Skills Provision Podcast: Profiles Ep- 11

Hello and welcome back to the Skills Provision podcast. To all our new listeners out there, welcome for the first time to our returning listeners. Welcome back. On today's episode, we're going to be discussing profiles. What are profiles, what do they mean for us here at Skills Provision and what is their value online and also within the recruitment process? On today's episode, there's myself, Francesca, and also Pete. Hi. So first of all, I'm going to take a stab at what a profile is and what are profiles from my perspective. And then Pete will also be able to answer from a more technical perspective. So for those of you out there that are listening for the first time, I come from more of the recruitment side and Pete comes from more of the online side. So we have slightly different viewpoints on things, which is great, makes it interesting and stimulating conversation, and it's good just for people to get two sides of a coin. So what are profiles? So if you're someone who's never visited any of our websites, be that the international site, our UK site or our European site, a profile is what I refer to as a shop window opportunity for job seekers around the world to showcase their skills. When I say showcase their skills, what I mean is having it in a format which allows them to demonstrate to employers out there who they are in terms of what skill set they're coming with. So their job background, their skills that they can bring to the table where they're looking for opportunities, what industries they may be interested in, what locations they may be interested in. So if I break down quickly, the contents of a profile. So all of our profiles have unique titles. So an example I have in front of me currently is an experienced communications expert who has writing skills. Now, the reason we have unique titles for us in the recruitment side is to make sure that we can differentiate between the different people within the database. But from an online perspective, Pete, please, can you just chip in as to the real value of having unique titles? We may move away from unique titles eventually, but for now it is because the title generates the URL and if you end up with too many URLs, same. We've had it in the past where persons clicked via their dashboard, has clicked on their own profile to edit it, and it has been someone else's because they're using the same title. Now, until the system gets to a sort of unmanageable state, which is probably not that far away, then every title is uniquely set. Thank you. The next area that we have when on a profile is the availability or non availability of a candidate because you do have some job seekers that are out there that are maybe not actively looking and you do have some job seekers that are actively looking. So it's a really good way for us in the recruitment team and also potential employers to know how active this person is in the market. The next section, which I think is a really nice opportunity for candidates to display a bit more about themselves on a more personal level, is something we call our elevator pitch section. And in this area, it gives candidates a chance to offer a unique perspective as to why they should be considered for either a particular role or the employers out there in general. So a chance for them to kind of be unique and offer up a summary as to why they should be selected for any potential opportunities that they're looking for. The next aspect that's really important, and possibly one of the most important, selfishly for me in the recruitment side is their keywords, the keywords that they are displaying. Now, these keywords also aid us in the recruitment process because it helps with the matching side and matching with vacancies, but I'll probably come on to more of that later. And it gives opportunity because it may be that someone has a diverse background. So for those out there listening, might not know. For example, Pete, whilst he works in the online realm, now has a history of being a. I don't want to get this wrong, is vehicle mechanic a fair word to use? Yeah, that you might have someone who's got a real juxtaposition of two different sets of skills. And on a surface level, someone may dismiss someone because they don't mention a certain skill. So it gives candidates a chance to highlight that they may be in multiple areas. The next things, and I'm just going to whistle through quite quickly on these, are things such as qualifications and related skills, their interests and hobies, their previous employment details. Now, with some of these, some people will be able to offer more information than others. The next key things are current location, nationality, what sectors of employment they're looking for, what languages they speak, and their areas and locations they're interested in working in. So that's kind of a whistle stop about what is contained in a profile. So as I said in my opening statement, for me and for us in the recruitment team, the profiles are a great way for candidates to showcase not only us in the recruitment team, but also employers out there about themselves, their experience and what they can offer to potential employers out there. Pete, is there anything else you'd like to add that I've maybe missed or from a different perspective yes. The user has the ability to make their profile private and all this does is mask. So they do not display online a profile image, their previous employment details, but does list generic information. So they're almost private and untrackable when they do that as to who the actual person is, because some people may, many do join our website that are already in employment and don't want to make it known that they're looking to move or take another position up. Absolutely, yeah. So let's go back to profiles and their early stages. So why were they introduced? This obviously it predates my joining of the company. So Pete, would you be able to enlighten our listeners as to why profiles were introduced? Certainly, yes. I'm not sure where. We go back twelve years maybe to understand why profiles were introduced. You've sort of got to understand a little bit of where the online market was arena back then, how things were being put together, how people