It pains me to report that life for recruiters in our capital is set to get worse before it gets any better. This week, it was bought to my attention that not content in forcing recruiters to work to the dismal rates of the new(ish) AoG contract, a number of Government Agencies are going down the Auckland Council route, with at least two new “sub panel” RFPs issued. These government agencies, seemingly desperate to please a bald man who wants to control the contents of your womb, are now attempting to squeeze more blood from the stone by asking recruitment firms to drop their pants once again ..read more

We’re all mature enough to admit that sometimes nothing beats being handcuffed to a bedpost and spanked by a friend, colleague, or loved one. Not all handcuffs provide stressed-out recruiters with kinky relief however. Some bind us to doing jobs we really don’t want to be doing. Actually, it’s not just about volition. Some handcuffs keep us in jobs we’re not actually suited to; preventing us from reaching our true potential. And yet we sit there, year after year. The obvious example of this is the much-maligned “golden handcuffs”. On the face of it, golden handcuffs seem a very “first world pr ..read more

It’s been a week here at Rice & Co. Claudia is attacking the agency rec to rec desk like a woman possessed. We made a big placement which will set tongues a-waggin’ across the industry. And I received a call that vindicates the many hours I spend writing opinionated nonsense like this every Friday morning. It was actually a voicemail from one of New Zealand’s most successful entrepreneurs that I’m referring to. It turns out that a non-recruiter happened to be googling “internal recruitment headhunting” and lo and behold, who’s blog should the Google gods serve up to them? You guessed it. A ..read more

I’m currently being lied to by a candidate. If they know I know they’re lying, I don’t know, but I suspect they do. Or maybe they don’t and are living in hope that I am stupid. For now I’m happy to be perceived as stupid as I’m enjoying watching this play out. I also like the candidate so I want to give them as much opportunity as possible to ‘fess up. A reputation as a teller of tall stories is a hard one to shake. Perhaps impossible in very small recruitment community. People lie to recruiters all the time of course. In my experience, it’s rarely out of malice. Sometimes it’s done under the ..read more

I, like Jesus, have been thinking on the topic of forgiveness. As recruiters, we operate in a world where we expect a fair amount of forgiveness aimed our way. Running a busy desk makes us slow to respond. And sometimes we plainly forget. We now also live in a world where candidates contact us through about 15 different digital channels, and it’s too easy to forget about that Facebook message a candidate sent us at 11pm last night. We’re also motivated by money and encouraged to hit all sorts of weird and wonderful KPIs- many of which cause us to act like total bell-ends. For this, and multipl ..read more

4 hours sleep means a thankfully short blog from me today. My lack of sleep is of course due to last night being the night of New Zealand’s premium Recruitment networking event, the Rice PowWow. Now call me biased, and you can enjoy your Meetups, but nothing beats a PowWow when it’s on the form of last night. Recruitment heavyweights not limited to Lisa Cooley, Simon Rooney, Lee Marshall, Troy Hammond, Matt Bartlett, James Brooke, Emma Scott, the Lloyd clan, Al Shorten, and even that miserable, skinny, tee-totaller, Geordie Dave Girdlestone were all in attendance to find out what this Recruitm ..read more

I’ve been thinking about “isms” this week. No, not prisms, organisms, or specialisms. More so sexism, racism, ageism, and..errm..homophobia-ism. It’s always difficult to write a blog about isms however, especially when you fit squarely into a demographic which has never been on the receiving end of one. I’m an (annoyingly) middle-class (disputedly) middle-aged (slightly suntanned) white (mostly) heterosexual male. One misplaced phrase, or an inappropriate joke, could see me cancelled. Well, given I’ve been cancelled publicly many times before, and I think my sentiment is in the right place, I ..read more

I’m trying to get myself an au pair currently. I say “myself”, but of course I mean “my family” as single men can’t get au pairs. I know because I tried back in 2014 and they almost called the police. Being an agency owner myself, I saw the value in using an agency to help find someone who would be living in our house, driving our car, and looking after our daughter for the next 6-12 months. It’s kind of a big deal. After a few recommendations, I found an agency, created an online profile, and spent over an hour answering the world’s longest questionnaire. It asked my job, my partners job, the ..read more

If you spend any amount of time on LinkedIn, you’ll see that Recruitment Consultants are almost universally disliked. Recently I’ve spent a bit of time dealing with other industries who are also perceived as being awful. Here’s my ratings: Real Estate Agents I’ve just sold and bought a house, so this one is fresh. Recruiters are often put in the same category as real estate agents, but I think they’re a slightly different breed. Real Estate Agents typically work on a commission-only basis, and commission-only brings out the very worst in people. For this reason , they are almost always worse t ..read more

Happy New Year one and all. Or “HNY” as people tend to type these days. This is not to be confused with “HRNY”, although if you do receive a text saying this, your New Year will start happier than most. I’m actually on leave this week, but the nature of a weekly recruitment blog means that I’m either selflessly giving up my holiday to blog for your entertainment, or using this as an excuse to hide away from the extended family who have descended on Casa Walters over the break. You can be the judge. In reality, when you’re on the tools, it’s not always possible to step away from the desk when y ..read more