End of 2011 summary

It's been a busy year for SOLIDstaff and we haven't sat on our laurels. We are always looking for ways to improve the use of our site and the search for a job or employee.

Employees

For those looking for work, we have added a count of your CV viewings so you can see how often your details have been viewed by potential employers. We know how encouraging it is to see your 'hit count' rising and to know that something is happening at the other end.

We've also added quick searches for categories with vacancies, job titles with vacancies and vacancies by company to take you straight to where the jobs are.

The layout of the advert view pages has been improved, removing the pop-up windows and making the layout clearer. You can now step through the various adverts from the display page instead of returning to the results each time.

We have implemented automatic emails to remind you of things that you may have forgotten to do, such as enter your job history. We realise though that too many emails can be annoying so we limit the number of these sent out, and you always have the option to switch them off.

We also added many design tweaks just to make the process easier or less tedious:

• Permanent arrows on the right hand side of the page to quickly take you to the top or bottom

• Disabling the town and county menus when you select a country outside of the UK

• Sorting the towns by county

• 'Step' arrows at the top of the Personal, Career and Job History pages to help you make your way through the registration process

Coming in 2012

• Subscription emails - get an alert when a suitable job is posted

• Favourites Search - save your preferred job title or category and, when you log in, see immediately which jobs of that sort have been posted since you last visited. An easy way to check every day!

Employers

We haven't forgotten those looking for staff either. We also added a count of your advert viewings so you can see the interest that each advert has generated.

When posting adverts (and filling in the company details), you can now fill in the postcode and get the town and county added automatically.

When you view someone's CV, it is no longer in a pop-up window and the layout is clearer.

You can now step through the various adverts from the display page instead of returning to the results each time.

You can also immediately view all the categories which have applicants to save you making a full search.

We have implemented automatic emails to remind you of things that you may have forgotten to do, such as enter your company details. We realise though that too many emails can be annoying so we limit the number of these sent out, and you always have the option to switch them off.

Similar design tweaks to the employee side have also been added.

• Permanent arrows on the right hand side of the page to quickly take you to the top or bottom

• Disabling the town and county menus when you select a country outside of the UK

• Sorting the towns by county

Coming in 2012

• Subscription emails - get an alert when a suitable employee registers

December 13th update

Another week and another addition to the SOLIDstaff site. We have now added counters for both employees and employers.

For employers, it records a 'hit' every time a potential employer views your details and is shown on the top right of your home page. If you're not getting any views, think why? Have you filled in as many details as you can, including job history? Is your personal statement likely to intrigue employers and make them take the next step? Check the 'Preview' page to see how your CV will appear in search results; get as many contact detail and upload icons as you can.

For employers, the counter records the number of views of each advert and is shown on the 'Adverts' page. Again, if your advert is not getting many views, can you make it more enticing to potential employees?

Meanwhile, a temporary full-time chef is wanted in Gloucestershire for £18000 plus tips (ID 1529)

December 3rd Update

We continue to add new employers to our site. We're very pleased to annouce that we now have the Compass Group posting their adverts such as a pastry chef wanted at Tom's Kitchen in London (id 1353), at a £26k salary.

We also have Tragus, operator of big names such as Café Rouge, Bella Italia and Strada. A sample advert is for a head chef in Bristol for £24-25k (id 1344).