were making money, how people were developing online businesses that were successful, failing shortcuts, cheating, trying to get the competitive edge. A lot of people were learning skills, everything was quite new. And it didn't take me long to start understanding that everything was sort of based on a flimsy pack of cards where what was winning wouldn't be winning for a long time. So the initial driver for success online on websites was links. Hyperlinks you could look at via search engines as a vote. What that means is you write a piece of content, people read it, like it, engage with it, and then add that URL where the content was on as a sort of validation. There was no review websites back then onto their website, in essence giving it a thumbs up vote. We at Microsoft Love this page. And the strength of the voting page is the passage of strength, probably a little bit like a reservoir, with a massive network of streams feeding in and feeding out. Some would stop naturally, some would stop forced, and some would continue running until they reach their destination. Now the problem that I've personally thought with links was it's not a very strong system. When you can, if you look at it as a vote, an election as such, the people with the most votes, with a strong site built on strong fundamentals win. Pretty much that was happening, that all you need to do is vote for yourself on an industrial scale and purchasing links or link farms or network of people working together to produce links. And it just grew probably out of all proportion in the likes of Google, who'd initially set it up with the best intentions. But then it pains to how can we control this so eventually they took the legs from under people. Panda came out and Penguin and everything else. All these algorithm tweaks and businesses disappeared in the blink of an eye. We don't Google pushing out words like we don't endorse a purchase of links from anywhere. So then links became devalued, although they still have value and probably always will not like they used to. And then we had the keyword cramming game started. Take a piece of content and start writing in a manner that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Yeah, unnatural skills provision were tagged on the home page of targeting the term international recruitment. It would be like title would contain the word International recruitment and then we would have skills Provision is an international recruitment agency specializing in international recruitment. They have a lot of international recruitment specialists working in their international recruitment business and so on, which sounds madness, was madness, but actually worked. And because it worked, everyone dove into keyword cramming and then same thing happened. Google, Google. There is this sort of the white knight against the Black Knight type game that was going on. Google seeing themselves as the White knight, good versus evil, fighting battles, and every shortcut probably was dealt harshly. Then we went into social where networks were put up of dubious type, where contextually farming out content that would generate hyperlinks back to a source that was manufactured, not natural, that run its course for a while. And of course nowadays we're continuing on the cycle of the next best shortcut this year, which of course is chat GPT. And all you need to do is bang some questions or statements into an interface and the bots will spit out all the content for you to copy and paste. So you could just become a copy and paste merchant and produce 500 pages per day. It's hard for some of this to be looked upon as being totally unique or totally copied. Does it have value? Does it not have value? Pretty certain that somewhere down the road Google, as they have always been a domain provider of traffic, are going to take the legs from under the people that played again and then they'll be to the next best thing. So on. People like me that specialize in this area have always understood that to win this game you've actually got to play the long game and be patient and do it the hard way, which is through the production of quality, unique content on a regular basis, preferably en masse to your. The trend is the same, isn't it? You're not going 20 pages, 700 pages, ten pages, 900 pages. You set constant outputs. So understanding that which sort of had in my brain for a long time, many years, in terms of do I want to work on projects and chase quick wins. I have been involved in some tragic losses and been talked into going down certain roads that I shouldn't have done. I'm blamed when businesses have failed as well, which I think was real unfair at the time, and Weber wasn't strong enough on some occasions to say no. But I'm more a consultant, so it's very difficult when you're not empowered to make proper management decisions. When I looking at what was everyone else, so understanding that, and then looking at what everyone else was doing in recruitment, which was focusing on jobs, and then understanding that you can only write jobs in a certain way and replicate them a certain amount of times, where even if you're writing unique content, which could be valuable, there's going to be a lot of semantic similarities. So the scoring mechanism, because obviously I understand how Google measure content and the intricacies and technicalities of that. So even if you're writing good job adverts, everyone sort of copied everyone. Where did the job description come from? Well, the clients took it from the web, from online, and modified it. The person who copied it offline copied it from somewhere else, and it just became the word bastardized version of somebody else's work over and over and over again. Yeah. I'm very difficult on jobs to contextually word things differently. So there's a lot of similarities. Yeah. A hairdresser, you can only call a hairdresser, you can't call them by anything else sort of thing. And there is a limitation. And the jobs are going to be similar, the mechanic jobs are going to be similar to other mechanical jobs and so forth. And also probably the ethics differentiation. I was looking for something new, the ethics, which I didn't really understand, although at the time of starting off of it, that not to go around, the corporate