Truth Justice and the American Way of Headhunting | ERE Blog Network

To the Legion of Fans Who Await My Every Utterance

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:51:01 PST

Hi Mom:

I moved my blog to The Fordyce Letter. I was SO excited to see the site up and running with content. It's been my favorite publication for over 20 years. Now I even get to write in it. In a couple years you'll also get to see back catalog of Pinnacle Perspectives. See you there! Dave.

We need a word other than 'friend'

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:59:01 PST

I just became aware of a really interesting looking site yesterday and signed up . It's www.recruitingblogs.com I have already had three people ask to add me as friends. First was Jason Davis who owns and started the site. We have quite a bit in common and I'd be happy to call him a friend when we know each other well enough that he'd say that. Next is a guy who is in a sub-group dealing with the market area I search in. And I actually think we might have met once in the past. Certainly a worthy association but also a dilution of the word friend. No offense to him. I am sure he'd agree. Especially when he gets to know me better. Now,third, comes a guy I have never heard of in my life. I even spent 5 or 10 minutes checking to make sure of this. The same guy also invites everyone to join his LinkedIn network. I really think all of these networking tools COULD be very valuable if they are respected...but now I'll probably thought to be a jerk if I do not accept his bid for 'friendship'. Who knows, maybe he could be my best friend someday but on my end , we'll at least need to meet or have a reason first. I like wood floors but not Pergo. I like Mahogany walls but not vinyl paneling. I like crabmeat that pink crap that comes packed like modeling clay. I really like my friends. This is where I need a new word....

I'd probably not be quite as pre-occupied with this thought if I were not in the middle of Steve Martin's brilliant book on the stand-up phase of his career. Check it out. It's a great read/listen.

Maybe my new sigfile for emails

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:08:01 PST

The information transmitted in this email is intended only for the entity or person to whom it is addressed (and the other 6 million people who think Bill Gates talks to Walt Disney) and may contain confidential and/or privileged material (but is probably only an old joke or a picture of a guy with a mullet). Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or other use of this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited (by whom and on what authority with what consequences?, you may wonder). If you receive this email in error, please contact the sender and delete the material immediately (and don’t think of a pink elephant right now and jury, disregard that last comment). I do this because even though I only send one out of a million emails to the wrong person, I once went to a seminar given by some divorce attorney who sent the pictures to the husband instead of the wife.

Nothing like a little humiliation

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:12:01 PST

My ego defenses are strong enough that I almost immediately laughed about this incident but there was enough sting to make me very appreciative that I almost never do what I am about to describe anymore because I don't have to. I do know that bragging about strong ego defenses is dangerous and could make me look even dumber to those who know more about that than I do.

Anyhow, a past candidate who is now a client contact passed me a lead the other day and offered to get me a contact there because he thought our practice would suit their needs. I said , 'no let me try going through 'the front door'. I have not done that in a long time.' My clients are all engaged and I have relationships with hiring managers who are also usually top management since they are mostly small companies. I also work well with their HR/Staffing people. Every single current engaged client is from a referral to a manager. Not one of them is from a cold call to HR.

My heart now goes out to anyone who regularly hears 'Please do tell me about what you do...Oh we'd never pay an up-front fee...I was in your business so I know everything you are saying... I have to run to a meeting...send me your information and we'll call you...' I heard all of that while barely saying anything with all the humility I could muster during the dotted parts.

My evil ego defenses now demand that I network into her CEO or CTO and have him tell her what I do and how she'll do it. Humility be damned...or at least postponed for a minute...

Bad Nicholson,bad Subdudes,bad Cahill, bad Scarlett Johansson...

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:14:01 PST

...and finally the giveaway...bad sex... Right, all things that if they ever ARE bad are still pretty good. I had to start this way because those who know me know I have always been a strong supporter of Danny Cahill's work for many reasons for many years.

Just when I was thinking there could not be much more said about our industry no matter who is doing the talking Danny did our full day TRA training event last Friday. It was almost shocking in that,after 20 years I go just to hear and be refreshed on 'the greatest hits'. This was like a whole new album. I don't remember a single person sneaking out to take or make a cell call all day.

