Creatures of Habit
For as long as I can remember, the same topics and issues present themselves as one year finishes and another begins.
Television and radio is largely to blame.
It’s the time of year I find very difficult to engage with. This is because I’m a non-conformist. I don’t like to conform to the external pressures and suggestions by media.
Advertisements for supermarkets and their Christmas fayre, brimming with a hundred ways to add a stone in a week, are constantly on our screens before Christmas. These highly charged advertisements create a desire to purchase things you don’t really need or would ever buy at any other time of the year. Consequently, supermarkets are clogged with shoppers and their over-filled trolleys.
The best part is that we are back in the shops within two days doing the same thing! Just in case the fridge is not quite as full as you’d like, the shops reopen and we can now fill the small spaces available between the silver wrapped Turkey and ham.
In case you are unaware of when Christmas actually finishes, it’s usually about the time when you start hearing about healthy eating and weight loss programs on TV.
Usually someone has created a video or written a book about losing weight, or how to shed those pounds!
Gymnasiums see a spike in membership growth during January. Is this a consequence of eating too much or is there a bigger picture with partners wishing to stay away from each other having been confined in one space for a few days?
Most people who join a health club in January, fail to attend regularly for the rest of the year.
Recruitment is no different. New year, new job. Why?
Surely the motivation to change jobs has nothing to do with Christmas or the New Year, other than of course, the usual heavy bombardment of advertising by popular Jobs Boards hoping to attract new candidates.
Psychologically, does a New Year kick-start us into thinking that your current job has expired? Does it fill you with dread, returning to work after the forced break?
In housebuilding, I can understand some of the reasons why there are opportunities in January that weren’t available in December. These openings are usually as a consequence of a financial goal, i.e. half-year or full year trading.
When people sign up to achieve a certain target or goal they are fired if they don’t reach it some cases.
When you look for a job at the beginning of the year, there is far greater competition.
Recruiters who work on a contingency model, list as many jobs as possible to attract candidates.
This means that you have much greater competition than ever before and for the employer, it’s Russian roulette, as the same candidates will be sent to every employers vacancy they are working on.
From an employers perspective, when your inbox becomes full of CVs, sent speculatively or otherwise, just remember that the same CVs have been sent to most other companies in your sector.
As an employer, you’re now competing against all other employers, who may or may not consider the same candidate.
Just to frustrate things further, the same candidate is likely to be sent by several contingency recruiters hoping for a fee by ‘going fishing’ with the candidate’s CV.
It’s a messy business.
One simple way to avoid the crowd is the deal with someone like me.
All appointments are exclusive and retained.
This means that no one else will be handling the vacancy and I would have been paid partially upfront for conducting a thorough market search and shortlisting the most appropriate candidate for the job role and culture of employer.
You would be presented to an employer in a shortlist of no more than three candidates.
The employer is guaranteed to appoint one of the three candidates, because all shortlisted candidates have been met, interviewed thoroughly by someone who understands your job role as well as you and shortlisted appropriately in a professional manner.
To make life easier, interviews are usually conducted out of hours near your home, within a nice hotel serving good coffee.
Long-term relationships are built on trust.
This is my 15th year of headhunting following a decade in Housebuilding at director level.
Traditional service in the modern manner.
Happy New Year everyone. I hope I can be of service to you at some stage in your career.
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