greed of following everyone else, even if it worked, would pay dividends, giving a platform to the people that deserved it, the people the recruiters make money from. So there's a bit of a mismatch really, where who is the most important? To me, it's the job seekers, because without them, there is no recruitment, there is no placement, there is no nothing. But they're not treated very well. They applied for jobs and are not told they didn't get it. They applied for jobs thinking the job is X and actually it's Y. They are pushed from pillar to post. They're the jigsaw pieces that fill in the puzzle. Yeah. And then, so that was lots of, probably wasn't as concise as that at the beginning, but lots of themed subjects where I strongly understood the search engine side of it of how to drive traffic and believed I could do that in a system within recruitment and still do. And it's proven at the beginning. At the outset everything's theoretical. So I started putting the plans in place to develop ages. All it was was a page page of a person's skill. So a job seeker A is a vehicle mechanic and what information could I extract from them to make there so they're not known, identities masked. But it is a strong selling page of their skills and credentials that will also serve the recruiter well because it will supplement the CV. So what does a CV contain? Mainly historical information. The past, what I've done in the past, but doesn't say a lot about the kind of person I am and what I'm doing today and more the present, trying to merge these together. So it was a very complicated, almost mathematical system where of trying to support the business, give the job seekers a platform, supplement the CV, be successful, corporate and virtual. And I hadn't even started. So everything was like a lot of the stuff that I do in terms of my innovative work is very cloudy and you have the bones of the skeleton or half a skeleton or maybe just the head and you start putting bits together or they fall into place. A lot fell into place with profiles. We started off and then off you go and modifying all the time version updates and got to the stage where we're at now. So 34,000 profiles. These are people live looking for employment that have passed this strict validation process shall come on to later. And the system generates an insane amount of traffic for a small business, which is what the skills provision was at the time and will continue. I got asked a question by fairly clever operator while ago in terms of what's the difference between what you're doing and what LinkedIn are doing. So there are similarities and it is that the system I put together is based around people that are actively looking for employment, whereas LinkedIn is generally anybody. And I'd say LinkedIn has become much more of a not necessarily job focused or job hiring thing. It's become more of a social space in a lot of ways, is my feeling looking at LinkedIn more and more now? Yeah, I think there's an element of there is obviously still that job and it's a very dense market in the recruitment side. But I do think it has strayed slightly in some areas. It's just working. Being the interface between job seekers skills provision and the recruiters and the clients so stuck right in the middle of all these elements, trying to provide, produce something that is fit for purpose and works. And these continually run in the cycle. So if you look at it from the recruiter's point of view, they got a large database, how do they have a number of jobs? How do the people in the database move over into the job side of things? So all those suitable are automatically placed. And then we've sort of produced algorithms which we're looking to expand on constantly in terms of automatically moving people from A to B and allowing the recruitment process to carry on, which then gets filtered down to the client zone, which pleases the clients. If the amount of people or the quality of the people with the right credentials are found, the difficulty, and I still have many difficulties and problems to overcome with this whole system. From my own point of view is this. If I had ten vehicle mechanics, all highly skilled, all skill, all of similar skill levels, different type of people, different credentials, experience, all similarly qualified, I got them into a room, said, right, I'm going to employ five of you, very lucrative position out in Australia. You all want to go to Australia, you're all gagging to go to Australia, but I'm only going to take five of you. What I want you to do is write me up and I give them the headings. Write down your best profile. I want you to blow me away and I want you to blow the client away, so that where this is the person I'm taking now, all those ten people, which I would only choose five anyway, would produce amazing profiles. They wouldn't be talking about, I spend my time gaming on the Xbox, watching TV, Netflix. I die for Netflix because I love it so much. And like previous employment, you're just pushing loads of dots or dashes on there to fill the character limitations that we set. So they would produce fantastic written work. And the problem is in the virtual, because there's no one there, there's no one there to inspire, to push, to say, you produce a fantastic profile, we will be able to find you employment, increase your chances too. Because that's the thing, is that people think that the bare minimum in some circumstances, and this is obviously not everyone, but people do think that just by saying what they do is enough, but they've got to distinguish themselves, or even worse. And I can spot it a mile away because I'm involved in the validation, the people that have used chat, GPT and you think, how bad is it where you have to use a bot to write about yourself, to better yourself, because you're so interested in these overseas positions. The good part about it, on the flip side, and I know Chris has mentioned this on a few occasions, is that it's a self policing service where they give them enough rope, let them hang themselves, because are these people the highly motivated individuals that we should place? Because the better the workers, the better we look in the eyes of the clients. So it's a bit, almost like everyone can verbalize themselves