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Recruitment

ANZAC Hangover…Is Anyone Recruiting Out There?

By April 25, 2013One Comment

Welcome to another Friday Whiteboard and I hope you all had an enjoyable ANZAC Day off yesterday.  I received an offer for a candidate which wasn’t entirely expected on a public holiday, but there you go, always recruiting and all that.  I made the call before 1pm too so hopefully the little recruitment stall at the end of my driveway won’t be shut down for breaching trading laws.

And no, the title of this post isn’t as a result of a day spent sculling tea at a dawn parade followed by an alcohol-fueled two-up binge down the nearest pub to the town memorial…

Truth be told I’m actually heading up North for a spot of far-too-late-in-the-year camping with some friends that seemed like a really great idea back in February when we were cruising around in the uber-summer we’ve recently farewelled.  Where did it go?  Why must it always leave us *sob*.  So anyway… I’m leaving early Friday and this post is being written on Thursday afternoon and being the diligent blogger I am not a drop of alcohol has passed my lips.  Yet.  Maybe the title will prove highly prescient after all…

No the hangover I’m referring to is the fact that, like your common American Thanksgiving, this year’s ANZAC Day has fallen on a Thursday leaving this week’s Friday loitering around at the end of the working week, all alone and isolated and getting up to all sorts of mischief.  And like happens in America every year approximately nothing at all gets done on the Friday following said public holiday, with most people taking advantage of the opportunity to enjoy a 4-day weekend.

So I am guessing, and hoping, that not too many will be reading this today in recruitment.  Unless you work for a large global brand with a US or UK head office who probably regard ANZAC as some absurd pagan ritual that can be tolerated for one day only, enforcing everyone’s presence the Friday after.

But if you are at your desk today, I applaud your commitment to the cause / lack of forward planning [delete as appropriate].  I’m sure the silent phone on your desk and e-mail inbox receiving new mail at the rate of a slowly dripping tap will give you a chance to finally catch up on everything at long last.  And then you can sneer smugly my way on Monday.

At least your clients’ phones ringing through to voicemail and not returning your messages can be put down to a probable long weekend rather than the recruiting-avoidance many of us have experienced over recent years.

If you are at work today here’s a cartoon for you to enjoy and while away a couple more moments:

More prescience on my part?  I certainly hope so.  Things do seem to picking up out there New Zealand – can you feel it?

Have a great weekend and please don’t call me on Monday…I’ll have way too much to catch up on!

 

Jonathan Rice

Director of New Zealand rec-to-rec firm Rice & Co, co-founder of freelance recruiter platform JOYN, and people-centric technology firm superHUMAN Software. Recruitment innovator, agitator and frustrated idealist, father of two, husband of one, and lover of all things Arsenal and crafty beer.

One Comment

  • Lisa says:

    hello…anyone out there today?, oh hi Jonathan, glad to see I am not the only ‘fool’ working today…but at least we can play our music in the office real LOUD!