600 things; 10 Memories of an Ancient Recruiter (circa 2000)

In a slight change to format, but one which I think you’ll enjoy, Wayne Barclay shares his memories of the good old days as part of the 600 Interesting and Useful Things for Recruiters series.

I used to be a recruiter. In 2000 I left the safe zone of being a sabbatical officer for Bradford Uni (Treasurer for 2 years running – and yes I had the strapline “You can always bank on Barclay”!).  My most important achievement? I set the beer prices.

I joined a (then) well-known recruitment firm because I wanted to achieve world peace – actually I was promised stupidly high commission rates and a work-hard-play-hard culture. I’d been at uni for 6 years and this new job seemed just the ticket.

These days I work as a consultant to the industry and boy have things changed. I often work with younger recruiters and they have no idea how much tech they have access to in comparison to what I had in my day.  So here goes…

1. No computer – rolodec and telephone sellotaped to hand (this is not a metaphor!)
2. One administrator working for 20 consultants – it took a day to organise sending an email to a client (if you were lucky)
3. Getting my first BlackBerry and thinking that I was the bees knees (it was actually purple and had a dial to flick through numbers!)
4. Hours were 7-10 and I’m not talking am-am.
5. Coloured shirts with white cuffs and collars – they came back in recently!
6. Making a pass at my boss (and it really back fired!)
7. “Get on the phone” was standard comms.  
8. I needed two vacancies and two send outs a day or words were said
9. 35% fees!! I bought a hifi with my first fee!
10. Work nights out were very sordid! Ah, those were the days!

Dare I say that recruiters today don’t know they were born? How long have you been in recruitment? Any funny / not so funny stories to tell about “the good old days”