I have heard several speakers talk recently about our fragile Gen Y kids and Danny explained them but he also put it in perspective for us in a way that 60 minutes and Penelope Trunk just can't. He talked about adaptation, explained better uses of email and just put out many practice-changing ideas in fresh ways like the concept of aches vs pains. I usually strut around in my own head like Mr. Heard-it-all and don't take many notes anymore. I ended up with 3 pages from this outing. We had some other industry old-timers there and all the ones I spoke with afterward said the same thing. Wow...What a great way to start the year. Now our Board has to figure out how to follow this..Phone' ringin'....

Short post for an obvious reason...

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:49:01 PST

Maybe it's just me...It sure seems like everyone came back from the holiday vacation and found a memo that said 'Ok, go spend your budget money'. I know things are heating up when I find myself not even having time to finish my sandwich at my desk in mid-afternoon. It's almost like Y2K all over again...Phone's ringin'...

It's a Radio Shack World

Wed, 2 Jan 2008 05:02:01 PST

I don't know what age one needs to be to recognize the significance of the headline. When I was a kid it seemed that every time I went to Radio Shack to get a plug adapter for $1.89 they wanted me to fill out my name, address, phone etc etc. I am not sure they still do that. What's making me think of this is that every time a friend in the business uploads his contacts into Plaxo,LinkedIn,Spock,FaceBook,MySpace or any of these other things of varying utility it asks me to go see what they did,do what they did or join what they joined.

I am no Luddite. I love technology but we need to develop some guidelines and limits or all this social masturbation that is passing for social networking is going to eat up a lot more productivity than Spam already does. In fact...it needs a name like Spam. Maybe it should be called Potted Meet Food Product. The two things had their origins in something real and they are both hard to swallow.

All for nought...

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:02:01 PST

As I suspected, the previous blog and controversy was valuable only as a philosophical exercise. The guy didn't get the offer. We were in a good position if he had received and accepted one but I am left with a distinct urge to go work on a better deal. The whole thing reminded me of earlier days working in firms that had 15 and 20 recruiters in a given market...All the breath that was wasted by all those people arguing about stuff that never would happen... What fun!!

More on TimeStamps vs ButFors

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 11:43:01 PST

In response to an inquiry I have pasted in the two (and only two) lines of our agreement that address what constitutes a referral. In 22 years I have seen all kinds of things in fee agreements... Strange things written at times by both sides. Even though language dealing with time frames is offered in the model direct hire agreement put forth by NAPS and ASA I don't recall ever seeing it offered by the search side in an actual agreement. It's very common on the client side and I fight it all the time. Earlier in my career I even worked under agreements with 'expiration dates' for referrals when I thought I'd only be introducing one or two candidates. Even the language in the model agreement that I just looked up refers to whether the candidate has an interview scheduled NOT when the data was made available. I'd never work under an agreement that states only that the first entity to make the data arrive at the destination is due a fee.

I'll be happy to argue this point as long as I remain in the business. I'll also support the notion that anyone working under,let alone, SELLING the idea of nothing more than a time stamp establishing a referral on the front end simply needs more practice and training. I'd love to have someone show me material from any credible trainer supporting this idea.

I am sure there are some people out there who think this is the way to go. There's someone out there forwarding every new Monster resume every morning hoping they'll get a call from their client asking to interview the guy they have never spoken with before....And I am sure they make just enough money to make them keep doing it again and again and again

Employer agrees to pay a placement fee to SearchPartner when a candidate directly or indirectly referred by SearchPartner is hired for any position by employer or any of its affiliates.

Employer's employment of any candidate who has been directly or indirectly referred by SearchPartner constitutes employer's agreement with SearchPartner’s fee schedule and terms.

I'd love some comments on this situation...

Tue, 6 Nov 2007 06:46:01 PST

(names have been replaced with titles or made up. we have three placements there already)

Dear Engaged Client VP of HR:

Here is what I understand the situation to be and a review of what I offered in case you need it for your records. I am sending it because it appears to me that Ken Tarmac is an excellent candidate and there could be a good fit with CodeBlowers if the right position is identified/designed.

1) Time stamps mean nothing from a legal perspective when a candidate is introduced to a company by more than one entity. An exception might be when all parties agree to this in advance. Even then these exceptions are challenged in our industry regularly.

2) This is because courts nearly always rule in favor of the entity that set up the interview with the client.

3) For these reasons as well as the description below of what occurred, SearchPartner will indemnify CodeBlowers from any costs beyond the normal contracted fee if Ken Tarmac is hired. If this situation were not clear and correct we’d not offer this.

