MedDeviceHeadhunter.com - Philip Newman, Leading Medical Device Recruiter

Are Recruiters Responsible For Retention?

2011-12-15T21:17:00.000-05:00

Are recruiters responsible for retention? Many wonder aloud about the answer to this question, but I always arrive back at the same answer. No. Emphatically, no.* Recruiters have no real ability to ensure the retention efforts of their clients are being carried out. It's for this reason that recruiters should never, ever agree to refund fees. Read on.

I'm often presented with contracts or requests from potential clients for the inclusion of verbiage around the complete refunding of recruiting fees if a candidate leaves or is terminated within 90 or 120 days of employment. Each and every time I state that I do not give refunds. Never. Ever. This news is most often met with a bit of surprise until explained why. Post-explanation, it's business as usual and what was a seemingly big deal breaker for working together disappears like it never existed in the first place.

As I said before, retention is not the responsibility of recruiters. Retention begins where the recruiting road ends. Recruiters are third party service providers hired to deliver a product: a candidate. This candidate is screened by the client, interviewed by the client, poked, prodded, brain-teased and background-checked by the client before an offer is extended, accepted and a start date agreed upon.

Upon completion of the search, (technically the hired employee's first day on the job) the recruiter has completed the service they were hired to perform. The responsibility of ensuring a new employee receives a clean desk, work area, key cards, parking space, benefits orientation, proper meet-and-greet of internal staff and a 90-day road map lies with the company. This is a lion's share of the onboarding process, which is a vital part of retention.

If you ask a company when retention begins they will respond “with an employee's first day of employment”. If a recruiter gets a call 90 days after placing a candidate and the hiring company says the employee they provided a recruiting service for (not a retention service) is not working out and they don't need another and want a refund, what are you to do at that point? If this employee says after their first 90 days they have barely met any of the internal staff, have not been provided a permanent work area or computer, have not been reimbursed for moving or their boss has not made them feel welcome, is that the recruiter's fault? All of the aforementioned items are directly related to retention, not recruiting. These employees don't report to the recruiter. Recruiters have no ability to ensure proper retention is being carried out for new and existing staff.

As non-internal, non-staff, non-onsite service providers who were hired and paid to perform a specific function, recruiters have no ability to control how efficiently a company handles onboarding and retention. Thus, their recruiting service didn't fail the company. The company's retention strategy failed the employee.

Recruiting, especially at a senior and specialty technical level, is no easy task. It requires years of expertise and countless hours of research, cold calling, conversations, career counseling and trust building. That is why nine out of ten new recruiters fail within twelve months. How could all of that hard work be liable for a complete refund when the recruiter's role only extends so far? At some point a company has to take responsibility for the retention of their employees. This includes the ones recruiters are hired and paid to provide for them.

The next time a company says they want a refund if an employee doesn't work out at 90 or 120 days ask them who's responsibility is it to retain their employees and when does that responsibility typically begin. I guarantee they won't say at three months.

* If a candidate ends up not being the proper fit, always protect everyone’s best interests by offering a replacement policy.

Authenticity: A Pillar of Recruiting Success

2011-09-21T21:26:00.002-04:00

Regrettably, it's been a while since my last post. My wife and I have been busy expecting the arrival of our our first child. She is due any day now. The culmination of the entire process has left me very emotionally introspective. My yin and yang are in perfect balance. Call it the Libra in me. Business is growing and the company is on pace for our strongest year on record. I've hired new staff, expanded our line of services and we continue to march on. I have especially enjoyed expanding the staff the last few months as it has allowed me to again be in the role of coach and mentor, spreading the gospel of the art and science of human capital.

The irony in my inspiration for this article and what I'm actually writing about eerily go hand in hand. You see, I've been accused of not writing enough in the past and I've always said that honest content can't be fabricated by necessity. If I was only worried about getting content out there I would not "believe" in the content I was writing. I wouldn't "feel" anything about the content and it wouldn't feel authentic to my readers. I always wait to be inspired before I take to covering a topic or writing an article. The same goes with recruiting. In recruiting you are dealing with people, emotional beings with thoughts and feelings. My customers don't get dog and pony shows from myself or my staff. There are no sales pitches involved in the company's training manuals. We humanize the recruitment process, because if it's not believable, enjoyable and beneficial what is the point in saying or doing it?

Early in my career I didn't understand the key component of emotion, personally as well as professionally. I was so focused on the "sale" and nothing else. It was never about the journey, it was about the destination. It was all about sealing the deal. Because of this focus I probably lost a lot of business. I was so focused on myself and winning or closing a deal that even though the things I said made business sense, I probably didn't seem authentic when I was presenting them.

I had the opportunity recently to talk to one of my recruiters about his ongoing conversations with a few potential clients and realized he was being too inwardly focused. I challenged him to think about who he was as a person, a husband, father, son and a loyal friend to many I'm sure. He looked at me and realized at that moment what I was getting at. I told him to be the same executive recruiter as he is person at home if his son came to him with a bloody knee, crying, and said dad help me. I told him that person should be the same person that picks up the phone everyday and get's to know company's hiring strategies and how he can help those companies get the critical hires they need in order to sustain their own success and growth. That same compassionate and caring father should also be the one giving strategic career advice to those who seek out his help. It's compelling, natural, believable and honest. In a word, it's authentic.

Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of this. We morph into super focused work beings tasked by management to accomplish goals and gain instant gratification and financial success. We all have a job to do, but I've seen the power of human authenticity in our business. There is a different way to do it. I built a company around it and I emphasize it on a daily basis. It's one of the pillars of my success. In recruiting, we are in the business of people and people need to believe and trust in you. In order for them to believe they need to get the authentic you.

When it comes to working with myself and my staff, my customers know they are getting the real us. Brothers, husbands, fathers and weekend soccer coaches who are experts in executive recruiting, care deeply about doing the right thing and look forward to building up the trust of their customers while watching their business' grow and succeed. In a word, it's authentic.

How to Nail a Phone Interview

2011-06-15T15:40:00.008-04:00

They say if you are not preparing to succeed you are preparing to fail. The same can be said during a job search and interview process. I've witnessed it countless times over the years. Most job seekers use a shotgun approach to their search, sending many resumes out at once and then waiting for the phone to ring. When the phone does ring they wait for the first phone interview and then the process begins. This is a vital mistake, as most phone interviews are carried out with careful strategy by the interviewer. Candidates just don't realize it until it's too late.

Last year the job market was extremely unforgiving. Today, not much has changed. Companies view our current times as a buyers market. They are more focused on vetting out candidates quickly than they are about needing to sell candidates in. It's not their fault, there are ten times the amount of candidates than jobs available.

Having success in an interview process depends heavily on control and predictability. There is no point during an interview process in which you have less of these critical things than during a phone interview. Phone interviews are approached by most job seekers too leisurely. Landing a phone interview is a huge success for a job seeker and most of the time this is the most crucial period of the interview process. Getting to this point should never be taken for granted. Little is known about the following things when approaching the point of a phone interview:

Company plans, structure and strategy
Interview process and time line to hire
Internal members that will be involved during the process
Questions that will be asked by the interviewers
Internal and external competition you are facing

Successfully landing the job requires knowledge of the above. On a phone interview you typically know none of the above. You are in the discovery phase of the interviewing process. You have been discovered by the employer and you have experience that is of initial value. The interviewer is now tasked with narrowing the candidate pipeline. This means you are now expendable. How you answer the questions that are about to come your way will determine whether you are vetted out.

The difficulty lies in making an impression with your interviewer (most likely a complete stranger) and compiling data from the five topics above in order to raise your interviewing IQ. If you landed an interview through a recruiter, ask your recruiter for everything they know about who you are interviewing with and helpful info to the topics above. If you landed an interview through a friend or referral, ask the person who referred you to fill you in. If you landed the interview through sheer luck, then get to Googling immediately. Use Linked In to find the person you will be phone interviewing with. Look at their connections. Any mutual contacts? Colleges? Organizations? Prior employment? Facebook them too. Sound crazy? Perhaps, but not everyone connects to LinkedIn as they do Facebook. Regardless of privacy restrictions you will be able to see if you have mutual friends.

Research and preparation prior to the phone interview can drastically increase your chances at breaking into the next round and landing the gig. The easiest way to achieve this is to prepare and gather intel. There are no better friends to have in your back pocket when trying to do this as Google, Facebook and Linked In. They are job search weapons, use them to your advantage.

Protective Networking: What you should be doing right now to help yourself

2011-05-04T10:36:00.001-04:00

I read a funny article the other week talking about how most people wait until they are in jail before they call an attorney. At first I laughed, then I realized how hysterically accurate this statement was and also how unbelievably true this also happened to be when it came to our careers. I thought about all of the people who are laid off out of left field and are given two months of severance for their six years of loyalty. Not really figures I would consider to be based on economies of scale, but that's a topic for another day.

These same people typically don't invest a dime of their time to forming a strategic relationship with a few headhunters and/or key leaders in their market space from competing companies over the years. And after getting surprised with a layoff they do not pass go, they go directly to unemployment jail. They join the unemployment rat race and have no one to turn to when they need those relationships the most.

Do yourself a favor and jump on LinkedIn today and reach out to a few select headhunters that specialize in your space. Tell them about yourself, send them an updated resume. Ask their opinion on your resume itself. Tell them you are happily employed and just looking to get on their radar in case of a rainy day. Comb through your contacts and business cards and also drop a few emails to some people who impressed you at that last conference you attended. Tell them you enjoyed meeting them and want to stay in touch because you just never know what tomorrow may bring. Tell them if something interesting comes up to drop you a line.

