Wakey Wakey

The good thing about flying over from New Zealand the day before is that you can wake up at some ungodly hour in Sydney and actually feel like you’ve had a bit of a lie-in. So here I am all chipper, bright and breezy and looking forward to the start of the Sourcing Summit later today. I’ll also be the one look pale, dishevelled and haggard by around 5pm later, as a consequence!

I noticed a Tweet from Philip last night declaring he was in name tag hell. Is that when you’re at a convention and you keep getting greeted by people who claim to know you well and you can’t for the life of you remember their name? But no matter how cunningly and surreptitiously you try glancing at their name tag you can never quite make out their name? Then finally you find yourself in a position where a new person joins the group and the conversation pauses while they wait for you to introduce them to each other, because you’re supposed to know them both? Come on, you’ve all been there right?

Anyway, I hope Philip managed to claw his way out of his name badge purgatory because I quite liked the idea of having three conversation starters on the tag, of things you’re keen to discuss. Oh, and just because mine says Football, doesn’t mean I want to hear about Chelsea from you Damon Klotz!

And what to attach it to? Being a fairly standard recruiter I packed my usual suit and shirt combos for this trip. You know the dark suit that denotes you as a recruitment consultant the world over? But looking at some of the job titles of others attending today I’m starting to wonder if I might end up being overdressed. I mean, people like Talent Strategists, Employer Branders, and Social Media Strategists conjure up images in my mind of rockstar T-shirts, beanie hats, mammoth headphones and phat trainers propelling along teeny little micro-scooters en route to the next tweet-up.

Oh well, time will tell, and I look forward to meeting you all later. I’ll be the one in a dark suit mumbling to myself about Arsenal.

Jonathan Rice