My story is tiny by comparison, but nonetheless has had an enduring effect on my outlook.  I grew up in Airdrie, a smallish mining town, halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh.  We lived in a brand new council estate, and at the age of 5 (in 1971), I duly attended St Dominic’s Primary School.  This school was also brand new, as was the almost identical primary school next door.  Armed with my new uniform, satchel and packed lunch, my first experience of the playground threw up many questions. 

Why is there such a big fence with spikes on top?

Why is there another school on the other side of the fence?

Why are my friends on the other side of the fence?

Why are children on the other side of the fence throwing stones at us?

Why are those people different from us?

Why are we better than them?

Why do they eat frogs? (from a song we used to sing about “them”)

After school, and at weekends, I would still play with my non-Catholic friends, but it was frowned upon.  I could never understand why the authorities saw fit to separate children, and make sure we knew that we weren’t the same as each other. Inevitably each side determines that they are “better” than the other, and focuses on the things that make them different, rather than what makes them the same.  This is unnatural. All kids want to belong.  They want to be the same as everyone else; to fit in.  The other school, Petersburn Primary, was non-denominational, so it was the Catholic Church which had determined that its children would be kept apart, and educated separately from others.  A voluntary apartheid, if you like.

In the West of Scotland, and in Northern Ireland, there are hundreds of pairs of schools which have been built side by side in this fashion.  This is clearly a much more costly option, and could not be any more demonstrably divisive.  Sadly, I know full well that this is unlikely to change anytime soon.  However, there are now brilliant examples of “Joint-Campuses” in new schools being built, where the kids may be educated separately, in different wings of the same building, but share the same playground.  Along these same lines, I would like to see paired schools tear down the fence which separates them.  I suggested this to my sister this week, who also attended the same school.  “There would be mayhem” she replied, ” all the kids would be fighting each other!”  I believe this proves my point.  

Essentially she was saying that, by sending kids to separate schools, we have taught them to hate each other.  I say we are teaching children all the wrong lessons, if we don’t allow them to play together.

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Perms recruiters typically handle 10 to 15 concurrently running recruitment projects, which can each take from 2 to 6 weeks to complete (and only some resulting in a placement).  This individual recruiter focuses on each project in relative isolation, and will work methodically through the steps to completion. Skills required for this role include the ability to think laterally and creatively, like a detective trying to solve a case.  Perms recruiters don't usually display much empathy for candidates, as they will only know them for a short period of time.  Perm recruiters always benefit from taking some "thinking time" during their working day, to conceive of solutions and methods that will help fill a vacancy.

By contrast. Temp recruiters need to consummate multi-taskers.  Everything they do affects everything else.  They are at the centre of a buzzing eco-system of candidates and clients, whom they can get to know very well indeed.  In fact many temp recruiters need to be part social worker and agony aunt to many of their temps.  As the temp recruiter has a direct responsibility for their charges, they can find themselves to be on-call at all hours of the day, and weekends too!

It's clear to me that the personality traits that help to make you a natural perm or temp recruiter extend to other areas of your life, where the same skills can be invaluable 

I should declare myself as a natural perm recruiter.  Whilst I have recruited many professional contractors, and managed teams who at one point employed 2,000 temps assembling PC's for IBM, I never found it to be a good fit.  I much prefer working on projects, seeing them through, and being as meticulously focused on the details.  I could never run a shop, where each day relied upon the adherence to a set routine, in order to succeed.  I do however, have immense admiration for the abilities of Temp Recruiters to always maintain that forward momentum, whilst continually fire-fighting.

Let me ask all the recruiters and former recruiters out there, which are you, Perm or Temp?

What I also soon discovered, was that the more sales I generated, the more my opinion was considered valuable by peers and bosses.  I learned to keep my mouth shut, when performing badly, and to speak freely when exceeding targets.  No-one wants to hear the views of a loser, and winners have the spotlight thrown on them, as an example to other staff.  Looking back from my present vantage point, I know I was an idiot, but at the time I thought I was always right, and people mostly agreed with me. This perceived wisdom extended beyond the workplace, and afforded my other opinions unmerited gravitas, whether it be on business, politics or other matters.  This continued throughout my career as a recruiter.  Swaggering up to the board to record another placement, reinforced my influence in other areas too.

The origins of the Olympic games (bear with me here)  are rooted in the myth of warring nations agreeing to compete for sporting honours, rather than send their citizens to die in battle.  The winning nation therefore, was proven to be superior, and honour was served.  The notion that Might is Right is as old as mankind, and switching from warring superiority to sporting, intellectual or even sales abilities is a natural extension of that.  Didn't the USSR and China assert that their form of communism was proven to be correct, by the number of medals won at the Olympics?  We see the very same tribal assertions in evidence in all sports.  Catholicism is buttressed when Celtic win the league, racism is confounded when South Africa win a rugby match, and being gay is endorsed when Will Young has a number one record.  Winning means you are perceived as being better than the others, and this extends beyond the game or contest itself.  No-one ever enquired after the political opinions of boxers who lost to Muhammed Ali.

Being stronger in the playground certainly meant that you got your own way, but it didn't make you right. The weight of anyone's arguments is never truly augmented by an unrelated talent, skill or physical ability.  If it was, then we'd have Stevie Gerard or John Terry running the country.  Similarly, asking a successful actor her political opinions is akin to challenging David Cameron to a bare-knuckle street-fight.  

So remember, the smartest person in your office may not be the young buck, who's making all the sales.  Might and Right do not always come in the same package.

