An update as the lockdown begins to ease

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Then, all of a sudden, on went the breaks. Not gently, like full emergency stop. Any Financial Services recruiter that tells you otherwise is being “economical” with the truth.

By Jim Gervaise-Brazier

2020 will go down, like 2008, in the history of recruitment as the year that made us think “We didn’t know that we were born”.  I remember the day in 2008 when the phones just stopped, then candidates started calling and calling but there was nothing to tell them, jobs had dried up and they weren’t coming back for a long time.  Things seem, thankfully, different this time.

This thing arrived completely out of the blue, we were having the best year that I had seen since 2006, 2020 was looking great! Then, all of a sudden, on went the breaks. Not gently, like full emergency stop. Any Financial Services recruiter that tells you otherwise is being “economical” with the truth. Processes were put on indefinite pause in most cases.

Then something happened, the phone didn’t stop, people were still willing to talk to me – even more than usual in fact! People are genuinely keen to network, to find out what is going on and to see how this terrible COVID-19 is affecting our lives. I have talked to CEOs about my daughter’s day time napping schedule, COOs about my cats eating habits, and candidates and clients about their day to day lives in more detail than ever before. Genuine relationships were being, and continue to be, built.

The truth is we are all in this together, this isn’t good for anyone, there are no winners but this time it is nobody’s fault.  As the lockdown starts to ease and the new normal, whatever that means, begins to happen I hope that this genuine camaraderie continues.

Thank you to my employers at Ad Idem Consulting who have never once expected the completely impossible, and thank you to everyone who has given me an ear when things have been tough and there has seen like there won’t be an end to this. I hope that I have managed to be a comfort to some others who have been feeling the same.

Things are starting to creep very slowly towards normal, interviews are starting to happen – I placed three people last week remotely. Let’s continue in business the way we have all been during lockdown. Let’s keen talking and we will get through this!

Drop me a line jimgb@adidemconsulting.co.uk and we can organise a chat about future roles, or even just about the weather, or your kids, or your family, I look forward to hearing from you.

Someday later this year or early next, we will look back and say “what the hell just happened!”.  It’s a good time to talk strategy – what if, talk through a variety of scenarios to sense check business in the new norm!

Jim Gervaise-Brazier