, double whatever the bounty it is you read on the side of a job – until 31st January. So get bounty hunting and make the most of the fantastic financial returns.

And come back to read more about what we’re up to as the weeks go on – we’ll be chatting about disruption, referrals, recruitment, latest hot bounties, and anything else that takes our fancy. We want to keep you updated …

Over, out and happy bounty hunting!

James Uffindell (CEO & Founder)

The post Job Bounties … our three little (big) aims appeared first on Bounty Network.