and talk about how good they are at something, how well qualified they are, how suitable they are, how they're motivated. But only when put to the test properly, physically arduous conditions, day in, day out, does that become reality. And then we're tested. These people you sent, the ten that we employed, we've only got one left because within six months, they've all gone. So really it's down to. It's almost like we set tests, there are tests, unseen tests that are out there, people, in terms of, it's important for us to select the right people, it's important for the client set to select the right people, it's important for us to get this part of it right, because you can't go back. I was going to say, and it's an old adage, isn't it? You only get a chance to make a first impression, sort of like once. So you should take that opportunity. And especially what I would say is, and I think it's something that maybe we've not highlighted enough, is obviously, we are not just focused on candidates within the UK, for example, we are internationally focused and the international market is something that is more and more competitive. And you've got more and more. You're not competing against your fellow countrymen or country women, you're competing globally and you've got to make that effort, you've got to make yourself distinguishable from others and try and make it clear as to why someone should be choosing you. It's not going to work in every situation, obviously, we can't help every single person out there, but what we can do is try and put you in the best position, and that also requires you buying in, to be able to make the effort, to showcase your skills, your enthusiasm, your desire, your want to better yourself, better the opportunity and help support those employers that may select you as a candidate. So going back to the profiles themselves, and a lot is probably the downside of sharing a podcast with you, Francesca, because she's so heavily involved in recruitment, is that this whole thing of profiles and recruitment and clients is a large piece of the jigsaw, but it is only one piece of the jigsaw, 100%. Working towards an international employment network where the people behind the profiles will play a prominent role going forward. So that we have many things in the future and systems that are coming into place and some free, some not, but all very exciting in terms of everything will be based on employment. So employment subjects and give people an opportunity to grow and really showcase their talents and who they are behind the mask of the online kind of thing and to provide a comprehensive element. So you've got the employers are there, these are the people we're looking for. We're going to be looking for 200 people next year. So everything's sort of progressively based. It will not just be in a recruitment process, but more employment. The full 360, we're going to be offering courses and that's got nothing of it. It is related to I guess recruitment, bettering oneself, be more qualified and all this kind of stuff. But it's a massive journey and only by generating success with the initial idea of profiles because I was fairly certain that there was no gamble or risk involved in the job board and the recruitment systems and all that kind of thing because they were just fairly standard but obviously related to input how many jobs that we put up there and all this kind of stuff. Profiles was completely new, totally. And it's an approach that recruitment companies don't go down there, they focus on the job. Everybody focuses on the job. The job boards focus on the job, the aggregators focus on the job. The recruitment agencies from small route to the massive PLCs focus on the job. We focus on the job and the people. And there's a fundamental difference there. And by being successful, which we have been, and the trend line continually up year on year, visitors time, on site engagement, everything means that we can now step forward and push on more with the different idea, more building blocks, more pieces of jigsaw to be slotted into place to facilitate the success and growth that profiles brought. There's a lot more goes into profiles on an intellectual, mathematical, online, virtual strength, everything Google subject than people give it credit for. It is a very complicated subject, just brushing the main key points on this podcast. But I say it's fundamentally it had to work and it did. It's taken a long time and once you get over the tipping point, snowball rolling down the hill, it does get faster, it does get bigger. We've seen with our Twitter influencers jumping on board and shouting and screaming about how great our website is which obviously it is. We believe it is that we get, like, 50 times the traffic within ten minutes and it's a bit overwhelming at times, but we manage. Absolutely. And this brings me on to. There's two areas I sort of want to combine. And as you say, I look at it probably more from the recruitment perspective and yours is more from the online and visibility side. So from my side, the benefits of this system. First one, I would say, is employer engagement. And what do I mean by employer engagement? Obviously engaging with candidates that we're putting forward to them, which we've then gone through the recruitment process and shortlisted for them. But it's also in the initial attraction. We will have employers that will come to us and say, look, we want this, we want that, we want this, whatever it may be, but we also have employers that will come to us and say, look, I've come across this candidate's profile. Are they available? Are they interested in opportunities? So for us, they are a really good phishing line out there. Also, we will have profiles that perhaps are from people that created a profile nearly coming up ten years ago, that we still get people inquiring about those. I'd say, and you may disagree, Pete, but I'd say often it's more on those more niche and individual skill sets than perhaps your more mainstream skill sets. Would you agree? Don't understand the question. So what I say is that when we get an inquiry from a company, maybe they've seen a profile, it tends to be the more higher skilled, more niche roles or specific things. So, for example. Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah. So maybe not so much a specific mechanic. It may be more, I don't know, a pilot or a mining engineer, the more niche roles. So that's one of the first benefits, in my opinion, with the profile system. The second thing is, and this is using recruitment as a whole. As a whole title is a very broad subject of a very broad term. But for me and for my team, when it comes to initially searching for candidates, the system or candidates that are already in our database is one of the first port, of course. Now, what we currently have, and people come on to explain this in future enhancements, is, as I talked about, candidates will, when creating their profile, put skilled keywords in. So what it means is that when we launch advertising for a job, if candidates have put in those matching keywords, they will then be placed into our first stage of the recruitment pot, what we refer to as stage one. And in that area, we will have those candidates. Now, obviously, for us, a lot of our roles, we're quite lucky. And when they're internationally focused, we can offer opportunities to candidates from across the globe because there are work permits or visa sponsorship. The other thing is that sometimes candidates will not necessarily choose titles that are matching with what we're looking for, but what we can do is search within the profile database ourselves to find those alternative titles. So something as simple as someone may be a vehicle mechanic, but they might have called themselves an auto technician or a vehicle technician or a light vehicle mechanic, for example. So that's, in my opinion, one of the second benefits of the profile system. I feel like I'm doing a lot of talking. Pete, is there something that you'd like to add on any of those points that I've made? No, they're fine. No? Okay. The other benefit from me, especially when speaking to candidates from an international perspective, is that obviously, internationally, there is a lot of competition. You are competing globally. So it may be that, unfortunately, you are not selected for that initial job that you go for, but by registering on a site, what it means is that you've got that profile there. So it may be in two months, six months, eight months, twelve months, two years, five years. If a new opportunity comes along, our system will then match you with that potential role. So there's always that opportunity and that chance that if you are serious about looking for that next international opportunity, that you can be considered and that there is a platform jump in there. Francesca, say that many of your clients do request more manpower as they see the value of the system, the people you're providing the service across the board, and they want more manpower, and then this opens up the opportunities to more. Exactly, exactly. And the more and more and the better and better quality that we can showcase, the better what I would say, and it's something, and it kind of comes back to a point that Pete was making about making the effort with profiles, is that if you registered a year ago, for example, and your circumstances have changed, what we do ask is that you do keep your profiles up to date, because obviously, to have the best chance, we need to have that most up to date information. So things as simple as if you've changed your phone numBer, please update your details. If you've changed employer, please update your details. Provide us with that latest information. That way, when we come to you, we're in the best position, because it may be, as I mentioned, Pete had a history of being a mechanic, but it could be, say, in ten years time, something comes up that he's transitioned into a completely different role and we need to know that and it's really important to keep that information up to date. Now, Pete, from a visibility perspective, are you able to provide or comfortable providing any data in terms of sort of the visibility that perhaps profiles brings? Some rough numbers in the year? Probably about 1.8 million, something like that. Excellent. I was going to say, I'll just go back to the point that you were raising, which I feel is massively important. And I do not believe that the job seeker candidates describe them is. I don't believe they understand that when they get to the end, nearing the end of the recruitment system, their profile is presented to the prospective employer with their CV and other information, videos, everything that we have in our client zone, allowing the client, with collaboration, through the recruiter if they need it. These profiles are visible, so those people that have been in there that haven't really been bothered putting in there, things like, I just love playing the Xbox and all this kind of stuff. It may be true, but would you highlight that on an interview? So it's almost like people will say things online on a form because they don't give enough thought to what they're actually doing. Would they really talk about these things on an interview with a client? I doubt it very much. I like going out drinking on a Friday night and all this kind of stuff just wouldn't be pushed forward. Even if it's true, it's not selling a person in the best light. And this is what these people need to do with profiles. Sell themselves, sell themselves to unknowns, sell themselves because they believe they can do the job and do the job well in terms of numbers. They're just growing out. You see it regularly, all the trend lines are up and will continue. You get a path called like a tipping point. And the best thing that we have is it's not built on Flimsy Pack, it's not like a building a new build house that looks absolutely fantastic, that's been built on the grass, not on foundations, like, yeah, that's going to be great in about two years down, when the walls start cracking and everything starts and it starts raining heavily and the ground starts moving, then what? Yeah, our system is built on. I have many on my team have many tools at their disposal to track and understand what's bot produced and that gets taken out, what should be in there, what shouldn't be in there, what needs to be removed, what's valuable, who's going to pass, who's not going to pass. And this kind of thing we have a duty to our