To continue the twitter theme from my last post, I thought I'd tell you a story....



So I’m sitting in my office and the IT Director hurries in, shoves a small black box, some cables and a piece of paper into my hand. “I’m off out” he said, “give this a whirl, I think you’ll like it”. And with that, off he trots.



I look at the box – a modem (remember those?!) and know enough to deduce that I needed to plug it into the office phone socket. After an hour or so of… Continue

If you are a seasoned recruiter then it's likely that networking comes easily to you. And by networking I don't mean running around a crowded room, stuffing a business card into some strangers pocket and trying to close 'close a deal'! I mean being able to engage with people you have never met, share some experiences and yes, possibly find some common ground on which to build a business, or personal relationship.



But, like many others from all walks of business life, those at the less… Continue

Nothing seems to sharpen the mind more than a recession and that's particularly true in the recruitment industry. And, perhaps predictably, as things got tighter over the last 18 months or so, the spotlight kept falling on our common bedfellows - Recruitment Process Outsourcing businesses. For the purposes of simplicity, I'm using the term RPO in this post as a collective term to cover all outsourced recruitment arrangements, including managed service providers. I know I'll probably get in… Continue

Before joining the recruitment industry wholeheartedly, I, like many others had a pretty rose tinted view of how recruitment worked. It wasn't until it became part of my career did the realisation hit me that far from the focus being on relationships and service, it was instead on sales, closing the deal and hitting KPI's.



Fortunately for me, there are some that believe this to be a waste of time and this has allowed the Courtenay HR business to flourish inside our parent group, where… Continue

It's a funny old world, recruitment. On the one hand, you have some recruiters talking about social media like it's the second coming. On the other, you have others saying its simply the recruitment equivalent of 'big hair' - a fashion fly by night that has a shorter life than your average cheap firework.



Rarely though, do you find a recruiter that champions social media in one breath, then goes on to snuff out its potential in another. So midly surprised was I, when I picked up the… Continue