2008 is over from a recruitment point of view. December is going to be a very dead month. I get the feeling that there is a general mood of exhaustion in the market and that many people are going to wait until the fresh new year before reassessing things.

I did an ugly calculation this week. I divided the amount of cash I now have readily available by my monthly expenditure to see just how long before this drama really does turn into a crisis. The answer quantified the challenges ahead: although I am not going to starve in the next couple of years, it has certainly brought matters into sharp focus.

I’ve begun making cuts. The gym membership went months ago; other good-time essentials have been cut right back. Friends say this level of belt tightening is going on across the board. At first, I relished the idea of cutting back and penny pinching. Now that it’s become essential, it’s starting to feel a bit bleak.

The short-term consulting role I’ve taken on may yet bear fruit. However, these are volatile times and work that looked set in stone has often drifted as budgets are cut and internal resources are thrown at the problems. From a bank’s point of view, that’s fully understandable, but it means that work has been fairly slow. And as I get paid for time spent on site with clients the money has yet to appear.

In the meantime, I’ve kept on pushing contacts and headhunters to try and get all things career-wise back on track. I met a new headhunter this week and the conversation followed a fairly familiar pattern: small talk, the revelation that the advertised role has gone but there might be other roles soon, and so on. Time after time we dance the merry jig.

I’m not blaming headhunters for this. I appreciate the difficult conditions they face at the moment and their desks are probably groaning under the weight of CVs from displaced bankers.

The situation for recruiters now is very different to that before the market dislocation. Then, their calls went unanswered. Now, those same bankers are filing through their doors expecting them to magic a job out of thin air. Friends and acquaintances who have recently joined the list of the underemployed moan about unanswered emails and the lack of call-backs. The truth is that the jobs-to-candidate ratio is so hugely out of kilter that most new meetings with candidates are simply a matter of paying lip service, hoping for the better times to return.

Many would question the sanity of continually banging my head against brick walls. However, to do so would be to misunderstand the situation. In this market, no avenue can be left unexplored. A half-hour chat with a recruiter or a contact is always worthwhile, even if both parties know that they are just going through the motions.

Time is a commodity that is plentiful at the moment. Keeping as many balls in the air as possible will greatly enhance the chances of some positive outcome to this process. In the meantime, I am pushing to win business for the consultancy. It really is attack on all fronts. Needs must when the devil drives.