Working in recruitment for nearly 3 years has taught me many things. It’s taught me about businesses across Sydney, sales negotiations, hiring trends, job specialisations, the meaning of culture in an office setting, award standards, employee fair work conditions but most of all, it’s taught me about people!

In recruitment we refer to our customers as clients and our prospects as candidates but ultimately they are both people and managing people can be interesting at the best of times.

Alike many hiring managers, being a weekday morning I usually wake to a mixture of messages including:

Hi Rachel, I’m sick & won’t be into work.

Hi Rachel, I’m running late, the bus is stuck in traffic. Please tell the client I’ll be 15 minutes late to my first day.

Hi Rachel, my timesheet isn’t working. Can you please enter my hours for me?

Rachel, my child is sick. Can you please tell Jo?

Rachel, I’ve decided to take another job. I won’t be going into work anymore.

Today was no exception, waking at 6.30am this morning, I had 3 messages from 3 separate candidates about being sick. 1 message from a candidate about running late for her first day of work & 10 messages from the same candidate on 4 different platforms including 4 text messages, 2 emails, 2 system messages and 2 calls to my colleagues chasing me down about a timesheet error.

Whilst I applaud her tenacity to ensure her timesheet was approved on time, I wanted to write this blog to remind candidates that consultants are also people too who outside of work hours also have personal lives.

Chasing consultants regarding job enquiries or for any of the reasons listed above are completely understandable, I just want to remind those who are managed by our temp agency that as a consultant we are available at most times of the day/night for your enquires, but please remember to consider the urgency of your enquiry & the amount of times it’s necessary to chase your consultant about it.