A real pleasure to have the time to write this week’s blog. Pleasure mixed with a smidgeon of fear as I am under strictest instructions to put pen to paper (well fingers to keypad) by Dita our Marketing Exec. If the deadline was missed I would have been the recipient of some serious glares. On the subject of reproaches I have been given two verbal beat-downs regarding my habit of double spacing in blog content [quick scan through first paragraph to confirm whether adhered to]!

I returned to the UK’s cold and darkness a week ago, having enjoyed a relaxing break. My wife and I spent a deliciously long fortnight down in Cape Verde, where the weather was a constant 26 degrees and the sun did not set till getting on for 7pm.

The pleasure mentioned in the blogs opening line is that it is tremendous that I can go away for a fortnight (and turn the iPhone’s emails off) confident in the ability of our team to continue servicing accounts, getting candidates jobs, and let’s not beat around the bush: making money.

The guys are absolutely flying at present; thankfully we seem to be ploughing through any pre-recession jitters. Q4 is traditionally a slow one, and if we can bounce in a good Q1 we will be in a position to face a potential recession with a solid secure base.

At present Alex (and Steven) are spending vast chunks of most days in the meeting room with staff options of varying quality. I tend to get invited in at the end of the process to either be a good cop or bad cop with the final few questions!

We are recruiting for three staff, two due to expansion of the team, and one to replace James who after 2 ¼ years with us has moved to Manchester, and I wish him luck with his new employer Experian for whom he is sure to do well. Some of the graduate level recruitment options on the market are (putting it bluntly) the remainder of the 2011 crop who have been left on the shelf, and other options are strong recruiters who have been made redundant by other agencies. In particular we have seen three people who worked for agencies focused on the Financial services sector, the city seems to be cutting back on recruitment already.

In a round about way when I first started tapping away I wanted to blog about benefits of getting a bit of rest, I certainly feel much better for my holiday. Indeed I am probably remiss that with the company approaching five years trading (in March) Alex and myself have each only taken a solitary holiday of over a week. In recruitment if a consultant is to do well they invariably are in earlier than 9am, and still working away gone 6pm. The iGaming industry in particular also has lots of evening networking requirements, so we all tend to work longer hours than the typical man on the street.

There is no purpose in burning yourself out, and I certainly can’t wait for my next holiday, and will encourage the team to make sure they also get some stamps in their passports. One of the team won our £2000 holiday prize, so he won’t have any trouble getting somewhere nice!

On a last subject of holiday, my better half found the hotel a little large, indeed with 1000 rooms it did get somewhat busy on occasion, with ICE coming up in January I found it a warm up for the biggest few days of the iGaming calender.  See you there.

Chris