I refer to this as what is called "protective networking". In life it's all about who you know. Start planting those seeds and building those relationships today and see the fruits of your labor when you need them the most. If you do get stuck in unemployment jail at least you know you will be getting bailed out earlier than the next guy.

2010: A Banner Year

2011-02-09T14:15:00.001-05:00

Having officially closed the book on another year here at 3Sixty and recently poring over financial documents and balance sheets, I'm happy to report that year over profits rose 38% in 2010! Quite an achievement and I truly couldn't be more excited about what the future holds for this company.

Since opening the proverbial doors to 3Sixty amidst the seas of the worst economic conditions this generation has seen, it has been a slow and steady mentality; with an emphasis on customer service, candidate experience, transparency and doing things the right way. Our success is an indication that no matter the challenges set forth, with the right people, attitude, vision and execution, anything can be achieved.

While 2010 saw record growth, it also marked change that will benefit my long term goal of growing the company into a leader in our core business areas. Milestone achievements included office expansion, market growth to the West Coast and increased resources that will enable us to further lead the charge as a preferred business partner in the talent acquisition industry.

In the early months of 2011 we are already off to a strong start with an eye on the addition of staff here in Atlanta for Q1. I'm optimistic that 2011 will be another banner year with the expansion of new partnerships and the addition of new staff. I've set the bar high at tripling our 2010 output and aiming for 100% year over growth. It won't be easy, but nothing worth anything in this world ever is.

Best of luck to everyone in 2011!

Is Your Resume Optimized? How to be found by recruiters and hiring managers.

2011-02-01T09:32:00.001-05:00

Search engine optimization. It's as mysterious as the Bermuda Triangle. What in the world does it have to do with your career? Simple, if your resume is not ready for it you won't be found. Search engine optimization (commonly referred to as SEO) has become increasingly important over the past few years with the popularity and effectiveness of Google and Boolean search, especially as it pertains to applicant tracking systems (ATS).

SEO, ATS, Boolean search? In case you are scratching your head as you read this let me explain. Most job seekers keep their search very close to the vest on places like Monster and Careerbuilder, that is mistake numero uno. Ever heard of Simplyhired.com or indeed.com? They are only the top two job search / job posting sites out there. They cast a wide net across much of the internet and based upon certain algorithms, pull back job postings that a user types in that match the desired search terms. They aggregate results based on user keyed searches. They specialize in what is known as job aggregation.

The same goes for ATS' or Applicant Tracking Systems. Most companies, whether large or small use some form of an ATS. Chances are your company uses one and you didn't even know it. Taleo, Maxhire, Brassring and Peoplesoft are a few examples, what most people don't realize is that Monster, Careerbuilder and LinkedIn also have the functionality built in that works just like Indeed, Simplyhired and the rest.

Recruiters, both corporate and agency, and HR utilize key search terms when matching up resumes and job descriptions. It's the first and easiest step in the talent acquisition process. See what's already floating near the top of the water before you dive in. You may just get lucky. I would argue that 3/4 jobs are filled this way. Skimming the top of the pile so to speak. Thankfully people like me earn a living off of the remaining 25%.

Let's say a position opens up for a Vice President of R&D and the company specializes in making black widgets. Your resume is in plain sight and you see the job listed all over the internet, but you still have not received a call. By now you are wondering "what the heck is going on here?". The answer is simple, it's your resume.

It's not formatted in a way that allows it to be picked up by the spiders/meta crawlers when someone is typing in certain key terms. Just as websites have to be formatted in a way that search engines can index and like, so too does your resume.
If your resume is lacking a series of key words then it is not going to be showing up in the results either. If your resume talks in story form ie not in concise, keyword rich form, you will not be found and/or indexed high by LinkedIn, Monster or Careerbuilder or even internal ATS' that I mentioned earlier like Taleo, Brassring, or Peoplesoft.
You want your resume to read as close to the way that people would type in search terms. So if your title reads Experienced Manufacturing Leader I would think about making a change if your phone is not ringing. Why? Because when is the last time you saw a job posting where the title was Experienced Manufacturing Leader? You most likely have not, because that is not how jobs are advertised or written. Even worse, if your resume doesn't list anything below your name and just dives into experience then you are missing a key component of being indexed by these search engines.

Technology advancement is a great thing, when properly utilized, but if your phone is not ringing and you know you are a fit for that job then I suggest making an upgrade from resume version 1.0 that you have been running since 1997. Consult with an expert on optimizing your resume properly. You may not need a total renovation, just a quick face lift. All resumes are not created equal.

Recruiting: You're only as good as your last candidate

2010-09-24T11:57:00.003-04:00

As I begin to stare down a decade in the recruiting business, (has it been that long already?) I've come to appreciate views outside of my periscope. Sometimes we spend so many hours underwater that when we finally surface for air we realize so many things have changed around us.