employers skills provision and the clients to push the best people forward that we can. And we're quite belligerent in going about this task. It's an important role and if other people cannot be bothered, it's not of our making, it's not our problem. No, absolutely. Yeah, we can offer the tools and the resources to help people, but we cannot do things for them. And I think that's really key. So it's taking the initiative and taking responsibility for your own destiny, I feel like is a very, I'm not sure if I like that term, but hopefully you can understand what I'm saying in terms of you need to take responsibility for your own actions to maximize the chances for success. The other thing that I do think profiles allows us to do in a wider sense is help with the development of the skills, vision, brand and visibility, the growth online and in the marketplace. Because we do get more and more people coming to us saying that, I've seen this on this, it may be social media, it may be a job board, it may be a blog, it may be something people seeing profiles and obviously we're showcasing profiles and this kind of leads me on to some future developments and where we're kind of going. And people obviously be able to add more to this. But something we've started doing is introducing video summaries of profiles to kind of give a showcase of candidates, a diverse range of candidates, getting them out there in a different medium, because we all know that more and more people are listening to videos or podcasts like we're on now, surmising candidates skill sets, a little bit about them, and kind of trying to get engagement from job seekers alike or obviously employers out there. And as we are and anyone out there in the recruitment space knows and the hiring space, there are challenges being faced with skill shortages left, right and center. That having that visibility, we have got a lot of good candidates in our database, a lot of great candidates, a real diverse range. And that's something else that makes me really proud, is being able to showcase a diverse range of candidates from Ethiopia to Cuba to America to the UK, from doctors to nurses to engineers to IT professionals. We've got so many different candidates that are looking for that next opportunity. We just need employers out there to see what is on offer and be, if possible, as we do understand there are restrictions. Be open minded, be open to the idea of an international employee and that there's a lot of good talent out there. And it's a shame that there are such restrictions in place when, and I know obviously, you see firsthand, Pete, when you're validating profiles, the value of some of these people, the skill sets that some of these people get that unfortunately will get overlooked because of politics and laws that are obviously in place. And there's not a lot we can do about some of those. But where you can consider someone, it's great to see. And nothing makes me, and I would say this probably goes to my colleagues as well, nothing makes us happier than being able to connect a candidate with that opportunity. The amount of people that we've helped relocate to better themselves and better their opportunities is great. So in terms of other future enhancements, Pete, do you want to expand on some other additional areas that you're thinking of or we're looking at potentially adding to the profile system? Yeah, probably best to look at where the system's lacking at this moment in time and where we're looking to move into. There's problems in terms of the matching system because it is reliant on human input, human input for the keywords on the job advert balance against the keywords that people add or skilled keywords that people add to their profile. We're looking to make changes in there, introduce hashtags more wider terms, broader terms, but also to allow, mathematically the matching system to connect better with better results. And as the database grows and grows and grows, that becomes more important, which also then leads into front and back end searches that need to produce better results than what we're currently displaying, which introduction of hashtags will help with. So it's the, the other thing. So that's, that's been worked on. The other thing that the system doesn't do well at all is it doesn't allow people to be diverse or to diversify. So. But I was a chef when I was 17. I worked as a chef for two years, really enjoyed it. And then I went into engineering, and for the last 25 years, I've been an engineer. So all the experience, qualifications, everything's based around engineering. But I really would like to get out of it, probably go back, maybe if the right office there at the right place at the right time is to go back into the food industry, being a chef or just helping out, training, see how I go, see how I like it. So we need to start having this, bringing in sort of secondary or third disciplines that giving people more opportunity to diversify into. Well, I'm specialist at that, but I do believe I would do that. And also if a person could be qualified in terms of highly qualified, but had worked at a high level and found it too stressful and want to come down two or three levels. How can they? Contextually. Yeah. You're not able to articulate it in the system because it's sort of structured in a way that it's based around sort of the obvious, the vehicle mechanic that's looking for a role as a vehicle mechanic, which is fine, doesn't always work that way. And then onto the offer, and this starts getting quite interesting, which is what areas quite like working in, which is. Francesca, would you like to go to Australia and work for a startup recruitment company in Australia? Because I've seen your work at Skills prison and the videos you produce, I understand the work that you're doing there. Listen to all your podcasts. I think you're the ideal person to go to Australia. And all the time you're thinking, no way, Australia. What's my husband going to say about that? And I will pay you 150,000 pounds a year. You know me well, like a footballer. The offer then becomes, as you're well aware, through my wife's business, we are linked to many professional footballers, and it's the offer that's flying around that is the driving force. Less so what