Recruitive gets all soppy one day a year.

St Valentine’s Day means different things to different people: for some it’s a chance to find romance, or celebrate the romance they are lucky enough to have; for others it’s a chance to get back in the good books; others may sit alone surrounded by screwed up damp tissues. For florists, chocolatiers and the greeting card industry it is a time of great joy and celebration.

What, though, do we know about the man behind the myth? Who was Saint Valentine and why does he cause so many people to go all gooey?

There are several men named Valentine who have been canonised over the centuries (it was a popular name back in the day), and one woman called Valentina who was martyred in Caesarea in Palestine in the year 308AD. Out of list of likely suspects, which one is the saint we venerate on February 14th every year? It is Valentine of Rome, either a priest of Rome or, according to some accounts, the Bishop of Terni in Umbria, who was arrested, tortured and executed on the 14th February 269AD by the Romans for ministering to persecuted Christians. There was a lot of that sort of thing going on at the time.

At first it was just one more of the many executions that occurred in those early days of Christianity, as this fledgling religion struggled for recognition in the pagan Roman Empire. Eventually, as we all know, Christianity became the official religion of Rome in 337AD when Constantine the Great asked to be baptised in the River Jordan where Jesus was baptised, promising to live a better life if he recovered from the illness he was suffering – it didn’t work out as well as he’d hoped as he was dead soon after.

Recognising the martyrdom of St Valentine two centuries previously, in 496AD Pope Gelasius I declared 14th February every year to be the Feast of Saint Valentine. Being awarded a feast day was a big thing for any saint and in the early years there was no mention of chocolates or flowers and no nauseating, badly composed poems on cards were exchanged.

It is believed by historians that it wasn’t until Geoffrey Chaucer published Parlement of Foules in the 14th Century that there was any connection to romantic love. By attributing an imagined hagiography to St Valentine, a whole mythology grew up around him and has led to incalculable millions of broken hearts and billions of lines of really dreadful poetry down through the generations. Thanks for that Geoff!

Reading this you are probably thinking to yourself: what has all this got to do with the development of the world’s most advanced recruitment software? Okay, I’m holding my hands up, you got me. The answer is everything.

What is recruitment if not the search for that perfect someone? By advertising your situation vacant you are putting yourself out there in a similar way to using a lonely-hearts column (they were a feature of newspapers before newspapers became extinct and people started swiping left or right or whatever they do on those apps). By diverting their attention to your recruitment website, you are showing them what a great partner you’d make. It’s built to be attractive and easily navigable and will win their heart with the descriptions of who you are, what you do and what you hope to achieve in your industry sector. Who could possibly resist? The interview is like a first date where you get to know each other and work out if you are compatible. The first-class Applicant Tracking Software has everything you might need to help smooth the transition into the lasting relationship between your company and that perfect someone.

Recruitive – the no.1 choice for employers and lonely hearts everywhere.

Recruitive offer End to End Recruitment Solutions from ATS Software, Cloud Based Recruitment Software, Onboarding Software, Media Purchasing & the Design of Careers Websites.

Contact us today for a detailed consultation.