Auckland

Emergent SOLD! Guess who bought it…

I have many strange hobbies. I collect knives. I train and teach Aikido. I collect gold and silver bullion. And I stay up until the wee hours watching documentaries on serial killers, fraudsters, forgotten weapons, and unsolved mysteries. Perhaps strangest of all is my addiction to the Companies Office website.…

Sean WaltersSeptember 12, 2025

Employment Human Resources Recruitment

Recruiters, Rivals & the Death Rattle of Desperation

And once again, my hands are tied. This was promised to be a blog with some juicy industry gossip, and it very nearly was. However, after a few conversations yesterday, my editor (I do my own editing) has opted to veto the scoop. The reason: once the dust has settled,…

Sean WaltersAugust 22, 2025

Employment Human Resources Recruitment

Oh! See (G) ya later!

Apologies for the terrible word play, but it is early. Last week I alluded to some big and sad recruitment news, but was asked by people I care about not to blog about it just yet. Demonstrating that I do actually have a heart, the dust has now settled allowing…

Sean WaltersAugust 15, 2025

Employment Job Boards Politics Sourcing Technology

Drowning in a sea of candidates

Although I could use the data generated by our sophisticated CRM, I, like most recruiters, like to rely on a little thing known as gut-feel. Let's be real, who needs solid, defensible, researched and reasoned information, when we can provide anecdotes, hear-say, speculation, and rumour. If you're an agency leader…

Sean WaltersJuly 25, 2025

Recruitment Work

Remote working or not remotely working?

As some may know, I've been overseas for the past month. Mostly a "holiday", it coincides with my wife attending a conference, the societally-imposed guilt she feels to see her family, and some "me time" in both Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpar. As she is sort-of-working, so am I. A…

Sean WaltersJuly 18, 2025

Employment Recruitment Work

Evolve Recruitment: the death knell for Consult?

I had another blog planned for today. However, following some "hot off the press" news, I have become a victim of my own cutting-room floor. Instead of a thoroughly boring blog about the RCSA Awards, today's blog finds us delving into recruitment's newest kid on the block, Evolve Recruitment. A…

Sean WaltersMay 2, 2025

Recruitment

The lost art of the “boozy lunch”

Booze and recruitment have historically gone together like gin & tonic. When I started in this industry, you could not meet a recruiter who was teetotal. Actually, there weren't even occasional or "social" drinkers. Recruiters, like sailors, soldiers, dockers, and the homeless, tended to be habitual binge drinkers, 'cept everyday…

Sean WaltersJanuary 31, 2025

Employment Human Resources Job Boards Recruitment Work

2024: A Year.

I've asked a few recruiters of late how 2024 has been for them, and comments have ranged from "worse than the GFC" to "f*ckin' sh*te mate". Thankfully, it is all but over. SEEK were kind enough to buy me a few beers and some lovely socks this week, and overall…

Sean WaltersDecember 20, 2024

Human Resources Recruitment Work

An alternative guide to surviving the work Christmas party

LinkedIn is currently full of content like this. Typically however, it’s the creation of some poor social media intern hired by a marketing agency hired by an international job board, who is tasked with churning out 500 vanilla words. Given that we can’t afford a social media intern, it will…

Sean WaltersDecember 13, 2024

Employment Recruitment

The weird world of “Rec-to-Rec”

Regular readers and ex-girlfriends will know that I like things to be slightly weird. Perhaps it was this innate desire to stray from the norm which caused me to turn my back on the lucrative world of taxidermy and become a recruiter. Not just a recruiter, which is hard enough…

Sean WaltersSeptember 13, 2024