David Hurst interviews Online recruitment industry leaders

The interviews currently available on onrec.com are:


Keith Potts - managing director of Jobsite.co.uk


Harvey Sinclair - managing director of online recruitment at Hotgroup.com


Andy Baker - managing director of Workthing Ltd


Alex Sproat - director of Jobs.ac


Robbie Cowling - managing director and owner of Jobserve.co.uk

Throughout 2003, David Hurst, publisher of onrec.com and Online recruitment magazine, has interviewed some of the most successful entrepreneurs in online recruitment. These interviews are likely to be the most in depth to be found. Too long to be published (most are 8,000 words), they are available online.

They provide an insight to the thinking and strategy of leaders within the online recruitment industry.

The interviews are littered with some of the most insightful and interesting quotes regarding the industry.

ìThere was a point in early 1997, when I became exasperated with the cost of advertising in the newspapers. So I started to work seriously on research into just how I could create an online alternative. I looked at websites in America, because they were a bit more advanced in exploiting the technology, and I discovered that it was actually quite difficult, for me as a jobseeker, to find a manageable list of relevant jobs to look at. There were either far too many and not what I was after, or you could not find anything at all. I found that particular experience very enlightening. It was so difficult to find all of the relevant jobsî
Alex Sproat, director of Jobs.ac

The following quote comes from the David Hurstís interview with Robbie Cowling, and shows the frankness and honesty of the onrec interviews.

Robbie Cowling: People think Iíve got 200m gold bars under my bed that I count every day, but I donít. I have a company called Jobserve, and who knows what its worth. Itís not for sale, so I donít have anything really.

The interviews will be of interest to anyone working in online recruitment or with an interst in the future of recruitment

Five years ago, everybody was saying that the recruitment industry was in trouble, because of online. I didnít really like that, because the recruitment industry is my customer. But what has been exciting is that itís moved from an 18bn market place to a 24bn market place. All the experts have been proved wrong, and online and recruitment have survived and actually work very well together.

Keith Potts, managing director of Jobsite.co.uk also provided invaluable predictions as to the future of the market.

ìYou will get HR directors advertising, but itís going to be the same, as the Computer Weekly days. You get some people, but most people, even ourselves sometimes, who want to recruit quickly, make use of agencies. We can of course source our recruitment from Jobsite, but we give an agency free access to our website and they will do the recruiting for us. So you see how that works. If theyíre geared up to handle the response, then thatís great. If theyíre not, theyíll use the recruitment industry. So I see the recruitment industry and online working very well together in the future.î
Keith Potts, managing director Jobsite.co.uk

Cost is only 5 per interview.

If you want to download any of these interviews, please visit: