SEEK Launches Jobseeker Profiles and it’s Better Than Expected

This week saw the promised launch of SEEK’s foray into the online CV database market with Jobseeker Profiles.  The premise behind this is an attempt to flip the traditional job board model on its head and turn it into a proactive job search tool for job seekers, rather than reactive one.  Instead of applying to job ads as they appear on the site, this enables job seekers to post their CV and profile onto SEEK’s database and become searchable by recruitment agencies and employers looking for keywords or experience contained within those CVs.

Of course, this is a bit like when the football A-League was announced and launched back in 2005, bringing professional football to Australia and New Zealand for the first time.  Many people were like, “OK that’s cool, but really it’s about time seeing as every other country in the world has a professional football league already.”  So it is with this, with job board goliaths like Monster already having pioneered this facility many years hence.

So will it take off in our region?  The traditional resistance has always been that in a smaller market (particularly New Zealand) job seekers are going to be less inclined to post their details publically looking for a job in case their current employer should happen to stumble upon it.  I imagine SEEK will have set up numerous screens to protect the obvious identity of the candidate, until the candidate permits the release of their details to the employer, but it is still a cultural mindset that will be hard to shift.  The reaction amongst many of my fellow recruiters has been pretty under-whelming so far, a bit like the opening game of the A-League which I attended where Newcastle Jets lost 1-0 at home to Adelaide Utd.  A lone header from the visitors punctuating an inability for either team to string any passes together stuck a pin into the barely inflated pre-game bubble of excitement.

But I am an advocate of change and innovation if nothing else, so I am committed to giving this new thing a go.  And seeing as it’s Friday Whiteboard Day I thought I might as well provide you a running commentary of how I get on with my first foray into Jobseeker Profiles:

–          Open browser and click into SEEK.co.nz.  Looks familiar, notice the tile in the bottom “Look for a job while it looks for you, employers and recruiters are searching for people like you now”.  OK so that’s for the job seeker, but what about me?  I want to see what profiles I can find.

–          Click into it anyway to see if that’s where I should go…no it’s just for the job seeker.  OK well I’ll take my usual route for posting ads and click on “Advertisers Post a Job Ad” at the top of the screen.

–          Aha, here we go.  A new “Candidates” column on this page.  Click into “Jobseeker Profiles for your roles”

–          OK it all looks pretty nice, excitement and anticipation starting to build, where do I go next?  Only place I can see to go next is clicking on “your roles”

–          Here we go – familiar page but with a new “Jobseeker Profiles” column.  It is telling me there are 70 jobseeker profiles available for my “Experienced Recruitment Professionals” job ad – sweet.  Got to check this out, click on the 70.

–          Reduce the field to 29 by adding the keyword “recruitment” (as I am looking for experienced recruiters here, the word must surely appear on all profiles of experienced recruiters).  That also thankfully eliminates the “Hard Warking Boy” who wants to be a butcher (not sure which letter he mis-typed in that sentence)

–          Must say it looks like there might be one or two useful profiles for me here…have a scout through them.  As an introductory offer SEEK are giving away 10 free profile views per job ad so I’ll compile my short list and see how it goes…

–          OK got my 10 job seekers and click “Checkout”.  7 will have their CV’s released automatically and 3 are private profiles, so they get to review my job ad before releasing their info (this is where jobseekers worried about their boss seeing them looking can cover their arses)

–          2 of them are already registered with me.  One is a candidate I already placed 3 weeks ago.  The others are there for me to peruse and decide what to do with.

Overall I have to say this is quite a slick process.  It looks good and, once you have found your way into the right area of SEEK, it is very easy to use.  As for whether it will throw up the results recruiters are looking for?  Well I must say I was surprised to see the profile of a candidate who I have already placed.  This proves irrevocably that this could work very well for us in recruitment.  The fact he applied to me directly as well as posting his own profile meant I was able to work reactively on finding him a job, but this shows how it could become a more proactive process.

Looking at the rest, I will make contact, but on first glance doesn’t appear likely there will be the right fit in there.  But as this is taken up by more and more agencies and employers then more job seekers will load their details up and the quality of the database will improve.  I can definitely see this being of benefit, especially for overseas candidates moving to, or returning to, New Zealand, who wouldn’t necessarily know who to contact or where to look.

This is a good move from SEEK.  The calls about job boards becoming less and less relevant are getting louder, and have obviously prompted SEEK into launching this new product.  But this kind of move was essential for SEEK to remain relevant, to display some innovation, to just keep us all interested, especially as the likes of Linked In and Google make searching for candidates without job boards a realistic option for many recruiters.  Yes, this has been done before, but I must say SEEK have done this well.  As long as they now invest proper amounts in marketing this new feature to job seekers, to improve the size and quality of their database, then this could be a very useful tool in the recruiter’s candidate sourcing strategy.

Keen to hear about anyone else who has tried out this new feature in their particular sector, and any feedback you might have.

Croquet and Pimms at the SEEK Estate

SEEK did something quite unexpected yesterday.  They hosted a very pleasant, convivial, civilised and not-at-all-brash garden party at Alberton House the “SEEK Estate” to host a range of clients, recruitment and corporate, to say thanks for our business.  How jolly decent of you SEEK and thanks for having us all along.

Now this was no legendary SEEK Blue Ball thronged with roaring recruiters, chest thumping suits and tottering tipsily on high heels.  This really was an indication of where we have come as an industry since the heady boom days.  The recession put paid to the Blue Ball, the flash venues and manically drumming Japs fading into a distant memory from 2008 as SEEK’s swollen coffers started to run as dry as those of their recruitment clients.  This was altogether a far more genteel occasion.  Recruiters are still in the process of hauling themselves back out of the recession.  No doubt work is picking up significantly and revenues are returning, but there are still a multitude of wounds to lick and heal, which came through in the polite and reserved chit chat that characterised the evening.  No more the sneering gloating over vanquished competitors, more like a few sideways glances and acknowledged mutual respect between competing firms who are all really just glad to still be in recruitment.

Forget Saatchi & Saatchi...it's Simon & Simon (Madison)

But for the wider recruitment masses, it was suggested by JP from Seek (who is now to be known as John-Paul as he was introduced by his new GM), that the Blue Ball will return.  So we will once again have a night of heavy drinking and general letting-hair-down behaviour.  Then we will really see if the recruitment industry leopard has managed to change its spots, or as I suspect is just currently wearing a clever spotless disguise in preparation to cast it aside when the boom returns.

The evening was also an opportunity for SEEK to introduce their aforementioned new GM.  Take a bow Janet Faulding and welcome to New Zealand’s recruitment community.  Janet has a background in running radio stations but did some online stuff as GM for Vouchermate.  We had a chat and she seemed pretty cool, although introducing her new account manager John as a fellow Pom, when he is from Zimbabwe, didn’t go down so well!

Janet Faulding speaks

It seems like The Whiteboard divided opinion last night as well, which is excellent news and just what I am trying to achieve – a bit of debate in our industry.  To be fair, there were many positive comments from some readers of the blog, and just one that suggested I was pushing things too far in a small market – but it’s all good and we’re all entitled to an opinion.  I have to take my hat off to the Manpower crew who were very magnanimous despite the panning received by many commentators a couple of weeks ago.

On that note the blog went past the 10,000 views mark last week, so thanks for all of your reading, especially those of you who contribute, comment and join in the debate on issues in our industry.

So there we have it.  No juicy gossip or salacious details on misbehaving recruiters this week I’m afraid.  I must say a big cheers to the guys from Hays, Recruit IT, Madison, and Automotive Employment, who carried the evening on in Snapdragon in the Viaduct.  It was a great night, but I really am all talked out, so I’m going to slink off to find a coffee and hopefully something abundantly greasy that I really shouldn’t be eating, but will be so good… I heard something on the radio yesterday about a battered sausage covered with chips and wrapped in bacon… a Piggy-Chip-Dog.

Mmm, that’ll be the ticket…aren’t hangovers great?

Recruit IT flying under the radar and banning use of flash

A Poor Sense of Timing from Manpower Professional

For a change I don’t have a lot to say this morning, other than to gather your thoughts on this job posted on SEEK at 1.18pm yesterday:

Engineering opportunities across the ditch

• Get paid to move away
• Great career progression opportunity
• Excellent travel opportunity for the family

Our hearts go out to all those affected by the recent events in Christchurch. Having been there in September for the 7.1 earthquake and endless aftershocks, I can relate to the destruction and post traumatic distress the latest shocks have caused.

If you are looking for an opportunity to get away for a while, Australian Engineering firms could be your silver lining. With paid relocation and resettling assistance, the next 2 years could be an experience that you and your family will not regret.