Recruiting, fundamentally at its core, is about client and candidate, job opening and job seeker. A destination of sorts. The path to connecting those two parties is the journey. The journey requires careful painting of the picture of opportunity. It is crucial to arriving at your destination. Sometimes it's easy to get lost in the journey. Your passion and creativity fuels the journey, but the destination is what client and candidate will weigh you on.

In recruiting, it's easy to become distracted and overwhelmed with juggling various deadlines, clients and responsibilities. The world turns, technology advances, and people come and go. A while back I was reminded of something I later realized I had somehow lost sight on having been so focused on multiple initiatives at once. As one of my clients and I were discussing the ebbs and flows of recruiting, they said something that struck me like a refreshing ton of bricks. They said, "Philip, no matter what happens, you're only as good as your last candidate." Truer words could not have been spoken!

Lady Luck: Beautiful, Unpredictable and Always Appreciated

2010-07-28T13:55:00.008-04:00

Looking back on it, I've never given enough credit to a special someone who has had a few cameo roles in my professional success over the years. I'm talking about Lady Luck. I find that her striking beauty and witty charm shows up on my doorstep when I least expect it. And believe me she can sure be a sight for sore eyes. She comes in, sweeps you off of your feet, then leaves you breathless wondering when she will visit again.

Recruiting is a game of ups and downs, filled with victories and defeats all throughout. It's all takeaways and what you learn from your mistakes and what you understand about your successes. From the knowledge gained between, you formulate strategies which hopefully lead to higher peaks and softer valleys. It's difficult to find a "norm" or consistent process to predict behavior or outcomes on. You are dealing with people, and people are the most intelligent, unpredictable creatures ever put on this earth.

Sometimes I can call 100 people and not find the right person. Other times I can call 10 people and find the right person. And even on occasion, my phone may ring when I least expect it and it's the perfect person who found ME on Google. That is when Lady Luck graces you with her beauty. It's ok to be thankful for her swooping in unannounced, but the trick is not to let her have a profound impact on the way you operate.

It's methodical preparation, consistent execution and hard work that wins in the talent acquisition business, but it's ok to be lucky every now and then too. Benjamin Franklin once said, "I am a strong believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."

Keep perspective on what got you here and most importantly, good luck!

Is Your Company's Brand Hurting Recruiting Efforts?

2010-07-08T23:49:00.000-04:00

They say perception is reality. Never can that be more dangerous than when it comes to a company's brand and its effect on talent acquisition. A company's brand, message and perception in the marketplace can make or break the best laid talent acquisition plans. It can determine whether a company can attract and land A-list superstars or D-list extras.

Many years ago in a galaxy far, far away I was a wide-eyed, rookie recruiter required to make 75 phone calls a day. I would partner with a company and start searching for a "purple unicorn" (recruiter-speak for someone who just doesn't exist). I would make many connections and most of them would agree to hear me out, but then at some point in the conversation would say, "I'm not interested right now, but let's stay in touch". I would fight back with a few valid points fully believing that this was a great opportunity, but it mostly ended the same way. Each time I would be thoroughly confused on why they wouldn't be interested in a job that was clearly better than the one they were in.

What I didn't realize back then was how focused I was on the opportunity and making a match. It was like offering milk to the lactose intolerant. My mindset was, "I love milk, you should too. Want some milk?” What I failed to realize was that if I had only asked them how they felt about milk then I could have offered them a workaround, like Lactaid or Soy Milk.

One of the first things I do these days when I get on the phone with a candidate is ask them their opinion on the company I am calling on behalf of. Why? Many people suffer from what is know as the lemming effect. They go along unquestioningly with the popular opinion, regardless of knowledge or fact. If the popular opinion is a negative one, the lemming effect can be very dangerous to a company's brand and message, and can be lethal to recruiting efforts.

Companies rely heavily on their brands to attract, recruit and retain employees. The problem is that this is a hands-off approach to recruiting. It's like investing all of your available capital in mortgage-backed securities. Surely no one would completely leverage themselves in such a manner...oh wait. Never mind. I always ask companies, "How are you attracting people to your organization? What is great about your company? What is unique about this opportunity?" This vital input is some of the most critical information I can leverage in order to give the correct perception of the world behind the velvet ropes.

Challenges in recruiting arise when you run across people who have a negative perception about a company. Bad perceptions are often based on inaccurate or out-of-date information, so the logical question is how do talent acquisition teams overcome this obstacle? Better yet, are they landing the key leadership hires that are essential to a company’s growth initiatives? You know, the A-list superstars.

One of the best ways to ensure success in your talent acquisition initiatives, especially when it comes to plucking out impact players from your competition, is to understand the perception of your brand in your competitor’s eyes. This is where a headhunter can become an invaluable resource. A skilled headhunter is able to inform, educate, introduce, support and sell a brand with up-to-the-minute accuracy. A headhunter is also able to do this as an objective third party. They can go to bat for a company and make right what perceptions may be wrong in one conversation alone, drastically altering the results of a recruiting process.

