Most of my candidates know me.  We have a good relationship. You build trust over time but people buy into people and if (as a recruiter) you are genuine, have good opportunities, are honest and communicate really well, you'll do alright, better than alright.  I pride myself on getting back to…

I think that as a recruiter, you need to be lots of things.  Whilst what we do isn't rocket science, there are certain skills that will differentiate the good from the bad and the great from the good.  For me, one of the key skills here is the ability to be objective.   So much of recruitment …

It's very difficult really to ascertain what any job is worth in terms of salary.   I always think that we're relatively lucky in the world of advertising and marketing that we make a reasonable amount of money, that there is career progression and that we mostly enjoy what we do too.  Eve…

I'm really very fortunate that it is a rare occurrence for a candidate to get in touch with me shortly after starting in a new role.   No recruiter likes to get into a rebate situation with a client and we genuinely want our candidates to love their new job.

However, it does sometimes happen a…

I thought long and hard about writing a blog about Mental Health.  I was prompted when a candidate who I was pitching a role to asked me what the organisation's mental health policy was.  The recruiter part of me instantly wanted to add the question to the list of 'things not to ask at fir…

I originally had a think about Ghosting as a blog subject because a candidate had told me that she was convinced a couple of recruiters had 'ghosted' her or rather that she thought the roles were 'ghosts'.  I had to do a bit of research - as someone from Generation X, I'm not a…

In the past 6 months, I've seen an increasing number of individuals with longer notice periods than I would traditionally have expected to see.  In the past, only senior agency employees who were critical to the business would have a notice period of longer than one month and it was pretty rar…

I've not blogged for a while about CV mishaps but on a regular basis I find myself rolling my eyes at a new CV in my inbox.  Recent highlights include someone who didn't even remember to put their name on it and don't get me started on the people looking for new rolls working with lots…

I'm a big fan of cycling.  Specifically road and track racing.  Actually triathlon too but in today's blog I'm going to be borrowing one of Sir Dave Brailsford's greatest contributions to the wonderful sport of cycling.  The concept of using 'marginal gains' to succeed has …

I was chatting to a new candidate recently and I'd sent him a shortlist of digital agencies to look at.  The agencies all had live vacancies and so I'd advised him to take a look at the websites and social feeds so that he could get a general idea of the clients and the culture of each age…

Actually, I don't believe that at all but it makes a good Headline. Or at least, it did in the Independent last week (http://ow.ly/fmsO30nJCxi).    The story came about after a young graduate, Olivia Bland had a pretty appalling interview in which she felt that she'd had been grilled and in…

No points today for my hugely imaginative blog topic.  However, I know that traditionally January is a busy time in recruitment and individuals resolve to put right the things that they want to improve in their lives. Unsurprisingly, their job and work life balance is pretty high up on the list of…