I believe Ken will echo this understanding in the event you find it necessary to involve him.

I received Ken’s information from a trading partner and screened him for availability and interest and verified that he had not heard of CodeBlowers previously. I forwarded him to you on Thursday 11/1 without copying Sue Staffing because we lost at least two qualified candidates for this position due to previous delays. You replied in an email that day that you’d review Friday and advise.

You let me know Friday 11/2 that you and VP Ops would like to have a conference call at 3pm EST Monday 11/5 which was one of the available times for Ken to interview as relayed in the original introduction. Friday afternoon around 5pm EDT I reached Ken to confirm the time for the interview.

Ken has told me that sometime between that time and now the representative from the other company called to set the call with PM. He says that he thought her involvement had something to do with the process already going on with CodeBlowers and SearchPartner. I asked Ken how she’d have gotten his resume and he said she may have gotten it from clearancejobs.com. Since we learned of him through work he did with my trading partner previously and since he had not heard of CodeBlowers until I spoke with him it did not matter to me and I did not ask if his resume was otherwise available.

My guess is the other company likely sent Ken’s information to Sue Staffing before speaking with Ken (one of the dangers of publicly posting a resume) and then contacted Ken after Sue requested a call with Veto.

I hope this will leave CodeBlowers to comfortably pursue Ken for a Sr. Sales position without worries of difficulty on the back end. Also, I again, highly recommend CEO to be involved in the process early on. I think Ken can be much more than a sales rep but I think he can do that as well.

Ironically, this exact same situation happened with the same recruiter who set the appointment at a different client of mine 19 months ago. We offered that client the same solution and the candidate is happily employed there today.

Please let me know if you need further information.

Sincerely,Dave.

Where are the women?

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:48:01 PST

Question from a female client hiring manager.......

Totally miscellaneous thought…where are the women? Did you notice that all the candidates you have sent have been male? That’s odd, don’t you think?

Totally miscellaneous response….you tell me J Ever since Martin Marietta offered me a bonus for women and African Americans back in '86 my response then and ever since has been I will refer all qualified candidates without regard (and sometimes without even knowing) whether they fit any particular groups. I have not seen the ratio of the two large groups I deal with change much over 22 years. Those being highly cleared highly technical engineers in DC area and very technical traveling consultants. If you look at everyone I have ever spoken with over the years I’d guess the AA group is slightly less than the population percentage but the women are dramatically less. I have some useless ideas about why that is but no idea whether they are right.

I know this is much more of an answer than you expected and probably wanted but I am almost surprised at the question. Do YOU know a place where I can find all the women I am not seeing? I think ,of the 70 people I placed with Dan at FormerClientCo only 4 were women.

So bottom line…It is VERY odd but it has been so odd for me for so long it has become my norm…

And thanks for the question. I needed something for my blog this week. I’ll redact the names and use this…. D.

Do you want to move to Nashville?

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:13:01 PST

I really need a Research/Administrative Assistant. Like the cobbler whose children have no shoes, I just don't seem to be able to apply the skills that make me a top producer in the search arena to filling my own positions. I've had varying degrees of success over the years in hiring and training people as recruiters but ,like many of my colleagues, I have reached a point where I am much more selective about on whom to try to bestow a vision they are unable to see. I'd love to have an apprentice or two but I am beyond wanting a roomful of tadpoles to feed the voracious Phonefish.

What I really want is someone mature enough to know they don't mind calling people in a database (or new ones) to sell their own personality enough to get someone to listen to why it's a good idea to talk with me. He or she needs to be comfortable with the latest technology talk and should love computers, headsets and all the latest tech gear. I am looking for someone who can not only make an immediate impact but wants to dig in. This may be a 50 or 60k job but could be more in time with bonuses. I just don't think this person is in Nashville...but as I said...I have not really looked. I paid others to look for me...Even a retainer...that got me one candidate. So if you know anyone who can do the job below, let me know. Maybe I'll pay you. If you ARE that person, let's talk...but send me an email first :-)

SearchPartner http://www.searchpartnerllc.com/ needs someone accustomed to making lots of out-going phone calls to both new contacts and a database with thousands of prior contacts. This job will also involve research and identification of candidates for retained searches. You'll need to be comfortable talking with MS and PHD level computer scientists to set up meetings,conference calls etc. Some of this (approximately 50%) will involve initial contact with people who do not yet understand why they need to speak with us. Some cases will require 5 or 10 calls and emails before the person is reached. This is not a sales job but it does require persistence and a 'thick skin'. Some other duties are listed below.