In the end, having a trusted headhunter on your side can land a company a high performer in an impact role. Add a few of these hires up over time and you can cause a ripple in a company’s very fabric of existence, vastly altering the heights at which an organization can soar to. It all starts with having a headhunter out there reinforcing your brand, spreading your message and most importantly, giving accurate and up-to-date pictures of opportunity based upon personal knowledge. The only way to put an end to the lemming effect is to educate your target market. In the world of talent acquisition this is where a headhunter can be priceless.

Interview Flubs: Crazy interview stories

2010-06-28T12:51:00.004-04:00

This morning my father in law sent me a very interesting article spotlighting some unbelievable interviewing flubs made by job seekers. The irony on the timing of the article was just perfect as I'm in the middle of compiling a feature on my column talking about something similar. He didn't even know so that made it even better.

I've said in the past that I'm a firm believer in the fact that our national unemployment rate would most likely decrease 1-3% if only one thing was to change. That one thing is job seekers understanding how to run an "intelligent" job search. We have people in this country with PhD's and MBA's, yet they are really confused on what it takes to successfully execute a job search. It's truly befuddling to me, but I have to remind myself that I do this everyday and I am a trained professional. Job seekers are trained professionals in their respective fields too, engineering, science, product development, sales, etc. They are just not professionals in the areas of job search, recruiting or talent acquisition. In their defense if you asked me to sit down at a computer and design a pacemaker, I would stare at you as if you had three eyeballs. So touche.

The other day I was preparing a candidate for an interview for an executive position with a client of mine. This was around 9pm in the middle of the week and I was in my home office. My wife walked in and heard me say to the candidate, "Are you wearing a suit to the interview? Are you going to shave?" My candidate proceeded to tell me a story about a nice pin stripe suit they were packing and that they didn't have a ZZ Top beard so not to worry.

After I hung up the phone my wife says to me, "Why in the world would you ask that person what they were going to wear and if they were going to shave? Isn't it kind of insulting?" I said to her, you ask me if I've fed the dogs every night no matter the fact that I've done it almost every single day for the last several years. I know that if I don't feed them that they can't feed themselves and thus won't eat. I'm not insulted, I know you are just ensuring something that is important and that you care about get's done. The end result is happy puppies and peace of mind. She looked at me and smiled.

Read this article featured by Sarah Needleman for the Wall Street Journal. Actually read it twice, it's that funny. Job seekers take note. Avoid these nightmare tactics. Interviewers, keep your eyes peeled for Ashton Kutcher.

How NOT to Hire Top Talent: Lessons from the recruiting gridiron

2010-03-10T22:56:00.004-05:00

Painting the picture of opportunity in a talent acquisition process requires the deft touch of an artist. You must approach your candidates with care, clutching the initial relationship building phase like you were Michelangelo preparing to paint the Sistine Chapel. Too many mistakes and you can kiss your masterpiece goodbye.

Most of you already know my football background so I won't delve into that again, but after the conclusion of this season's college bowl games we witnessed so many coaching changes across programs that have traditionally been known as college football's version of the Fortune 50. These programs (from the outside looking in) seemed to struggle with being able to land their top candidates. In addition, after each candidate, whether real or perceived turned the job down, the job became devalued in the public's eyes.

Coaches were issuing press releases immediately disclaiming interest in the job after reports leaked of their initial interest or the school's interest in them, and candidates actually going through interviews and conversations with university officials and coming out the other side with a speculation-ending statement that spoke to their desire to remain at their current schools and continue what they started. It became a PR nightmare, especially in the case of my Alma mater, University of Tennessee.

It got me to thinking, I believe corporations as well as schools tend to get the shaft from most of their "top choices" because their approach is that candidates should just WANT the job because it's Tennessee, Alabama, Texas Tech, Microsoft, Domino's, Home Depot, etc. That is so bogus. Coaches, like any other corporate professional candidate for a high profile job, need to be wooed. They need to be shown value and asked a lot of questions in order for it to be understood what their motivations are, what their personal goals are, what inspires them. You can't force feed them a lifetime of traditions, culture and opportunity in a 48 hr window. It's just not possible. If you try and do that you get what you put in...not much.

Me, not knowing much about a recruitment process (insert laugh now)...can only tell you this...no matter the job, company or pay you must adhere to a few rules...

You must have a well thought out plan with targeted candidates on it.
You must ask intuitive questions in order to find out how to sell value to each candidate separately.
You must position and paint the opportunity to a candidate in a way that allows them to see the value in it and make an informed decision.
If you are turned down, chances are that candidate knows someone that fits the profile you are looking for. Ask for referrals!

You cannot bludgeon candidates into making a yes/no decision on the spot without spending time understanding their goals not just your own. You have to present value and opportunity, then sell it...and that is typically done before there is a need to. Most AD's/CEO's/Executives have what is called a “top drawer list” It contains the names of people you keep in touch with no matter what because they fit the criteria of your institution and/or company, its goals, traditions, values and profile. It's called gathering "competitive intelligence" and it takes commitment, strategy and execution. Those things are planned for in advance and carried out with delicate care, not ordered on the phone and delivered steaming fresh to your front door in 30 minutes or less. So avoid the PR nightmare and start that list today, because you never know when your next hiring process will be national attention and your every move scrutinized by fans, co workers and arm chair quarterbacks like myself.