Our consultants are currently working on Senior Engineering roles across a variety of disciplines and locations including:

Electrical Engineers:

• Senior Distribution Engineer -Electrical Engineering MV and LV Distribution
• HV Substation Design Engineers
• Transmission Lines Design Engineers

Civil Engineers:

• Principal Maritime/Marine Structures Engineer
• Senior Civil Engineers – Land development
• Senior Civil Engineers – Water resources
• Senior Hydrologists
• Principal Water Resources Engineer
• Senior Structural Engineer – Career path to Branch Manager
• Principal Geotechnical Engineer – Water retaining structures

Metallurgical and Process Engineers:

• Process Engineer – Minerals processing experience preferred

These opportunities are with well renowned organisations on the East Coast of Australia (predominantly Brisbane) offering excellent salaries and career advancement opportunities. If you would like to discuss any of the above roles or how you would go about moving. Submit your CV using the APPLY button

This ad was posted almost exactly 48 hours after the earthquake struck on Tuesday. There are still people missing, the rescue and recovery mission is still underway, and there are still people out there hoping against hope that their friends, relatives or colleagues will make some kind of miraculous reappearance from the rubble of Christchurch. Am I being a little precious here, or is this just way too early?

Now the author of this job posting seems like a good enough boy. He was in Christchurch during the original September quake, caring for an ill relative according to his LinkedIn profile, and I don’t imagine this was meant with any sense of malice. But I do think it displays terrible timing and a naïve lack of judgement. From the way I read it, it appears his colleagues in Brisbane have gathered together their hard-to-fill engineering roles, determined that the fact he was there in September means he has “earned his stripes through the aftershocks”, and has the right angle to post on their behalf.

This is not helpful at this time. This is an attempt to generate commercial gain for your business, thinly disguised as offering a helping hand to Cantabrians keen to escape with their families. If it’s too early for the Crusaders, it is too early for Manpower Professional.

I have a couple of other quick observations on this. Firstly that half the city is still without power so quite how the Brisbane office of Manpower think potential candidates will have the means, never mind the will, to even read this job posting is beyond me. Secondly, Christchurch is in ruins. The city is smashed and from what I can see from the news the famous Mainland spirit has taken a beating too. I think that in time there will certainly be many Cantabrian engineers looking for pastures new with their families, but right now and for the coming months their skills and abilities are going to be crucial in helping the city recover.

And what of the Manpower Professional office in Christchurch itself? This office is consistently vying with South Auckland for the top performing branch in New Zealand. What would these guys make of this attempt, by their own colleagues “across the ditch”, to lure skilled engineers away from the disaster zone their city has become?

I listened to Mayor Bob Parker on the news last night talking about the need to behave with dignity and respect at this difficult time. Obviously that message hasn’t made it as far as Brisbane yet.

The Future of Recruiting? Predictions from 2004 vs. Realities of 2011

Last night I had an interesting chat with Dave Thomas who is the Chairman of CXC Global Board of Directors, ahead of his visit to New Zealand next week to make some presentations to our recruitment community and leaders. 

Dave is an affable, straight-talking South African / Australian who founded CXC back in the early 90’s by accident.  He started out as an accountant, which he despised, so he thought he would give IT a go, which he rather enjoyed.  Moving to Australia he stumbled across a company managing a payroll system that was not legally compliant with Australian tax laws, much to the shock of the company’s global CEO.

Dave spent 28 years as an IT contractor, travelling the world, before ending up in Australia.  So he reckoned that this, coupled with his accounting background, meant he knew a thing or two about contracting, payroll and different tax laws.  Turns out he was right as the company he started to provide a solution to that original employer now operates in over 30 countries worldwide.  CXC Global looks after self-employed contractors, sorting out their GST, taxes, salary packaging, payroll and all that boring administration stuff that gets in the way of actually doing your job.  This has actually provided a path for small to mid-sized recruitment companies to build their contractor books up too, which is something that has traditionally been hampered by lack of cash-flow and accounting or tax law knowledge.

Anyway, this isn’t a sales pitch for CXC, I’ll leave that bit up to Dave at the end of his presentations.  I’m mentioning it because the actual presentation really caught my eye and is probably well worth the attendance of all you recruitment owners, Directors, and general recruitment futurologists out there.  Here is the outline of Dave’s talks:

“As Dr John Sullivan saw it …5 years on”

In 2004 Dr John Sullivan, a world renown thought leader on strategic talent management and human resource practice, produced a paper “The Future of Recruitment” in which he made interesting predictions on the direction of the recruitment industry. Many of these have come to pass.  

At the time CXC Global ran a series of talks based on Dr Sullivan’s paper, and offered our technology solutions to the recruitment industry at large in preparation of these imminent changes.

Five years on, the face of recruitment has changed and the pace of change is accelerating.  Many agencies have adapted their business model, but is this enough? Is it sufficient to take you to where you want to be in 2020?

 

Putting on my cynical hat for a moment, I thought that 2011 would actually be 7 years on from that 2004 white paper.  And keeping up with the cynical theme, I decided to take a closer look at this white paper to see just how prescient this Sullivan fella really was.  Sure he has some good credentials.  A large body of work on HR Strategy, Recruitment functions, and an unhealthy obsession with Metrics to measure the ROI of everything, which I suppose is just a by-product of his being American.  Looking through ERE.net to get the links to this big article it is clear he is a prodigious writer, commentator and provocateur on all things recruitment, talent and HR.  He is, according to Fast Company magazine, the “Michael Jordan of Hiring”…oh and also a Professor of Management at San Francisco State University.

If you have the time or compunction to read through the entire article I have put the separate links here for your reading pleasure:

The Future of Recruiting Part 1

Part 2: Internal Departmental Changes

Part 3: Internet Recruiting Approaches Will Change

Part 4: Websites Shift to the CRM Model

Part 5: Metrics Dominate Decision-Making in Recruiting (see – told you so)

Part 6: Recruiters Will Change

I have to say it makes an interesting read, although obviously far more aligned to the US business style and recruitment approaches than ours here in Australasia.  But he made some big calls back then.  Try these out for size:

“Junior Recruiters.  Since managers using self-service tools will do the most recruiting, the few recruiters that remain on staff will be experienced recruiting consultants who will focus only on key hires”

Has this come to pass?  Demand for my services certainly hinges around finding more experienced recruiters and I get a sense that the days of filling recruitment agencies with young, energetic, have-a-go Graduates has shifted to a slightly more mature culture.  But is this really sustainable as the talent shortages start to really bite later on this year?

“Brand Manager.  As recruiting strategies shift away from short-term “paperwork” solutions (such as running ads or going to job fairs) and towards the ultimate long-term answer – a strong employment brand – the employment brand manager will become the most important position in recruiting.”

 

Bingo.  Although many New Zealand companies are still slowly getting to grips with this concept of Employment Branding, great strides have already been taken by the likes of Trade Me, Deloitte, The Warehouse, Air New Zealand and Counties Manukau District Health Board.

“Changes in Candidates Will Dramatically Impact Recruiting:  Resume Spamming.  Candidates can use software to continuously submit their resume to every possible job”

 

This really made me chuckle.  What foresight and this is a definite blight on the life of recruiters nowadays.  What the good Dr got wrong though, was how the candidates that spammed their resumes everywhere would not gain an advantage by doing this, but would in fact cast themselves in a poorer light in the eyes of recruiters.

“Social network referral systems.  As the popularity of social network systems grows, more recruiters and managers will utilize them as referral sources.  These systems will automatically rate the referrals base on the past referral success rate of the person making the referral.”

 

Hmmm.  An amazing prediction given how LinkedIn was in its infancy back then and Twitter was still 2 years away from even coming into existence.  But I am not convinced we have quite worked out how to use these social network systems as a truly effective referral method yet.  It’s still a work in progress but even in the past few weeks I have started to elicit more business and referrals through this method than ever before – so it’s clearly a hot topic right now.

Anyway, I’ve no doubt this will be an informing, thought-provoking and enjoyable presentation from Dave Thomas and I reckon you recruiters of New Zealand should check it out next week.  Here are the details for Wellington and Auckland:

Wellington – Lunch Presentation

Monday 7th February

12.30pm

Level 16 Vodafone on the Quay

157 Lambton Quay

Auckland – Breakfast Presentation

Tuesday 8th February

7.30am

Mecure Hotel

8 Customs Street

RSVP to kirsty.erasmus@cxcglobal.co.nz

How Effective is Linked In for Recruitment?

I clicked over that holy grail of social media targets this week when my Linked In network exceeded the 500+ mark.  I was quite chuffed with myself.  Social media is a key part of my marketing and branding strategy and, particularly as a recruiter, Linked In is a critical tool in networking with professionals and sourcing candidates for roles with my clients.

Or so I thought.