An embarrassing thing happened to me and a friend last week. Let’s call her Susan, to preserve her modesty.  We have been friends for maybe a couple of years, and enjoyed a few beers and laughs at various networking events and conferences.  We even play Scrabble online (I know - how decadent).

From the very start, whenever Susan saw me, she would give me a kiss on the lips.  I initially thought this was peculiar, but didn't want to say, so it continued until last week at TRULondon.  We had just done the "kiss", and someone beside us remarked on it.  I then said that Susan was the only one who kissed me like that, other than Luciana (my wife). Susan said she thought that’s how I always kissed when meeting people.  I replied, “No, I thought it was your thing, I was only being polite”. Well, it turns out she was only being polite too, and didn't like to say either!  By this time, we were both blushing with embarrassment.

It seems the very first kiss must have been an accident, when going for a cheek, and missing the intended target.  To break the awkwardness I kissed Susan on both cheeks, and we agreed never to speak of it again.  Whilst it doesn't usually become an ongoing "thing", like this example, it's often so simple to misread the body language of a fellow greeter, and find yourself going for a shake, when they are going for a hug-slash-kiss, and you end up falling over one another and getting slobbered on the ear!  If I've ever done this to you (and I've definitely done it to some), then I apologise profusely.  Louise Triance tells me she almost planted a full-on smacker on Dan McGuire last week. (Nae luck Dan) 

I do think that women are unfairly disadvantaged in these exchanges.  Whilst us chaps can get away with a firm handshake, or a variation on that theme, I've witnessed the implied obligation for women to offer a kiss and a hug.  This surely must make some women retch and gag at times, at the sight of some grotesque businessman bearing down on them.

Perhaps I'm just a big square, and I need to loosen up.  My in-laws are Italian, so I've become used to kissing men on either cheek, but I must confess to it being very weird to begin with. I definitely squirm when I see parents kissing their children on the lips at the school gates - bleurgh!

I do still think we should maintain some decorum, when greeting professionals in a professional environment, who aren't your close friends.  For example, if I meet Ann Swain, whom I don't know that well, there seems to be an implied expectation of a kiss and a hug, when I just want to shake her hand.   You know when people give you a hug, and hold you a little longer than necessary?  I've occasionally had that from some candidates I've interviewed - very awkward.  I really don't mind being tactile (in fact I perhaps go further than most) but I don't like the expectation of it with relative strangers.

So in closing, if the next time I meet you, I don't lift you off the ground in an embrace, and spin you around, don't take it personally.  A solid handshake speaks volumes, and is more than enough.

In every job board, there are three interested parties; those who run the board itself, the job advertisers (employers and recruitment agencies) and candidates.  Candidates may feel that it is they who are looking for jobs, but the truth is that they are the quarry  Searching for a job has always been a difficult and arduous task, fraught with so many unknowns, old-wives tales, bias, discriminations and inefficiencies.  It was always hard to know quite what to do, and where you were in the process.  Whilst anyone who can use a mouse can now apply for many more jobs than ever before, I believe the current system has not made things easier or less frustrating. 

Whilst you can apply to 50 job ads in an afternoon, you can also find that each of these adverts is ultimately for the same job; assigned to multiple agencies, who each advertise it on multiple job boards, and never mention the identity of the employer.  Because of the immense volumes of jobs, candidates and applications, many job boards make a point of concealing their own telephone number, which a candidate might try to use to get some human advice.  When the application process is often, in the eyes of the jobseeker, automated, impersonal, and unyielding, is it surprising that they seek a little reassurance from a human voice? Candidate forums can be good, but they can’t refer to specific vacancies.  A number for the recruitment agency would be good, but these are often not given for the same purpose.

I’ve said this a few times recently – I believe 2012 will be the year of the API.  For the uninitiated, the API is the technology which allows separate networks to connect, and share information. *

This week I tried registering with some of the UK’s largest job boards, to see how they were embracing the popular social media platforms.

• Jobsite allows you to select one social link from a list of platforms. This is then available to any job advertiser, who views your profile and online CV.
• Totaljobs allows you to add Linkedin and Twitter links.
• Monster doesn’t appear to offer this option, even though it has the most apparent social media play, in the form of Beknown.

Why is login security so strict with job boards?  Every major job board I registered with insisted upon at least an 8 character password, including letters AND numbers.  Not only that, one of the big three refused my chosen password, which met their criteria, and three times deemed it to be too weak!  Frankly, I have logged into some internet banking services more easily than this.  Seriously, whilst all online security is important, why is this more stringent than Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter?  Job boards would really be doing themselves a big favour if they adopted OAuth, and allowed candidates to login with their choice of social media profile.

Linkedin has over 5 million CV’s in its database in the UK, and they're all open to the public.  “Aha,” you say, “but those people aren’t all actively looking for a job”. Oh aren’t they? And I suppose the 4 million or so CV’s on each of the major generalist job boards are all active candidates too?  No, of course they aren’t, as those databases have accrued over years; and even those refreshed regularly will contain a significant number who are now off the market for a variety of reasons.  So how does a job board market its CV database in this climate?  As many job boards now allow candidates to import their Linkedin details, will they allow the reverse to occur?

We are living in very interesting times.  The recruitment sector is evolving at a rate of knots. I don’t claim to have the answers to these questions, but I will be very keen to discuss them in my track at #TRULondon on Thursday 23^rd February.  I look forward to seeing you there.

*PS. My favourite acronym is TWAIN. It's the technology which allows scanned image material to be converted to digital files on computers.  It stands for Technology Without An Interesting Name. And yes, I did use the image at the top of this page last year.  So shoot me.