The War For Talent Has Moved: Bookmark the new location

2010-03-09T12:48:00.000-05:00

The War For Talent Has Moved.

Bookmark the new site now located directly at www.MedDeviceHeadhunter.com

If you are previously subscribed to this RSS feed, please update feed address.

Thanks everyone!

Fleeting Ambition: The Residual Effect Of The Great Recession

2010-02-26T10:24:00.006-05:00

Being in the recruiting business allows me to speak with so many people from so many different walks of life. Although I am in the medical device recruiting business, I talk to many different people in outside industries too. I cherish the conversations I have with everyone because it allows me to have a sneak peek into what makes people tick, what motivates people to achieve the extraordinary. But something has me worried lately.

In all my years recruiting (nearing a decade) I have not come across so many people that seem to just have lost so much hope for themselves and their goals and dreams and this has me very worried. Yes, our culture has cut back on spending and come to value the dollar a little bit more than in years past. Savings accounts are getting more attention. Fiscal conservation built on a necessity-driven spending culture has influenced the way we live and the way our children and our children's children will be brought up. This is all a good thing, in my humble opinion, especially considering we, as Americans, have developed such a bad habit of living beyond our means over the last decade.

Interestingly, I’ve also seen this retreat mentality spread towards our personal career aspirations too. This is dangerous for all of us. Perhaps to James Cameron’s disbelief, it’s 2010 and human beings have not all been replaced by robots and machines. People are still the ones driving advancements in medicine, technology, business, academia, etc. People challenge the limits culture and society has placed upon us every day.

We need our population to find inspiration, to see hope, to want to achieve personal and professional greatness. Now is not the time for pulling back on the ambition that has led us to the greatest heights we have seen in the history of our civilization. Now is the time to galvanize around the technology at our fingertips and to continue exploring ways of solving problems in new ways. Create and commercialize. Live long and prosper...ok I stole that from Star Trek, but really, now is the time to rally around people and purposes. It is vital we push the limits of our knowledge everyday. People drive evolution and people need passion and inspiration as much as flowers need rain and sunshine to blossom.

The residual effect of creating, collaborating and commercializing is also an increase in the need for people. People to help the process along, to operate machines, to support the pipeline of activity, to make ideas come to life. The byproduct of one person's idea is the potential creation of hundreds, sometimes thousands of jobs. And right now the creation of even just a few more jobs is a good thing. So the next time opportunity knocks on your door, don't be too lazy to get off the couch and run after it.

The Cement Effect: How Your Career Can Betray You

2010-02-26T10:22:00.005-05:00

The skills and knowledge obtained from a career are much like that of a valuable building material. Organizations are constantly building up, stabilizing and reshaping their company structure. In order to reshape, reinforce and build structures you need building materials...insert people with career skills that are necessary in order to achieve these new corporate goals = increased demand.

Most companies are still reacting to the same recent events of the last 12 months and have similar ideas on what is needed in order to continue to keep the lights on and move forward. This means that they are all looking for mostly similar building materials = more increased demand. One big problem is that with unemployment still flirting with 10% there are more available job seekers in today's economy than in the last decade = increased supply. This means that right now companies are in the thought process that this is a buyer's market. (For the record, I disagree with this thought, but that is a topic I am covering on a future article.) Whether deserving or not, generally speaking, people with similar skills and experience are all being grouped together and commoditized. Once companies figure out what they are going to build, the next thing they do is gather up the necessary materials.

Picture this scenario: Your skills and experience are like cement. The companies that employ you are like the cement trucks that take you to the job site. In our case the job site is a destination, your career goals. Cement trucks always have their mixers spinning and rotating to keep the cement active until it's used. Cement is a very valuable building material, but once it hardens and cures its physical uses are severely limited until it is demolished, recycled and put back through the entire process again.

A career is like cement in that you must make sure it stays active. Leave cement alone too long and it will harden and turn into concrete, limiting what you are able to build/do with it. Don't stop networking even if you don't have a reason to. Focus on taking advantage of your company's professional development opportunities...it's free! Don't get stuck in a single role or mission and allow your skills to grow extinct. Expand your experience and build your network. If a recruiter calls you, talk to them, build a relationship with them. If a competitor calls you wanting to discuss strategic job opportunities they think might you might be interested in to further your career then listen to them and take the meeting, expand your network. Read books on your craft, sharpen your skills. Develop your expertise, write papers and articles. Contribute to research. Partner with other groups within your company and get involved in different projects and initiatives. Grow your intellectual horsepower.

