Up at 6am for my Monday morning call with New Zealand. My client, based in Auckland, is a software developer who wants to start up an office in Sydney. I’m helping them recruit a country manager and a sales person to get things rolling. I’m struggling to find some good candidates and the NZ CEO is coming over next week to start interviewing. I tell them they’re going to have to offer more money. Client not happy to budge and tells me to keep looking. Bit of a gloomy start to what looks like being a long week.

Breakfast meeting in the city with a potential new client. I’ve had a lot of these over the past 5 years when I decided to start my own outsourced HR consulting business after 20 years in corporate. Naively, I thought I’d be spending nearly all of my time solving HR issues for a variety of really interesting clients. Reality is I spend about 50% of my time on marketing, 20% on admin and the rest actually doing what I love. A one-man show does have its good and bad points. Anyway, this meeting goes particularly well and I dash back to the office to email out a proposal.

Hang around the office (also my home, close to the CBD) for a few hours answering emails, taking calls and writing my next article for the website. My SEO guy says I need new content every week so I post an HR advice piece about adverse action. Send off the proposal from this morning’s meeting. They’re looking for phone/email support plus an on-site presence every month. I’m expecting a favourable reply but you just never know. Sometimes, you don’t hear back and are left totally in the dark as to why.

This afternoon I’m presenting a paper at an HR conference in the city. They want me to discuss the future of the performance appraisal and present a few alternatives to what we do now. A pet love of mine so I’m really looking forward to being out there in the limelight. They’ve asked me to stay on for drinks and dinner. I’ve said yes even though it’s a bit early in the week for my liking. Still, a great networking opportunity which I’d be crazy to pass up.

Presentation goes really well and I meet some interesting people. Home to bed around 11.30pm. Another early start tomorrow – I urgently need some good candidates for my NZ client and I have to spend most of the day on-site at another client’s in west Sydney.