I’m delighted to have been invited to contribute to The Recruitment Network’s new initiative #RecruitmentMeansDiversity which has been designed to shine a spotlight on how the recruitment sector attracts, retains and treats its talent. We are already working closely with The Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative to help to break down the barriers faced by the millions of disabled people who are entering or progressing through the job market and having recently received a highly commended award by ENEI for a diversity and inclusion campaign, it’s an issue close to my heart.

As recruiters you have undoubtedly all utilised social media tools to help build and engage with your current and potential client and candidate communities - but how many of you have thought of it as a key element of your reputation management? Let’s take the example of a disgruntled or extremely happy client – if they communicate their experience to others over a coffee then the spread of that message will be quite slow. But with social media those messages can be amplified on an exponential level. If you doing nothing else with social media you should at least be using it to listen because as well as being an amplifier, it is also an enabler. If you can hear what those people are saying about you over their coffee – then you can do something about it!

A bit tongue in cheek this but those of you of a certain vintage will remember a song called Time After Time by Cindi Lauper. There was a great parody of this called I'm Billing Time which was aimed at the Legal Profession but it also resonated ( just a little bit) with me. Not with our lovely current clients I hasten to add but a few organisations who never became clients over the the years who haven't quite got what we do. So all together now - to the tune of Time After Time: Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick and think of you Caught up in your campaigns insomnia is nothing new Downstairs at midnight - its coffee time Read a briefcase of documents - I'm billing time Sometimes you call me up and beg me for free advice You're stealing from me and wondering why I'm not nice My mind, my time... are my merchandise Don't make me say this twice If you come to my office or call my phone - I'm billing time If you stop me at parties to whine or moan - I'm billing time

As it is International Women's Day - and never one to shirk controversy, I thought this may be an apt post for today. It was prompted by some interesting research I came across from one or our business education clients which suggests that women are under represented in high paying jobs not because of discrimination - but because they are not applying for them. Professor Roxana Barbulescu, of the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, says “Women are taking themselves out of the running for certain jobs. When they evaluate different possible career tracks they already have the assumption that their applications may be unsuccessful. This is combined with a preference for jobs with better work-life balances and a lack of identity with more stereotypically masculine jobs, such as you may find in the finance industry. In a sense they pre-empt what they think the employers’ decision will be, and opt-out first. ”

I was talking to a fellow business owner the other week and he was bemoaning the fact that he couldn't afford to put a decent employee benefits package together. "It's so difficult to compete with the big guys when they have their gym memberships, private healthcare and big employee engagement programmes." I asked him what he did to engage his employees - he said "well nothing - as I've said, I can't really afford it." This surprised me. I'm not going to pretend I am some great benevolent employer but there are lots of small things a business can do to make their employees feel valued and engaged. For one thing we always buy a birthday present and a card for our staff, we buy ice creams when it's hot; we are really flexible when it comes to people needing to come in late or leave early and when our four graduates passed their induction we bought them chocolate Olympic medals. We also invited then all to dinner the day before they started so we could all get to know each other. We close for Christmas week and give away a few extra days of holiday rather then making staff take it out of their allowance. We also give staff £50 when they join to buy a picture for our meeting room - so that there's a bit of everyone's personality in there - as well as something to remember people by if they leave.

I bought the last copy of The News of The World last Sunday. Not because I supported the paper in any way shape or form but, from a professional point of view, I wanted to own a piece of publishing history. I can't remember a time in my whole life ( almost half a century) an instance of a newspaper closing down in the midst of such a scandal.