Companies are out there looking for cement, not concrete. If you are cement, you are fresh and have options on what you can be used for. You can fit into a much broader scope of future building plans. If you have let yourself turn into concrete you are stuck waiting by the phone for that ONE chance, because there is only so much you can do with a big slab of concrete.

Your Amazing Factor - How Does Your Resume Measure Up?

2010-01-08T10:58:00.005-05:00

Standing out in today's crowded career marketplace is a highly critical component of being able to land the most coveted jobs available. Having been in the recruiting business over the past decade, more than ever before, this is the time to make sure you are standing head and shoulders above your peers in the job market. The easiest place to start? Your resume. In my line of work as a professional headhunter or more eloquently stated, an executive search consultant, I see thousands of resumes per year come across my desk. I'm highly qualified in the art of the first impression, specifically on paper. The main way to master the art of the first impression if you are a job seeker? In 30 seconds or less convince your reader how amazing you are.

When it comes to hiring, corporate managers and executive recruiters alike look for certain things right off the bat. The key is making sure your resume has the right mix of style and substance. There are certain factors that are just out of your control, such as reading styles and hiring approach. What I mean is, half of us analyze to immediately vet out, the other half of us analyze to immediately vet in. Some read for accomplishments and some read for buzzwords. You can only control so much of the above, but what you can completely control is your amazing factor; that delicate balance between style and substance.

Your amazing factor is my first requirement when reading a resume. I want to be WOWED - in 30 seconds or less. I'm looking for something unique, spectacular and tangibly relevant about you and the job you are applying for. Is that too much to ask? Maybe. Maybe not. It's critical whether you are an engineer, scientist or salesman that your amazing factor be screaming loud and clear, otherwise your resume won't have a pulse. The only thing amazing about it will be the pace at which it's sent to the email archives. Trust me.

I've seen myself and other managers passing on a lot of resumes lately, not because of format, candidate experience or education, but because of the resumes inability to make a quick impact. Take a look at your resume. Get in the best mentally objective mode you can and think of yourself as the CEO of the company you are looking to get hired by. Take a look at the job description of which you are applying. Read it thoroughly. Now put a cooking timer on the kitchen table and set it for 30 seconds. Start reading. When the timer goes off ask yourself what impression did you get about your resume and yourself from reading it? Would you hire you? 30 seconds is all you get, that's it.

Most corporate managers, human resources personnel and executive recruiters spend 30 seconds reading through 1/3 of the first page of your resume. In those crucial 30 seconds and 1/3 of the first page of reading about your entire professional history (which unfortunately decides whether you go to the left pile or right pile) do you feel like you made a convincing argument that you are amazing? If so, then your future is bright and don't be surprised what doors your resume may open for you. If not, think about what is amazing about your professional achievements and make sure it is shouting out to the world in 30 seconds or less on your new resume. Remember, if a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Business, Branding and Locomotives

2009-12-11T08:57:00.032-05:00

Put two trains on separate tracks equal distance from a concrete barrier. One train has just a locomotive, but with a much larger and more powerful engine capable of producing a higher speed. The smaller locomotive has many rail-cars and a caboose (a complete train). Its weight is much greater than the other train, but its engine is not as strong. My question to you is which train ends up going further down the track after impact against that concrete barrier? The locomotive with just a strong engine, or the complete train with four times the weight?

I've been a producer of revenue throughout my entire career. Come to think of it there has not been a month in the last 75 months that I have not been judged on how much revenue I have been able to produce for the company I was working for. I have seen many people come and go in my industry and some of those people were so good at sales that I would go to their desk to borrow a pencil and they would end up selling me an eraser and a stack of post it notes before I could say no.

I've seen many times over the years that it's not just the force at which you hit an object, it's the momentum created as a by-product from having a "complete train". It's not just the impact, it's the follow through. The momentum you create as a branded expert in your marketplace will always propel you further down the tracks than someone who comes along with just a big and strong sales pitch.

I'm sometimes told that the recruiting business is JUST a sales job, and you must make 100 phone calls a day, sell, and produce revenue. I've never believed that. The words SOUGHT OUT, EXPERTISE, NEEDED, ASKED and RELIED UPON have replaced those of solicit, harass, sell and bother. Recruiting is NOT just a sales job. I have no product to sell. I only have a promise I can fulfill. The only way to fulfill that promise is to follow through. That follow through creates the momentum that reinforces my brand, expertise and reputation.

Each search I complete is another rail-car I put behind my locomotive. The bigger my train keeps getting the more momentum I am creating for my brand. In business you will inevitably keep running up against shiny, new, larger-engined locomotives. When you hear the whistle for full steam ahead just remember you've been down those tracks before.

Happy Hunting!

Christmas in November

2009-10-28T11:39:00.007-04:00

With most of October in the rear view mirror,
job seekers of all shapes, sizes, and confidentiality levels are mostly gearing up for a slow finish out to the rest of 2009. Thanksgiving is sneaking up by the week. People are planning for out of town trips to visit family, or are thinking about how grueling preparing for family to come visit for the holidays may become in the next month. Pumpkins, fried turkeys (if you are from the South) and all the fixins in between, then out to find a Douglas Fir to put in the living room for Christmas.

