The End of an Era – The Making of.
Yes it’s finally happened. The project has been a long time in the making and the subject of much internal debate but I can finally say, “Welcome to our new website!”. Hopefully you agree with us that it’s a major step up from our old site and as much as I loved our flash home page, an absence of flash means that you could be reading this on your tablet or smart phone without any differences from someone viewing it on a PC. We decided to forgo the ‘mobile website’ idea that some of our competitors have gone for as I don’t really see why mobile users should suffer reduced functionality, our site will simply resize in accordance with whatever device you happen to be viewing it on. We also promise to never, ever, use QR codes to point to any links on our website – they may look pretty in print but they are a total faff to use (l do like the technology though, but it seems more useful for scanning printed train tickets, etc. than linking to websites, given that it’s probably much quicker to punch, or even speak, a web address into the search function on your particular flavour of smart phone).
When I launched my company in 2009, I wanted a website that was easy to use and eye catching and incorporated elements not used much by recruitment companies at the time, such as video. And using a, now arguably mini-viral, video to launch proved successful beyond even my most outlandish expectations (our launch video is, at the time of writing, sitting at 120,315 views on YouTube) leading to new contacts across the IP world who were amused by a goose and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. The website worked well for us in our initial period of operation but we have felt for the last year or so that it was beginning to look a little outdated and we committed the time to developing something new earlier this year.
Content has always been very important to us and we wanted to highlight even more that, yes we would like you to visit our site when you are looking for a new member of staff or a new job, but also that you might visit our site even when you aren’t. We have expanded our video section so now it is much easier to navigate and we always welcome suggestions of videos to include, they don’t need to be focused on IP just something our potential readership might find interesting, amusing, or both. Phillipa Field is certainly growing into her role as the face of Fellows and Associates on YouTube and we will continue to bring you updates via video as well as other social media. For a snapshot of what we’re up to video is hard to beat, in our opinion.
We have made more of a feature of our news section – with a ‘News Wall’ of the latest articles. Again we always welcome contributors, if you would like to write something for our site let us know and at the moment you will benefit from some additional publicity as we promote our new website actively over the next few months.
We have improved the search functionality in our ‘Jobs’ section, we felt it never quite worked perfectly on our old site so hopefully users will enjoy the improvements there. Of course social media is increasingly important and is integrated across the site with the ability to share easily on the major social networks and (rather scarily for us) the ability to comment on news articles.
Apart from some new styling the press section remains largely the same and is where you will find the archive of previous print job advertisements, printed articles and press releases. Our home page is a complete departure from what we have done previously; it’s much more dynamic and will provide easy access to the major thoughts in our collective consciousness in a particular month. It will also allow us to give much more exposure to partner clients than we have been able to in the past, with a logo or video dominating the home page.
It’s been a long road to get to where we are now; it’s been almost four years since I launched the company. We have seen excellent staff join us and help us expand our operation, we have attended four INTA Annual Meetings and two AIPPI Congress’s and some of our staff have gone from conference newbies to veterans in this time (particular highlights being Emma getting herself onto INTA TV and Phillipa and Michele replicating the achievement at AIPPI Congress in Seoul). We have placed many new people in new roles which in some cases have completely transformed their careers. We have run two salary surveys that each year have become ever more complicated in a case of graph one-upmanship (salary survey one, conducted by an anthropologist; salary survey two, a qualified accountant) and have enjoyed a wide audience thanks to the CIPA Journal and the ITMA Review kindly agreeing to publish. I dread to think of the statistical gymnastics of next year’s survey with 3 years data to play with for comparison. So in launching our new website it feels like the end of our beginning and the beginning of what’s to come (cliché I know but it seemed apt). We’re not a perfect organisation but we strive to do our best, I have high hopes for the future that will we grow further, explore new markets and be the IP recruitment practice that most of you want us to be.
Finally, as I have said we’re not perfect so if you spot a mistake on the site (there does come a point when you have proof read so much that you cannot actually see the text anymore), then let us know and keep it to yourself – we have a reputation to maintain!
Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last four years, we wouldn’t be where we are without you and your support was essential in those stressful early days and will continue to be.
Pete Fellows, Managing Director.