Heidrick’s Go Online - And More Legislation On Temps

Interesting investment from Heidrick’s a couple of months ago (OK its late but hey this is a new blog)

http://www.visualcv.com/www/pr/20080211_VisualCV_Announces_Investments.html

Visual CV look like they’ve got a really interesting product here, and I tip my cap to Heidrick’s for getting in on something like this ahead of their mainstream competitors. The really interesting thing is here is this could give H&S the opportunity to build an “LinkedIn” style networking tool for C-level professionals. Picture the scene - since H&S started trading their sell must have been all about getting their clients to buy into their network. If they can get buy in from FTSE 100/250 C-level staff then instead of selling their network, they could prove it… I’ll be intrigued to see how they intend to get their target market to “sign up” as it were. This is on the face of it is a great move by H&S but given the demographics and behavioural characteristics of their target market could this initiative be a step too far ahead?

All thoughts on this welcome.

Back in the real world, UK temporary workers have been granted the same employment rights as perm staff:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/21/tradeunions.gordonbrown
This isn’t going to be a massive surprise for the industry, its been mooted for a long, long time.
I just wonder if this may result in more short term temporary assignments as employers (PS who is the employer here? The agency or the client?) try to avoid any pitfalls. Putting this into play as the market could he headed for a slowdown when traditionally temp margin has got agencies thru could mean tricky waters ahead!