Times have truly changed. While I've been writing this blog, the internet at people2people has been down for several hours and things have almost ground to a halt (an ISP issue!!). Gone are the days where phone lists, candidate profiles and even business development was limited to hard copy lists and the trusty telephone. Fast forward fifteen years, and recruitment, like all industries, has turned digital.

This has resulted in faster and more efficient ways to recruit through email, social media and our trusty smart phones. New and experienced recruiters alike are being taught how to harness the power of the internet to find undiscovered talent, especially through social media. However, today we are truly experiencing the repercussions of relying solely on a working internet connection.

Currently, our work is restricted to using previously printed lists of candidate and client contact details to make general, albeit proactive, business development and 'keeping in touch' calls. Usually, we record the content of all calls on the database for future reference.

Today, we are making manual notes with a view to having a data entry drive when the internet is back up.

Despite our name, people2people, we rely very heavily on email – or at least our client and candidate pool do. Without access to email and the internet, our world has slowed to a pace that is difficult for some to handle. It has, however, given us the chance to catch up on tasks we keep putting off, and write a few blog posts! Postscript: we were back up and running after thirty hours, the longest we have been down in our eleven year history. Totally out of our control and just a little bit frustrating!!