I have the time because I am not a CV merchant - I have strong client relationships, often for very niche roles, and work smart as well as hard. It is important in my line of work to be 'out there' listening to people and the market, discerning trends etc. Sp I make the time to contribute to this board almost daily as part of my networking, intelligence gathering, and for some light relief and quick witted exchanges! I don't believe we are sliding into catastrophe - the central banks have acted quickly and fairly aggressively to stop the domino effect caused by the recklessness of the IB sector's CDO mess, MCs are still hiring as is - importantly - industry; you only need to look at topconsultant to see that advertising remains robust and the major MCs are still recruiting. What is more retail seems to be holding up, which is always a good indicator. Put it this way - I recently purchased a new vehicle, and my dealer is flat out with sales much earlier in the year than would usually be the case, several of my colleagues have recently bought property, and my clients are on the phone asking for advice about how to leverage more from their hiring pipeline, how to design some roles for more senior team members to motivate and retain them, usual issues really but underlining the core confidence in the market. It's just more newsworthy to talk about Northern Rock, SG etc, but these are abberational - so much so that a run on NR caused outrage and immediate talk of stagflation etc. While everyone is TALKING about it, debating it, questioning where we are going over the next 2 - 3 years, everything is ok; it's when people stop talking about it, take it for granted, it's old news, that we have to worry imho. Because by that point we are already there and it has become a fact of life.So I make the time to contribute to this forum, and if I can give some people at a cross roads in their career the benefit of some objective overview - hopefully with some amusing stuff - then so much the better.
