Online recruitment strategist Keith Robinson has announced two new ventures which encompass a holistic approach to targeting candidates, with a link to a major US job board.
Robinson has teamed up with business partner Alan Whitford, and Nick Brian and Martin Cerullo from advertising agency Euro RSCG Riley, to launch Engage, which aims to redefine the thinking processes and technology to make recruitment more candidate-focused.
Robinson says the new venture is about treating a candidate as the consumer of a product, in the same way that a supermarket would do.

The new venture’s methodology is keeping candidates informed of job opportunities through a targeted media operation, so they do not slip through the net if unsuccessful in a job application.
Robinson insists the venture is not anti-consultancy, as the technology can be sold to both agencies and corporate clients.
He said: “Any organisation can be a media owner if it has a database of candidates and can provide relevant content to that audience.
“For too long, recruitment has been disjointed and not candidate-centric. But I could count on two hands the agencies that treat their database seriously. A bundle of online CVs is no different to a filing cabinet of them.”

In conjunction with this venture, Engage is also now the official partner of aspiring US job board Jobster, which has launched in the UK. The company has decided to open a London office, in partnership with Euro RSCG Engage.
Jobster executives have been in the UK this week, and, according to Robinson, have been speaking with the top 1,000 UK HR directors.
“The main thrust of the Jobster launch is about the candidate referral programme, which people usually find on page 164 of their staff handbook,” he said. “We both asked, ‘How do we target the passive jobseekers?' This way we have a personalised invite for them.” 
According to Jobster, online recruitment advertising will overtake offline within a few years if it keeps up its current growth.