A day in the life of a Rec-to-Rec Consultant
Rice Consulting
by Sean Walters
9M ago
The names in the below blog have been changed to protect the innocent…and the guilty. Screening my recent ad applicants I came across the CV of an experienced recruiter. Believe it or not, in the world of Rec-to-Rec this can be a rare occurrence. Typically, my CRM is filled with moonlighting dinner ladies and South African Karate instructors. Suffice to say, this CV caused a stirring in my loins. Not only is this person (we shall call her Rachael – I’ll explain why later) an experienced recruiter, but she lives in a provincial town where I currently have a red-hot agency vacancy. With slightly ..read more
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Tell me what you want, what you really really want
Rice Consulting
by Anastasia Lee
9M ago
Well, here I am. In the absence of Sean and soon to be Jon, I’m writing the blog.  In the 8+ years I have worked for Rice Consulting, the purist tradition is that ones weekly musings are pounded out the same morning it is published, powwow hangover or not.  Personally, I live in a dictatorship with a 4 year old and Auckland traffic, and I haven’t arrived to work on time work since 2019 so between me and you, I started writing this blog on Wednesday night. Jotting down blog topic ideas in the notes of my phone as I contorted my body around the said (finally asleep) 4 year old ..read more
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WPIs (Weird Performance Indicators)
Rice Consulting
by Sean Walters
10M ago
As of yesterday, it’s official. After two successive quarters of negative GDP growth, Aotearoa is now in the grips of a recession. Well, when I say “grips”, it’s more the kind of “grip” displayed by that unplaceable candidate’s handshake. With unemployment currently sitting at around “nobody”, this feels very much a technical, engineered recession as the Reserve Bank tries to battle inflation which has turned asparagus into a precious metal. Regardless of how we may feel, economic activity meets the metrics and criteria of a recession, so let’s all remember these times so that one day we can t ..read more
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Do you have to be “competitive” to be a Recruiter?
Rice Consulting
by Sean Walters
10M ago
When I get bored of the sound of my own voice, I occasionally ask candidates interview questions. One that I occasionally ask is; “Do you consider yourself a competitive person?”. Why I ask this I don’t know, but I suppose it fills the void of awkward and uncomfortable silence, before I tell them about all of my achievements. Given that agency recruiters live and die by their billing figures, and your performance is solely judged on this number versus everyone else’s number, you may expect the majority of people to say “yes“. In my experience, this is not the case. Anecdotally, less than 50% o ..read more
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Do something different today
Rice Consulting
by Sean Walters
10M ago
Auckland is a difficult place to live currently. No summer, followed by what feels like a lifetime of rain. The whole city turned into a massive building site. 2 hour commutes home into a damp house with a f*cked retaining wall with the warmer months seemingly a lifetime away. Although I typically dislike this shoulder season, this time round it seems especially bad. However, I have my own antidote to the gridlock blues, which perks me up and resets my tolerance for those who can’t drive above 60kmph in light drizzle. This weekend sees me, for one night only, in the home of airborne STIs; Hami ..read more
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The Politics of Headhunting
Rice Consulting
by Sean Walters
11M ago
Although my casual appearance and demeanour may suggest otherwise, I actually started my career in what pompous London Recruiters call “Executive Search”. Back then, there was no LinkedIn, and although Executive Search was positioned (and priced) as something quite classy, the role of a Researcher looked as follows; If we were looking for a Marketing Director for an Insurance Company, I would first use Google to make a list of every financial services company in the UK. I would  then call the switchboard and ask for the name of their Marketing Director(s). They would then say “No sorry, w ..read more
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The Robots really are coming: Recruitment’s biggest leap
Rice Consulting
by Sean Walters
11M ago
Do you remember when we all thought Twitter would revolutionise recruitment? Job boards would die and we’d all be hiring rocket scientists using 240 characters and a clever #hashtag? Or what about the short-lived Google Circles? A complicated Facebook clone where we could keep dick pics and job applications seperate by..well..a circle? Or how about Google Glass? Apparently, we were meant to walk past offices and see what live vacancies they had via some god-awful looking spectacles. Instead, men filmed each other whacking off in public toilets and the whole thing was chucked into the “utterly ..read more
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The phone is dead. And so is everything else.
Rice Consulting
by Sean Walters
11M ago
Regular readers, and those who know me in real life, will know I’m somewhat of a “Champagne socialist”. Growing up in a working-class family in Thatcher’s Britain, this is hardly surprising. However, most of my opinions have been shaped in later life. To explain, I don’t believe that many of us are “self-made”. Although my family wasn’t rich, and in fact, sometimes poor, I wasn’t physically or sexually abused, there was no substance abuse in my immediate household, and we lived in a warm house which my family owned. All this makes me a person of privilege. Compare this to the many who grew up ..read more
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That’s all folks…I think. All of Government Part 7
Rice Consulting
by Sean Walters
11M ago
It was 10.41am yesterday when the text came through. “We got on AoG. Heard of others yet?”. And with this it was done. The fate of many a Wellingtonian recruiter was set to play out over the next few hours. At around 12.15 we heard from the next successful applicant. Another tech recruitment firm. And at 2.41pm another called to confirm that they got the big green tick. This time a larger group. Shortly after we hear of our first rejection. A heartbreakingly brilliant boutique recruiter who works almost exclusively in the Government space. As today pans out, and as perhaps a few beers flow thi ..read more
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The lost art of business development
Rice Consulting
by Sean Walters
1y ago
Last night saw me, courtesy of the nice folks at NZME, at “Fight for Life”; arguably New Zealand’s premier boxing event. I’ve always been a boxing fan, so please excuse me for a slightly cliched  “isn’t recruitment just like *insert sport here*” blog – I drank more than my fair share of wine at the event, so please cut me some slack this morning. For those who don’t know much about the sport, boxing events in New Zealand typically work as follows: A bunch of former League, Rugby, and radio DJs, are pitted against each other, peppered with a smattering of actual professionals who fight eac ..read more
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