¨ Able to handle ordinary follow up (candidates calling in when nothing is open for them, doing references)

¨ File searches

¨ Database searches

¨ Sourcing, updates, internet database and general searches for candidates

¨ Calling and qualifying candidates

¨ Preparing recruiting plans including contact info and name and titles of whom we need to recruit

¨ Making the initial contact just to set up a formal time for the recruiter to call

Pinnacle Society in New Orleans

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:56:01 PST

Wow! We just had a fantastic meeting at the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans. The French Quarter seems good as ever but I didn't have any prior experience of the place before my Fordyce Forum trip in June. Our Pinnacle speakers included Jason Davis from right here at ERE.net to talk about the Fordyce Letter, Don Breckenridge from Sendouts.com with a great presentation on Balanced Scorecard and Author/Blogger/Entrepreneur Penelope Trunk from The Brazen Careerist with an extremely entertaining update on how to handle the shrinking supply of new professionals trickling into the job market. Of course, we also had plenty of time to pick each other's brains which is reason enough to be there. I even won some money playing poker at Harrah's. Even though Pinnacle has reached the bylaw's limit of 75 members we always welcome new applications. Please check us out at www.pinnaclesociety.org. Also, we are available for training events. Check the Pinnacle Panel page on the website.

Maybe it is a seasonal disorder...

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:07:01 PST

I usually can't keep my mouth shut or my fingers still but for a couple months now I have been less than excited when my blog reminder comes up. Half the time my entries are to complain about something and I can't even find stuff to complain about. I know there must be hundreds of you out there with RSS feeds waiting with 'bated breath to see what bugs me next... I promise I'll try to find something to complain about soon... I won't go quite so far as to say I miss Karen from Sourcer's Exchange... :-)

Lack of Security on Job Boards...

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:08:01 PST

Am I concerned about drinking in bars? Physical activity in cathouses? Eating in restaurants. Weightlifting in Gyms?

Job Boards are inherently open. There should be no expectation of privacy even when it is claimed. The whole notion is wishful thinking. We checked out a job board because we do the demos to make sure we are not missing anything. We saw a couple interesting 'confidentially' posted candidates. When we emailed their confidential addresses the system 'inadvertantly' gave us the candidate's real name and email address. We asked the people who run the board and they said 'we warned 'em'. Oh well... I guess some folks will learn the hard way...You can't put up a billboard and tell some people not to see it.

Jott.com is an incredible new FREE tool

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:50:01 PST

I try to balance all my complaining with praise for good things. This is one of them...

Look at Jott.com. It is a free service. Once you are set up you call the toll free number and say what you want. It is almost immediately transcribed as an email. When I heard that I kinda’ though “yeah,right,whatever… THEN I saw I can import contacts ,say the contact’s name and email them as well. I don’t know how long it’ll stay free or are if there are enough people in India to transcribe all the grocery lists but it sure is fun for now. D.

P.S. to Danny….Now our emails will count as phone time too J

Is Inebremail a good name for the Drunk-Dial equivalent?

Thu, 2 Aug 2007 06:38:01 PST

It was almost 10:00 pm his time so I think he was a bit in his cups when he wrote this. I had already decided to quit pursuing them. I don't bite much anymore but I darned sure bite BACK.

From: Eric [mailto:eric.bennett@myopicengineering.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 8:58 PM
To: dave@searchpartnerllc.com
Cc: Mike

Subject: Re: Recruiting habits

Dave,

I know you have been trying to contact us about setting up a recruiting relationship but I must decline. It has been brought to my attention by several of my employees that have been contacted by your agency as potential candidates to other companies. I understand this is a usual practice for recruiting companies, but it comes with great regret that my employees have been harassed by your recruiters. Several have shown me e-mail trails where they repeatably requested not to be contacted again by your recruiters and their requests are ignored. The common response 'what are you going to stay with that company forever'? Well the answer is yes in most cases. We pride ourselves in having the best benefits and work enviroments around and recruiting away from our company while not impossible would be difficult. I hope this is not a business practice that you endorse since in the past we've had several positive conversations about recruiting philosophies. I do not want a company with that reputation representing my company. I just wanted to get back to you with why we have decided not to pursue an agreement with your company.

