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Recruitment webshites

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Last week, Michael (MD of Creativepool and my boss  at least some of the time, as far as blogging is concerned) sent out an email entitled "We are not a recruitment agency!"

Bold words, you might think, given that the one-liner under the email header states that Creativepool is the UK's creative recruitment & directory resource". But no, Creativepool is a career site and is designed as much as a place for creatives to virtually hang out and see what's happening on the creative landscape as a place to look for a job. Of course, there are jobs advertised too  it wouldn't be much of a career site without that little resource  but what sets Creativepool apart from its rivals is that you know exactly what you're going to find when you browse the site.


You might think that I'm biassed and that I'm bound to sing the praises of Creativepool. Not at all. In fact, you might be interested to know that I got this job as a blogger by slating recruitment websites and calling them all a massive waste of time. Let's face it, most of them are. You must have set up job alerts yourself at some point and been baffled by the sheer lunacy of some of the "jobs which meet your criteria" which appear in your inbox.


It can be pretty disheartening when you sign up in all good faith to a recruitment website, upload your CV, spend hours trawling through the various screens to fill in details about your profile and experience with the aim of receiving carefully selected email alerts with zillions of relevant jobs to apply for, only to get a load of totally inappropriate job vacancies flopping tantalisingly yet uselessly on to your virtual front door mat.


Let's take me as an example. My profile is fairly self-explanatory: freelance blogging jobs aside, I am looking for copywriter and editor roles, I've got 12 years' experience as a writer, editor and proofreader and have worked in broadcasting and media, customer relations, corporate communications and journalism  and I'm prepared to sell these well-honed skills for a modest wage which would make a tube driver blush. C'est la vie  "creative" often equals "underpaid".


And yet, after going to such pains to make sure my profile was as perfect as I could make it, the other day inaccurate-job-opps.co.uk sent me a job alert suggesting that I apply to be a tree surgeon.

Not that the idea doesn't appeal to me, in fact, on some level. I quite fancy wandering around Hampstead Heath or Regent's Park all day in my jeans, racing green "Royal Parks" sweatshirt and hiking boots. Maybe they'd even let me loose on those buggies they drive around in occasionally. Given that I frequently spend nine hours a day in a converted factory in a 10—10 "pod", in a pseudo-altruistic role as a subtitler (providing the subtitles on TV for the hard of hearing, primarily) which essentially makes me little more than a touch-typing battery chicken, the thought of being "free range" out in the open air is very appealing. But that hardly fits my profile on sell-your-soul.co.uk, does it?


Even when I do receive job alerts from incompetence-rules.co.uk which manage to fit some of my skills, my heart just sinks when I look at the wording in the adverts. What right does an employer have to expect "excellent written and spoken English" when they then manage to refer to "adition" and "borchures" in the very same sentence? Oh, and I needn't apply if I'm not "pracitced in writing effective press releases".


At least when it comes to Creativepool, you know exactly what you're getting. You won't find a job on there that doesn't fall under the banner of "creative" industries. Plus there's a ton of helpful advice and articles too. Not sure what the difference is between a web editor and a web developer? Check out the job descriptions and info under the "advice and articles" tab. Need details of where to get the best training or qualification to become an animator? It's all there on the relevant page. Maybe that's why, in spite of Creativepool's offices taking up about half the total surface area of my flat (albeit in a much funkier kind of way in a cool part of Clerkenwell) they are at the very top of the list when you Google "creative jobs". And to outstrip The Guardian in that respect is no mean feat.

by Ashley Morrison. Ashley is a blogger and copywriter, currently working for Givaudan.

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