Hello everyone. As you may have noticed, I took a little break from the blogging world in 2009. It wasn't that I didn't have anything interesting to say, life got busy and I simply stopped making the time. The good/bad news is that I am back.....and I have so much to talk about!!

Let's start 2010 off right, with 10 recruitment trend and strategy predictions:

1) The ice is starting to come off recruitment in 2010, but hiring will continue to be conservative over the first 2 quarters. We expect things to pick up considerably in quarters 3 and 4

I am not sure when I first heard about twitter, but I do remember the first time I took notice of it.  I signed up to see what all the buzz was about, next thing you know I am following Shaq/Shaquille O’Neal (famous basketball player).  I am following along with Shaq as he struggles through a new diet, laughing at the fact he slips once in a while and indulges in a cinnamon bun or 2.  Recently, Shaq announced that he was at a certain Starbucks and that he would give his game basketball tickets away to the first person that asked him for then.  That’s when the penny dropped for me, and I recognized Twitter’s tremendous potential and power as a recruitment vehicle.  Your first reaction might be....who cares? As recruitment professional you should care, and here’s why.

The Conference Board of Canada laid out a grim outlook for employment for this year and next last week, saying the Canadian economy fell "off a cliff" in the first three months of 2009. The Board is predicting that unemployment in Canada will steadily rise this year, and peak at 9.5 per cent in the middle of 2010. The March Statistics Canada 2009 numbers seem to support the Board`s forecast, confirming that the unemployment rate was up 0.3 percentage points to 8.0%, the highest rate in seven years.