But having reached this milestone of the digital networking space I thought I would do an audit of my Linked In network and try and assess exactly how effective mine was.  After all, my approach to Facebook and Twitter are at odds to my hunger for connection-building on Linked In.  With Twitter I try and keep the list of people I am following as small and targeted as possible.  Most are involved in the recruitment industry in some way, then there’s a smattering of Arsenal-related tweeps and a couple of other amusing social media types.  But if I am “Followed” by some online hotshot with thousands of Followers of their own and a daily splurge of online diatribe, I won’t automatically “Follow” them back unless I am actually interested in what they have to say.  With Facebook, which I rarely even use these days, my approach is even more at odds with Linked In.  I have always actively sought to keep my network of “Friends” below the 100 mark (which I think it just crept over again recently).  I just think that it is highly unusual you would really have a real-life network of more than 100 friends, so I don’t see the point of treating this differently in the online space.

So how effective is my Linked In network?  Well I am currently up to 506 connections and I was surprised to discover that exactly 100 of these connections are not in any way related to recruitment, which if you’re not aware, is the niche area I recruit for.  I wondered if these 100 people were my Facebook Friends, jumping across to my Linked In realm to try and get noticed by me, because I certainly wasn’t on Facebook!  In fact half of them probably are friends from school, University, football etc, with the rest being made up of pre-recruitment work colleagues, and about 4 or 5 who I have to say I have no idea who they are…!

Still, that means over 80% of my network is directly related to, and mostly currently working within, recruitment.  Which pleases me greatly, as this is the kind of network I am seeking to build, from a professional standpoint.  So okay, I know that if I write a Status Update, or post a link to The Whiteboard, or mention a role I am recruiting for, then lots of recruiters, mostly in the Asia-Pac region, will see it.  Great.  But how do you measure the effectiveness of this?  When all is said and done, the ultimate aim of my business is to place recruiters into roles within the recruitment industry.  So how many of my placements for 2010 can I directly attribute to my Linked In network?

One.

What’s that I hear you say?  Yes…I said…One.  Hmmm.  I joined Linked In in 2007 and have worked hard building my online brand and network.  Many hours would have gone into it over the years.  But was it all really worth it?  Just for one guy to say he had found me on Linked In and me then taking him through to eventual offer and acceptance stage with one of my clients.

As a comparison exactly 50% of my placements for 2010 came via online advertising, mostly on job boards, in particular Seek.  Now I am also happy with this number in comparison to previous years as it used to be a much higher percentage.  Watching the percentage of applicants being placed as a result of online advertising reduce means that a larger proportion are coming to me through word of mouth and referrals.

And I think this is where the intangible benefits of a strong, engaged, Linked In network can really be found.  All of those candidates are connections of mine on Linked In.  Many could have seen my updates and decided it was time to make a move, but applied through my website, for example.  Others were referred to me by colleagues at work, who might have been connected to me on Linked In, but rather than directing them to my Linked In profile took the easier route of just giving them my phone number.

So I have to say I am happy with my Linked In network, with its strength and relevance to my specialist sector, and with my Return on Investment for the hours put into it.  But it seems impossible to scientifically assess its effectiveness in monetary terms.  Okay I can say I have made one placement in one year as a direct approach to me on Linked In.  But my gut feel, my instinct, is that my efforts in the social media space have generated many more word of mouth referrals.  Just don’t ask me exactly how many!

I will leave you today with one final thought that my analysis threw up.  17 of my connections have surnames beginning with “Mc” or “Mac” and all of them, bar one, are in the middle of highly successful recruitment careers, most of them occupying senior positions within the industry.  So if you’re ever unsure about whether to bring someone of Celtic origin into your recruitment team, chances are you should just go for it, they look like they’re made of good stuff!

Destination Talent Awards 2010 – vote for Best Job Board, Recruitment Website and Careers Site

Two themes that have featured quite heavily on The Whiteboard this year have been online Job Boards and Recruitment Industry Awards.  Job Boards are an obvious source of interest to us in recruitment.  96% of Australian and New Zealand recruitment firms post jobs on job boards with 40.2% of talent hired or placed by recruiters being sourced through that channel.  Awards are also an important feature for an industry largely misunderstood by the wider business community and often overlooked as the prominent professional services offering that it is.

So today I’m happy to announce the joyous coming together of these two areas of interest for our industry.  For the first time the Destination Talent Job Board Awards will be featuring a New Zealand category, providing an award that will be sweet jam between the chunky slices of job board and industry awards bread…Ok that’s not one of my better analogies but I have a packed day ahead and really need to get this down!