they want to do, they're a little bit like cogs in a wheel, move somewhere, stay there. Six months gone. An offer that was too good to turn down came up and I was gone. So all these things are going to be taken into account in terms of what next, what's coming up, what we're working on, what we're looking to build on, the future journey of the whole system, the network, how we want to. And I suppose, if the truth be known, the success of the venture, because if you look at, like, LinkedIn, for example, what would LinkedIn be as a business? Jeff first started out developing, building up without the people. So he gave a platform for the people to basically start producing content, which is. Go back to my earlier point about the unique content. Jeff produced a platform that allowed for mass content produced on a unique scale. And then it grew and grew and grew, and then off it went. Massive value in terms of the venture, which then becomes More of a driving force for people like me that want to work on successful projects, less so the financial gain, more the drive to be successful. So it's almost like you just fit in things that there's some big pieces of the jigsaw, say, 20, and intertwined with those is about 200 smaller pieces, and the smaller pieces will be the tweaks on the profiles, the way the automated matching system works, the way profiles are presented to the clients. With more, everything's got to be better. What can we do better? It's not just we'll start using video and like how, which way, how is that going to work? Our marketing channels, how do we take profiles and like an aggregator, start aggregating them out there so everyone sees these people. Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah. But it's the. How it's like where I work in the mechanics of this, in terms of making it work, ideas are fine, making it work so it's successful. That's the killer part. Yeah. It's all parts being achieved, which is the foundation. Yeah. From that it's more interesting. It can be a bit overwhelming, the work side of things, but it's going to be very interesting journey going forward. And the part that I'm looking forward to is the offering of all the services. So those that have a profile at this moment in time of their own user dashboard and their own user dashboard, eventually there's going to be a mass 30, say 40 of different opportunities, things they can take on. Some will be free, some will be paid for. Yeah. Also with international bias and courses, everything and tying in network, never losing sight of what we're trying to build, which is the network. And what you don't know is one of your opening kind of remarks is with some of the stuff, you don't know how it's going to be taken up until you make something happen, you don't know how it's going to be received. And that's the thing is you've got that foundation now we have that foundation in place. It's not going, I don't know at the beginning, at the outset, when you do something completely new, then you don't know what the takeup is going to be. More difficulty and where the mistakes can often be made is by pay to pay for something. So it's almost like do it all for free, do everything for free, let people engage, let people get used to it, let people get stickiness, let people the visibility grow and then start charging. Like with Facebook. Facebook became massively popular and was running into major loss, still valued as a high business because of the footfall and the footprint that it had. And then the switch was turned and it started making money. And they make trillion, God knows what revenue looked recently. But the amount of money that the business makes is unbelievable because they were never in a rush to press the key, the button to start. They wanted to build their network first. And now more and more. Even so, there's more and more competition out there. There's more and more resources available, there's more and more free things available. The Internet is a much bigger, vaster place than it was when Facebook first came around. The timing was good. They definitely timed it well. I think that our timing is quite good as well. Well, I think so. And it's from a different perspective, trying to offer things from all sides. What I kind of wanted to finish on from my side was some advice, and I'm splitting this into two areas because profiles, obviously there's a lot that focuses around the job seeker and their role within it. But also I do want to touch on our advice for employers, so feel free to jump in at any point. Pete, job seekers, my advice to you when it comes to profiles, when you're creating the profile and you're registering and creating it, be sure that you've got all the information that you need, ready to fill it out. Be clear, make sure that the information you provide is detailed. Ensure that when you are completing the profile that we have actually added, and I think it has helped quite a lot. Pete can verify this more from the validation point of view. We've provided some guideline videos to follow when completing your profile, giving you some advice on how to complete certain sections. So please do follow those. And my last thing is keep things up to date. Keep it up to date if you change something, because the last thing we don't want to happen is that there's an excellent opportunity that's exactly a fit for you and we can't contact you or we can't manage to reach you. That would be heartbreaking for us. Is there anything you'd like to add for candidates or those creating a profile? Pete yeah, just because a person is in employment, they should always keep their profile up to date because you don't know what's around the corner, you don't know what the next offer is going to be, so you can just work on it. We're going to be improving how we validate when people fail. There's going to be a lot of changes coming in there. The whole system is going to be developed upon and made better constantly. So you're all with it. Join get your profile validated Keep using user dashboard checking job opportunities visiting the YouTube channel, subscribing to the YouTube channel, getting the notification bell on there, following the social posts, checking the Job board regularly, following the podcast, following the podcast, everything