November 9, 2009 09:56 by
vicki
Fourteen complete internet novices started working in RecruitIreland.com in November 1999, myself, Gill, Elaine and Tom were among that 14 and I guess its not fair to say we were all novices but one of the first things we had to learn about was e-mail – lots of fun ensued over the next few weeks when, if our CTO Ruairi Roddy is believed he had to tell one of these 14 that they couldn’t use tippex to delete something they had typed…
Gill was late the first morning which Sinead will testify is a trend which has continued to the present day. The first of many trainers we had over the years was called Roy Ripper, a name which inspired much laughter and many jokes in the first few days. To say myself and Gill didn’t gel very well on day one is an understatement, thankfully over the years this has changed due in most part to the “one” drink we used to partake of in McGanns of a Friday evening which generally ended up with all of us falling home at 1 in the morning, I’m sure if any of the old crew are reading this its provoking lots of happy fun memories right now (or some they might prefer to forget, Brendan…skip?).
In the first few months to give you an insight into how “technically advanced” the website was, candidates used to post in their CV’s and we used to scan them, then upload them to the database and if they wanted to apply for a job each one had to be emailed individually to the advertiser. I recall a celebration the day we reached 100 applications, thank God we have moved on since then as applications now reach over 3,000 a day on most occasions.
Our first Christmas party was in Star Anise on Bridge Street in Cork and City Limits for a dance afterwards, after Tom decided shots would be a great idea, one person was kicked out of the club, one person couldn’t recall where they lived and many hangovers littered the office.
Also in that year;
- Blockbusters were The Matrix and Fight Club
- The World population reached 6 billion
- The Columbine High School Massacre
- Jill Dando was assassinated
- Rod Stewart and Rachel Hunter separated
- Britney Spears had the best selling song with “Hit me baby one more time”
- Alf Roberts died in Coronation Street
- The Sopranos premiered on TV
- Spongebob Squarepants hit Nick’s screen for the first time
- Napster also launched its services
- Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France
- Apple released the Mackintosh G4
- Jack Lynch died
- Cork won the All-Ireland Hurling Title
- Meath won the All-Ireland Football Title
- Manchester United won the Premier League
Enter today's competition here