Reading Room moves into Web recruitment

Reading Room recently appointed Chris Skinner to head up the division as senior on-line recruitment strategist. He joins from recruitment marketing specialist Barkers.

‘The new division will write and design careers sites that sell the client company to its potential employees,’ explains Skinner, adding that the division will not be building job boards.

‘These sites could include video profiles of people talking about the corporation and information about how the company is doing, for example. They are considerably more effective than merely posting an ad on a digital job board.’

According to Reading Room, recruitment attracts more than a quarter of all on-line advertising spend.

Meanwhile, Reading Room is seeking to open offices in Dubai, Bristol and New York over the next two years. It is considering two joint ventures with marketing agencies in Dubai.

Reading Room has made an internal appointment to the post of divisional managing director, Dubai, but reports that it is finding it difficult to secure office space in there.

As a result, Reading Room chief executive Margaret Manning expects the Dubai office to open within six months.

The consultancy is also looking to recruit a divisional managing director for the new Bristol office, which it intends to open in about a year.

Finally, Reading Room hopes to launch a New York office in 2009-2010.

‘New York is a tough market, but having done some research into it we believe that our point of differentiation in the US will be our visual and technical creativity,’ says Manning. ‘We are not underestimating how tough this move will be, however.’