that's like we're building, we're growing we're going, and it's all about, we are serving the people. We're building, building a network to serve the people. And there will be a little bit of self serving in there. Yes, a corporate entity, but not that much, really. It's all going to be about serving the people, providing tools for them to find employment opportunities or find the perfect worker. There's something that you talked about earlier which will also change, which is this international part, as the numbers start improving, as the numbers get bigger and we move into millions that have registered on the website, it's not just going to be international. We're going to be doing local, national and international employment opportunities galore. Everything, courses, new CV, we're going to be providing templates, free templates, free tools, free apps. It's all coming, it's all going to be there. You just need to get aboard it, grow with the business and keep your profile up to date. Because ideally we could place a person 1520 times throughout their working career. So don't be short sighted. If you've got a, oh, I've got a job, I'll only worry about it when I've lost my job. So not the right attitude. Be always on it, be always working. We're here to serve the people. Profiles are big part of this. No, I agree. And now I want to turn it on its head. And employers, when it comes to profiles, if you haven't already, have a look on our database to do so, go on the home page, scroll down and there's a section where you can search for workers. You can just browse all of them, or you could put in some specific terms, but just have a look at the range of individuals we've got. Regardless of your skill set that you're looking for, your industry, your location, I'm confident that there'll be something that will interest you. You can also request and make contact with us if you find a potential candidate that you like, or equally, if you're just needing recruitment support, we should be able to help. Is there anything else you want to add for employers when it comes to profiles, Pete? Not profiles, no. But we will be opening up many opportunities for employers to sign up for more services, to be more engaging, to work with. I think the problem with a lot of employment problems, and they are highly visible, spoke about. There's a lot of stuff in the media, skills shortages. Skip is in many ways the employers are their own worst enemy, which leads to their own downfall, which is they're only interested in looking when they need, which we're so busy. Well, actually, employment is such a massive subject. It should be front and center of most businesses. And even if you don't want manpower, you don't need manpower. That's today. What about next year? The year after that? Contracts comIng? You're tendering all the time is to work with companies like skills, Priscilla. But it doesn't have to be skills provision to set yourself alongside people that work in employment, that provide the services. So, like with Skills provisions database, you're constantly churning for like those ten. We've got some projects going up next year in about three months time. Ideal not wait for the projects to start landing and then drop it on HR and say, we need the manpower. They're like, well, we can't find any. We're right. It's always needing people yesterday. And I think that's the thing, isn't it? But what I would also say just kind of off the back of that is, and it kind of comes back to your point about diversifying. If someone wants to diversify something, is not always looking for the obvious. You're not always going to find that perfect candidate. You can come with a shopping list of ten different things you want someone to have, but the reality is, if you wait and trying to find someone that has all ten in today's market, it's unlikely that that may be possible. Can't ever say it's 100% impossible. But if you're an employer that is struggling and needing manpower and different resources, I would strongly consider that you to look at the database and just see what else is out there. Because the transferable skills that some people have, the best candidate might actually not stay with you. They may well be with you and then move on, because they know that they're highly sought after. Whereas that's someone that you give that chance, that's someone that maybe has 70%, 80% of the skills you're looking for and they have that investment from you in them. They could be that perfect fit. Oh, without a doubt. I don't know how many? God knows, thousands maybe. Let's guess. Vehicle mechanics that I've worked with, known. And the best one out of all of them was an Albanian aircraft technician. It was the best vehicle mechanic. So you just never know. No, you don't. And what we want to do, and our aim is, as we've said throughout this podcast, is people and servicing the people. And that's the job seekers, employers, the recruitment staff and profiles, is just one of those tools that allows us to support all of those sort of areas and we want to maximize those that we can help. So I don't think I've got anything else to add or finish on other than, as we said, if you don't already, like, share, subscribe, follow us on YouTube for this podcast or Spotify Apple Music. We're available on those. Also, do follow us on socials. If you are a job seeker and you want to register, please do visit our website and you can find on the Job Seeker section and you can become a member. Follow those guidelines to ensure maximum chance of getting your profile validated and keeping it up to date. Employers. If you do require support and want to just look at our database, feel free. You can have a look and see what's out there and available. Anything else you want to add, Pete? You've touched on all the points there, Francesca. Just keep up to date. There's a lot of things changing. Constantly working in this area and constantly improving things. We're here to help. We're here to provide a service and to develop the first proper international employment agency in the world. Or, sorry, International employment Network in the world. So, from me, Francesca, it's goodbye and goodbye had from me. Have a nice day. See you on the next episode. Take care, everyone. See you soon.