Best wishes,

Eric

Eric President / CEO
Myopic Engineering LLC

Eric:

Thanks for getting back to me. Thus ends one of the longer run-arounds I have participated in. Let’s finish this record with some facts.

1) On June 18^th you told one of my employees that you currently deal with 3 other recruiting firms. Since I treated this as a fact it led to a couple things happening. I thought we had left it several years ago that we’d both be happy when you got to a place where you’d have budget to deal with recruiting firms, which is what I remember about those positive calls you mention.

2) If you ARE working with three other recruiting companies you are attempting to pay people to do exactly what you are complaining about. That is to contact and evaluate top talent at top companies with which those recruiters have no relationship.

3) We have spoken with 1 of your employees. After 7 attempts to speak one time he left a voice mail saying he was happy enough to not want to speak further at this time. No one has dialed his number or emailed him since. We have no email address for him.

4) The second employee has a resume posted in a public forum. We never spoke with him. Following his email request to stop we acknowledged it with a message saying, among other things “We'll not contact you again”. So…there is no “repeatably”(sic),no “several”, and no “harassment”.

5) You, personally, live, on the telephone, told me to talk with Mike xxxx about whether we could do business. While Mike was not responding to several messages I left about this subject we were following up on the people above; one of whom was described as an excellent potential candidate. You might remember that we first heard about you the same way. You might also remember that we tried to set up a relationship with Wells Landers because we believed it was a good company until one of its leaders turned out to be demonstrably unethical (I have records of my experience with him, so do many other people).

I endorse every business practice(of ours) I see here. I reject your spurious, ill-considered accusations. We noted everything we did here. We have the same emails you do and I know what phone calls were made. Everything we did is exactly what you are trying to purchase from other recruiters….but are likely not getting unless you retain them… Of course, maybe you are paying below standard industry rates to have someone look at Monster and Dice more closely than you do.

We do wish your company the best. We wish all companies the best. By definition they can’t all be the best. If your company is then you have nothing to worry about. Once recruiters see and believe that they either make those best companies a client or they tend to ignore them because it is easier to find good people who are in a company that went bad ( i.e.Wells Landers again) than it is to pry them out of companies they’d rather have as clients.

That said…while we have tried to have discussions about working together, that has not happened yet. If you want to question our reputation you need to stick with facts. You don’t have any.

As for our recruiting relationship…you can’t decline it. You can only define it.

I am blocking Pyxis from out-going calls because we don’t need this kind of irritation but I’ll be happy to talk if you want to. I’d also appreciate some apology or retraction for this record. It’ll look much better for you if this ever needs to be public.

Sincerely, Dave.

Not sure I want to interview. I'm loyal to my company.

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:23:01 PST

Dear Rhetticent:

I have ZERO quarrel with your feeling of obligation as long as it supports the one I am sure you agree is bigger (the family one).

That’s not the “recruiter ploy” it easily could be if I didn’t support it a bit further. There’s even a bit of this my clients might not like as much as I do but it’s what I believe….

Here’s a scenario….

Rhetticent looks internally while at the same time talking with 2 of our clients. Both clients AND GD are interested and make more or less simultaneous offers (at least our clients(though probably not GD) would know what’s going on and would wait while it happened). Scott then does what’s best for Scott and family.

GD has an edge here. Our clients are good enough that a certain percentage of the time they can beat that edge and they don’t mind competing against it. I’d hate to think that you took a slightly lesser job or a slightly lesser salary because a company that sponsored your clearance and made profits from it is also trying to recruit other people the same way. (Ok, that others do it does not make it more right so throw that point out).

Biggest point here is that the only way for you to know is to actually make the comparison. Secondary point is that “companies” are collections of people and companies cannot and do not feel loyalty. I know a guy at YOUR company who came there to work for a guy….that guy left for SAIC the day he started….

If you tell me there is one human who sponsored you and that he’d be devastated if you left I’d make a different argument (the one where he’d interview too and bring you along if it was a good opportunity).

An introduction might be something like….

Rhetticent is trying to find a better home within his current organization. We have persuaded him to speak with you on the condition that this is understood up front and that he may not be able to make a commitment until he is certain the best place for him is not GD. If that is accepted up front he could interview….blah blah…

I’d even have you approve the language if you like…

I appreciate your willingness to discuss these things and there are no hard feelings here if you don’t pursue this at the moment. Unless you are able to accept that, as hard as we are trying to persuade you to interview, we celebrate that the world could be best served by your getting a better position in GD then this could appear pretty self-serving.

