I couldn’t believe my eyes last week when I saw the Spotlight feature in your careers pages (Spotlight on Christmas recruitment, Personnel Today, 5 September).
We’re barely into September and already we’re talking about Christmas. The last thing I want to see when I get back from my summer holiday is a picture of Santa’s Grotto gracing the pages of a professional magazine.
It seems that every year the Christmas season starts earlier and earlier. Harrods opened its Christmas ‘zone’ at the start of August – right in the middle of a heatwave – and Selfridges wasn’t far behind.
I appreciate that retailers (not to mention other seasonal sectors) have to plan far in advance for the Christmas rush, but can’t they please just try to keep quiet about it?
Working for a professional services firm, our Christmas recruitment campaign involves getting a couple of grateful students in to man the postroom while the rest of us sup mulled wine down the Dog & Duck. All this involves is a quick e-mail around the senior management team to see whose niece or nephew is particularly strapped for cash and doesn’t mind being paid the minimum wage for a few weeks.
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My seasonal recruitment campaign starts in early December, just before the annual partners’ trip to Klosters.
They say Christmas comes but once a year, and that’s how it should be. Why do we have to make it a four-month festive season when three days is quite enough?
