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Some history and a new old feature from CJS.

   

scan of the top of Countrysdie Jobs Service published on 5/11/99 announcing it contains 69 new paid jobs, 29 direct

When the first editions of Countryside Jobs Service were published in 1994 the majority of the adverts were SFLs - that's Standard Free Linage - typed up from the national newspapers and specialist publications. As word spread we began to get some adverts sent 'Direct' usually by post or sometimes faxed to us and even dictated over the phone, no email back then - I know it was the dark ages! However, most of the adverts were published in the Guardian and we'd wait with baited breath for the Wednesday edition which was the day when the majority of the countryside and conservation jobs were advertised. Sub Ed Tracey would set to, typing up every relevant advert, 40+ in a week was not unusual. As you can see from the scan of the front page from one of the oldest editions in the archive, less than half the jobs came direct to CJS and even with all the papers included there were fewer adverts than we regularly receive each week now. (NB we counted jobs not adverts in 1999, and look at that web address!)

scan of a page from Countryside Jobs Service showing several linage adverts

 

 

When I started setting CJS in 1998 my instructions from Niall were to aim to split the Guardian ads with those from other papers so a page had Guardian - New Scientist - Guardian - Farmers Weekly - Guardian - Scotsman, you get the idea. Often it was two Guardians to one of every other.

Then the internet came along but most adverts were still to be found in the printed press; gradually over many years everything transferred online. CJS Weekly, as it had become, to distinguish it from CJS Monthly (now CJS Professional) and CJS Daily Online (the website), still retained the SFLs for adverts from other sources but now it was jobs from the internet that we were splitting up with adverts from other sources. In time it was obvious that there was no need for us to continue to collate all the adverts because everyone had access to online publications and there were only a handful of those and one or two job boards. The arrival of the large search engines made life even easier, just ask for ranger jobs and there were a couple of pages to look through, 10 results to a page. Those days of highly specific, select results are long gone no matter how carefully you craft your query.

    
 


A ranger jobs search using google today produces "About 120,000, 000 results"; although CJS is the top option - of course.

A few years ago we stopped producing the unique CJS Digest of adverts from other sources. We carried on with our routine searches enabling us to see just how many adverts there were and also contacting advertisers to suggest they advertise with us to reach the best candidates (you!) offering free adverts in the Weekly or low cost online options. Each week Tracey searches hundreds of websites including every council, government agency and charity site plus lots of the commercial ones too, creating a list of vacancies relevant for CJS readers averaging 40 each week throughout 2021. Many of those adverts do end up in CJS but for whatever reason quite a few don't and we realised we had a fantastic resource just sitting there. So we're bringing the Digest back as a trial for a few months to see how many additional adverts we can include. Fortunately the Weekly and the job sites are now all online which means we don't have stay up to the wee small hours typing up all the information, converting a nine page Environment Agency job description into a 200 word linage advert, we can simply give you the link and with one click all the details are there for you. The new version of the Digest is very basic in the details we're including: you'll see the job title, the employer, a location and closing date, the link to the original advert is on the job title. If you find it a useful service tell us and we'll keep it running.

We will continue to offer the free linage for advertisers to use and all the standard paid options too (which include website coverage).

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