But since it happens to be true it is why we have been successful for 22 years and had many guys like you hire us to find people once they find we really ‘walk our talk’. In any event, we’ll respect your decisions and do what we can to help you even if you choose not to interview.

Thanks, Dave.

I used to hire everyone, I must be getting old.

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 04:27:01 PST

Start at the bottom. Tell me if I am being 'mean' while aiming for compassionate.

(The first comment I had on this blog post was the obvious one. I guess she has $50 to throw at every person who applies. That's for the test. OR that same $50 is 7.5 minutes of my time at this year's rate. My guess is she's spending someone else's money. Oh, and this guy IS taking the test today and he 'appreciated the style and the message'.)

Dear Job:

I appreciate your message and your approach. I am going to treat this seriously and give it to you straight. The reason is that if this goes anywhere then we'll know we can get along. If it doesn't, then we'll both have spared ourselves some anguish.

Psychiatrists have to go through a complete course of therapy before they can practice because they have to know themselves before they can treat others. There is a bit of that in the way we do business as well. (I'll stop for a minute and say that you can get into this business every day with someone here in town and no hard feelings if you do. I have good mutual reasons for making it harder here).

If you aren't too ticked off by what I am going to say then I'll suggest you do an online assessment that suggests a pretty reliable compatibility level for this business.

First, in the beginning, this is as far away from an executive level sales position as one can get.

Second, executive level sales positions are not available to those who have not finished school (personal experience speaking here).

If you can also accept the notion that ' but I do have more than enough real world

experience to make up for it' is a statement scorned by those who went straight through school, that ALL of the candidates you'd speak with as a headhunter here got at least BS degrees and about 25% of them are PHD's, and that I know this is just something I told myself as an ego defense for 14 years while I worked on my degree, then please do send me your resume and I'll follow up with a code for the test (taken online and takes about 40 minutes).

We'll talk after I see the results. I look forward to speaking with you

Sincerely,Dave.

S e a r c h P a r t n e r

888-322-8210x100tf

301-560-1850x100 From MD

703-880-4733x100 From VA

615-400-1110cell

www.SearchPartnerLLC.com

www.PinnacleSociety.org

Board of Directors

-----Original Message-----
From: jobseekermadeup@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 8:55 PM
To: dave@searchpartnerllc.com
Subject:

Mr. Staats,

I discovered your website today while doing an internet search for executive

level sales positions in the Nashville area. I read most of the information

on your site and I must say I am intrigued by what I read. My experience in

sales has been in business to business sales and the mortgage industry. I am

now actively seeking a new career, but would like to stay in sales. I read

the article on your website by Paul Hawkinson and I do believe that I have

the attributes which are necessary to be successful in your line of work. I

do not have a college degree, but I do have more than enough real world

experience to make up for it. I am a very driven and determined individual

who is simply looking for my niche. Would you be interested in talking with

me about a position with your company? I would be happy to forward a copy of

my resume' to you, then perhaps we could meet and talk. I look forward to

hearing from you.

Best Regards,

Job Seeker

Figure out what I saw in Penelope Trunk's column

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:22:01 PST

Penelope, I can't wait to meet you in October. It'll be huge fun. Commenter Aaron, 'marks' is an ugly word. If I saw people as marks I would not have 2 people I have placed 3 times,3 people I have placed twice,1 guy placed at the same company twice ,both times for a fee, a million dollar client who became a candidate, a candidate who took a counter-offer hiring a dozen people from me and many placed candidates hiring people from me later. My two oldest relationships in recruiting are the second guy I ever placed and another guy I'll never place.
Since this is all about 'ideals' Let's stipulate that the best recruiters and headhunters only talk to the best people. The bottom 80% or recruiters/headhunters will certainly fall for tricks like 'making yourself open and available on places like LinkedIn' but looking like a top performer is not the same as being one. It is nothing more or less than humane to minimize one's time with those we can't help so we can maximize it with those we can...regardless of who's paying whom. I need to get back to the phones but before I do I am going to go see if I can find a blog somewhere lamenting the fact that hairdressers don't pay more attention to bald people because they're too busy working with hairy people.
P.S. Erik, if I see the phrase 'using a headhunter' once more, I'll stick my finger down your throat. :-)