The number of
people seeking jobs through local firm Jobsincornwall.co.uk has recently broken
through the 20,000 barrier. The
online-advertising Company counts the County’s top recruitment agencies amongst
its clients as well as a range of businesses from big food companies down to
taxi firms. The Company’s website
regularly has more than 100 local jobs advertised on any particular day and is
set to expand further as it extends its chain of niche websites to a national
and international audience. The
Company’s success is proof both that there are jobs in Cornwall and demand from job seekers to do
them.
The
business was founded by husband and wife team Richard and Kim Crocker. They thought there was a need to shake up the local recruitment
advertising market which used to be dominated by the big newspaper groups. “The challenge for us”, said Richard, “was to
build an advertising business from nothing with no jobs to advertise and no job
seekers. However we knew that with
broadband on the way and people just getting used to using the internet for
everyday tasks, the potential demand was there so we just did it. Now we have a network which has exceeding its
Tipping Point. It is very satisfying to
have done this”.
The
internet has changed incredibly in a short space of time. The biggest changes have been the importance
of Search, the dominance of Google and the growth of broadband enabling new
technologies like instant email delivery, video and file downloading.
Jobsincornwall.co.uk
has learned how to use these changes and exploit them when developing new niche
websites for other markets. Its recently
launched a new niche jobsite: www.jobsinwaste.co.uk. This aims to provide for the recruitment
advertising needs of the UK waste management industry. They are using it as a test bed for a range
of new techniques that they think will help them lead that market and say it is
showing very promising results so far.
Richard
thinks the growth of the internet is good news for Cornwall
’s economy. “I don’t think its any co-incidence that the
local economy has been growing more quickly at the same time as
internet use
has boomed. The web has been a great
boost to the tourism industry to sell capacity to niche markets that
were
formerly very hard or expensive to reach. Using the web requires a
fusion of disciplines: Programming, hardware management, graphic
design, marketing, PR, market research, writing, accounting and project
management.
Cornwall has a very rich and diverse
resource of these sorts of people as we have so many small businesses and
really quite good networks.
