Karen Bardwell this year found herself in the unusual position of becoming an occasional "venting board" for people feeling frustrated with the effects of the recession.
A lot of people had been made redundant and were facing challenges in their own right in the job market.
Mrs Bardwell, the owner and managing director of Select Recruitment, would, in usual circumstances, be helping those people find new jobs.
But the recession had cut deep into her own operations and she was having to find new ways to service clients.
"Occasionally, we became the venting board for people we hadn't been able to find jobs for. I dealt with all those complaints myself."
When she spoke to the people complaining, she found that often, they had applied for a lot of jobs without success, both partners were out of work or there were other things happening in their lives that made them frustrated.
She urged them to take responsibility for themselves and explained that Select could not be held responsible for the way the employment market had gone during the recession.
However, instead of leaving all of those people to their own resources, Mrs Bardwell and her staff started offering practical tips on how job seekers could improve their chances of finding that rare job.
She and her staff often provided unpaid help to businesses having to make people redundant and to people out of work who were struggling to find a job.
"I am not a counsellor, but I put on my counselling hat to deal with those personal issues."
Select faced a tough time in its own business this year, she said.
Businesses were running leaner and not replacing staff.
Staff, including her own, were asked to do more.
There were fewer "temps" being placed and people were staying on in their full-time jobs when they felt some certainty about future employment.
"That all impacts on our opportunities to generate revenue. I have come through 12 years of business but this is the quietest year, particularly winter.
"I've always slept. That has been my saving grace - I have always been able to sleep. But for three months this year, I have had a few sleepless nights. But we have come through that time and popped out the other side with renewed confidence."
Having never dealt with a recession before, Mrs Bardwell now knows that if another one happened, she and her team had the capability to work through it and survive.
Mrs Bardwell had seen an improvement in the business climate in the past two months but employers were still reluctant to take on extra people to fill a gap to take pressure off existing staff.
One of the challenges for a business in tough times was to work on the morale of staff who were being asked to do more.
Her own staff were asked to make an concerted effort to make sure their clients were treated well so that when the time for new recruitment arrived, Select would be their first choice.
"It is hard to keep morale of staff high. It is a test of my management skills. In one sense it is hard, but I have enjoyed the opportunity to do something differently.
"It has tested my resolve and skills. I have looked at things we do closely because we can't continue to things the same way. We are stronger because of that.
"Good recruiters will last in this market. They will have the skills and tools to work in this challenging market."
Mrs Bardwell always believed that consistency over time was the key to business success.
In the tough times, that experience would mean no-one would panic.
"But when I did panic, I soon realised that panicking would not change things. We had to think how to do things differently and react to market changes. We have had to do that more frequently in the last 12 months than we normally do."
Select had a strategic plan but it was hard to plan in a recession.
The annual plan had been reduced to planning on a monthly basis, she said.
It was building up knowledge of how to plan in a recession.
Because Select was privately owned, it had flexibility.
In the past 12 years it had gone through some rapid growth.
While Select's systems had always been sound, there was not much to worry about in times of plenty.
In good times, Select's senior staff had support people so that the recruiters were not compromising delivery.
"At times we were carrying fat. We are not carrying fat now. So you adjust. Inefficiencies can creep in during times of plenty. In tough times those inefficiencies will disappear."
One of the hard decisions now was what staff Select would need to rebuild its business.
It was not as though the recession ended and Select went back to where it once was, Mrs Bardwell said.
Asked if she had grown as a person in the past 12 months, she said the growth for her had been to learn to make the hard business calls earlier because she did not have the luxury of buoyancy.
She had learnt not to "sweat" over the hard calls and to move the emotion out of them.
However, it was not a good thing to completely remove the emotion out of a business because that defined who you were, Mrs Bardwell said.
"Because times are tougher you have to remove that emotion quicker, but never lose sight of who you are and where you came from."
One of her tough decisions was having to make two people redundant as business declined, Mrs Bardwell said.
"I had to make two good, high-performing workers redundant.
"They were difficult decisions.
"We were upstairs having a farewell but I had to leave.
"I got teary eyed because that really was for me the realisation how hard business was.
"Business is always about people, but I felt I had to make that decision for the business. At the end of the day you are protecting everyone else's jobs. But I didn't like making that decision and I struggled with it, to be honest."
If you stop caring, you change who you were, she said.
Business values are not just about integrity.
It is about what would sustain a business and deliver good service for your clients.
If you started compromising that, there was a problem.
Mrs Bardwell said she might have fallen into the business almost by accident, but her love of HR work had seen her carry on her recruiting work over the past 12 years.
The challenge had been in running a successful business and creating a business environment where high-performing staff wanted to be.
One of the issues for the industry was high staff turnover.
People always operated in "high gear".
Good people stayed, but the industry had high turnover in general.
One of the successes of running a good recruitment company was retaining staff, because that built credibility in the marketplace, she said.
Recruitment was a high-energy industry and to achieve success, recruiters had to understand the business of their clients.
"It's about putting people into an organisation not just filling a job. One of the greatest successes as a recruiter is looking at people you have placed in an organisation five years on and tracking their progress. There is nothing as satisfying at seeing people move out. You want to see them stay.'
In profile
Karen Bardwell
Age: 43
Educated: Moreau College, part-time university study at Otago and Massey.
Status: Married, two children
Interests: Family, business, keeping fit and cooking
Hours worked: 45 to 50 a week in normal circumstances, up to 55 now.
Work history: Otago Savings Bank, Housing Corporation, Fletcher Challenge Forests and Select Recruitment owner for the past 12 years.