 

Destination Talent is a hugely respected Australian resource centre for everything to do with recruitment and sourcing of talent.  Earlier this year Philip Tusing of Destination Talent published the Job Board Report 2010 which you can download here.  For those that  like to Tweet, you can follow @JobBoardAwards  @DTalent and @PhilipTusing for further insights.

Other awards for New Zealand include Best Innovation, Best Recruitment Agency Website and Best Employer Career Site.  These are great awards that I encourage you all to get behind.  The face and direction of recruitment is changing quickly.  Of course the essential elements of relationship building, influencing, negotiating and closing will remain the same, but the methods of reaching those stages are undergoing dramatic transformations.  I know of at least five household recruitment brands that have invested heavily in new websites this year and I am also seeing exciting developments coming from the internal recruitment sector by tying their career sites into social media and focussing more on employer branding techniques.

You can easily vote for your favourite job board here with only a couple of mandatory fields to fill in.  And you can go here to nominate your firm or company for best website / career site, as well as nominate for best innovation of 2010.

Australia has its own panel of judges for their awards but here in New Zealand Philip has assembled a crack panel of recruitment industry experts to sift through all of the nominations and decide on the eventual overall winners.  Jonny Wyles from Haines Attract, Kate Billing from Blacksmith and Richard Westney from KPMG will be joined by…*ahem*… me.  So come on you lot, let’s get behind these awards big time and make them a prize to be proud of.

Job Board voting ends on 23^rd January 2011 and entries for the Best Recruitment Website and Best Employer Careers Site close on 16^th January 2011.

Happy voting and good luck.

The Trade Me Jobs Double-Wammy

Is Trade Me Jobs, the self-styled “#1 job board in New Zealand”, having its cake…and eating it?  Certainly that’s the opinion of Absolute IT  Director Grant Burley.

I spoke with Grant earlier this week and he expressed grave concerns at Trade Me Jobs’ practice of placing adverts inside the body of their customer’s job adverts.  If you’re not sure what I’m on about, hop onto Trade Me Jobs  and click into a job ad posted by a recruitment company (I looked in IT and checked out ads from Absolute, Beyond and 920).  In the top-right corner is an advertisement tile which currently seems to be solely the domain of either Open Polytechnic or Fisher Funds, depending on when you happen to upload the screen.

To be fair to Trade Me clicking on the ad doesn’t navigate you away from the screen, but it does open a new window right in front of the job ad that the viewer is supposedly going to be interested in reading and perhaps applying for.   But is this really fair to the advertiser who has paid Trade Me to post their job ad?  Isn’t the revenue from the advertiser sufficient for Trade Me?  Do they really need to compromise the quality of the job ad by distracting the attention of the jobseeker away from the job ad itself?

And a distraction this really will be.  As New Zealand’s biggest web site Trade Me would be the first to tell you that people read web pages left to right, top to bottom.  The greatest number of click-throughs will come from links in the top left corner, followed by the top right corner (where these tiles are positioned), and lastly the bottom right corner (where their paying advertiser’s logos are situated).

I’ve had a look through some other major job boards in New Zealand and Australia and Trade Me Jobs seem to alone in doing this.  I also don’t ever remember seeing a billboard advert with another smaller advert covering part of the main one, or a TV advert with a bit in the corner saying “press the red button to see a message from our other sponsor”.

So is this fair?  Apparently Trade Me Jobs’ response to Grant was that no-one else had complained about it so they didn’t regard it as an issue.  So I thought I would put it out there to The Whiteboard readers to comment on this and express their opinion, for the benefit of Trade Me Jobs if nothing else.

Your thoughts?  Come on don’t be shy…

Lastly, apologies for my absence last week, especially to Chris at DG&A who called me in a panic to see if I was OK as he hadn’t seen my Linked In posting!  The Whiteboard was on holiday while I went to Australia to be the MC at my sister’s wedding.  Two observations about this.  Firstly, Australia has become incredibly expensive since I was there in 2005, well it has in Sydney and the Central Coast anyway.  Secondly, recruitment consultants must make pretty good MC’s, as I spoke to 2 other recruiters last week who were also Master of Ceremonies at various weddings.  Certainly my organisational skills came through when setting out place cards, my assessing the market skills when choosing background music, my negotiation skills when ordering more wine, and my persuasion skills when telling the band to get out of the bar upstairs NOW and play the frickin’ bridal waltz!

And could I close the deal?  You know it – well done sis.