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.

PR absolutely can and absolutely should be measured. Know what your objectives are. You need to have something to measure against – and so you need context. Do you need more candidates or clients – and where? In a particular sector or geography. Do you need more people to work for you? Do you want to raise you profile as a thought leader? Don’t just share the same message across all channels, think about what you are looking to achieve and the best way to do this using each channel.

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!

The recent story of Richard Ross falling off the Sunday Times Rich List because he gave away 25% of his wealth to good causes should be a lesson to us all. Giving makes you feel good and while many will say that he could well afford his philanthropy, everyone has the ability to give something of value - even if it is just a good deed. At BlueSky, we like to feel good - and we like our staff to be able to feel good which is why we have decided to undertake a certain amount of pro bono work. There are two projects underway at the moment: The Give Something Back Competition Our business education practice has just launched a really innovative competition for any business school student - or group of students. The idea is that they pitch an imaginative, but robust project designed to improve the lives of disadvantaged people anywhere around the globe. It could be a social enterprise, an educational programme or a humanitarian undertaking. The winner will get 1.5 days of practical PR & media relations support from us per month for six months. And this isn't just a pie in the sky idea. Having worked with business schools the world over, one thing we have learned is that their students often come up with some of the most interesting and innovative ideas to help others in society. From the MBA student who set up a fashion business to help struggling communities in the wake of the Haitian earthquake in 2010, through to the Masters in Management student working to reduce snake bite deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa, we’ve had the privilege of working with a number of exciting projects. We know there are hundreds of great social projects being initiated every year – but that many will get very little attention outside of their immediate communities. We hope to change that and look forward to helping a worthy project get as much press as possible.

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.