Ah the drag of winter. BUT WAIT! What about Christmas in November? Huh, you may be saying to yourself. What a lot of people don't understand is that for a LOT of companies out there October signaled the start to a new fiscal year. Which means new budgets, new projections, targets to hit, people to hire, money to spend. November is a secret gold mine in the job hunting world if you know where to look.

1) This year more than ever will be the year that most companies REALLY try and right the ship especially given the economic debacle most of the last 18 months have been for businesses. Adjustments have been made, 2009 is behind us, it's time to get back on track and steam forward. There is widespread incentive to produce results this year.

2) A recruiting life cycle is about 60-90 days from initial job advertisement to offer letter, acceptance, and first day on the job. This means that once positions were put on hire starting October 1st that the plan is to have people on board by January 1st of 2010. If you wait to show an interest or look for that new role until late in December while sitting around drinking eggnog with your family you have already lost.

3) Coinciding with the 60-90 day recruiting life cycle comes into the equation of Human Resources. HR really takes interest in "on boarding". Studies have supported that retention is directly influenced by a new hire's initial on boarding experience. This requires hands on attention, which takes time out of busy manager's schedules which is all the reason why hiring and on boarding during the slowest production months of the year (November and December) is usually the best time served for these actions. Plus the added benefit of coming into a strange environment during a time where there are a lot of social parties, holiday get togethers, and overall holiday cheer really allows a new hire to connect with their new co workers in a relaxed environment, form new bonds and get a FEEL for the company dynamic. This is a huge bonus to all. Oh and speaking of bonus, how about some companies even give new hires the same end of year bonus that everyone else receives...now who doesn't want that?

So put the pumpkin pie aside for a minute and get online to check your list of target companies and find out when their fiscal years start. If you get lucky, shoot an email to a contact of interest at that company stating that you know their fiscal year just ended and you are interested in finding out if your background is of any value to any of their 2010 growth initiatives. You never know what perfect timing you may have just created!

Happy Hunting!

Sell, Sell, Sell

2009-10-28T11:38:00.007-04:00

Sell, sell, sell...no, I'm not talking about stocks or Kramer from Mad Money. I'm talking about yourself. I'm talking about the most powerful weapon in your arsenal. You! You are an absolutely unique asset that can't be duplicated. Your ROI is quantifiable. Your personality is infectious. People connect with you, trust you, respect you. You are a winner, a leader, an expert. You are a valued teammate, coach, confidant. You elevate others around you. You are a game-changing talent.

If this sounds hokey pokey to you then you need not read past the period in this sentence located right here. If this sounds like they way you feel about yourself in some fashion or another then my next challenge is for you to print a copy of your resume and put it on the table in front of you. Now read your resume and then read the first paragraph in my post above again. If your resume does not convey the same INSTANT message then crumple it up and throw it in the trash. It's time for a new one.

Two of the easiest things to do today for yourself and your job hunt are to: 1) Read the first paragraph of this post again, then construct your new resume accordingly to convey the message that you are a difference maker. 2) Read the first paragraph of this post one more time, then read your newly written resume, then make your bullet points into a fact sheet that gives supporting evidence what you have written.

In today's job market companies want to know how you can make or save them money. There are a million ways to do it, but saying you can do it is what everyone else is doing. Actually being able to support each concise accomplishment in your resume with a short 2 minute vocal description (that only you can say you have done) will elevate you above your competition and enable you to quantify your abilities.

Get out a pad and paper after you have written your newly superb resume and write a short list of supporting examples for your resume's content that provides immediately quantifiable results for your interviewer. Last, but not least, head to the bathroom mirror and start reciting each one out loud to yourself so you learn to also SOUND like that amazing person you have made yourself out to be on paper. Remember, sell, sell, sell!

Why Recruiters Are Worth What They Charge

2009-10-08T11:22:00.005-04:00

A GREAT READ...

"When I need a heart by-pass, rest assured that I won't select my surgeon on the basis of what they charge."

That's what an ailing executive recently opined when he was informed by his doctor about his arterial blockage problems. Why then can corporate executives be so tightfisted when dealing with what is so commonly thought of as the "heartbeat" of their companies . . . top talent?

Companies think very little about paying the often exorbitant fees charged by their outside accounting and legal firms . . . or even to the gaggle of consultants who promise cost-cutting and streamlining miracles in other areas of operations.

Yet, when faced with brain drains, talent deficiencies or the need to replace an employee with a better one, their thoughts too often turn to parsimony. This Wal-mart mentality belies and contradicts their stated objectives to "hire the best," especially at pecking order levels below the "big picture" executive suite inhabitants.

Of course recruiting fees can vary from firm to firm but, when they do, you will almost always find that those on the low side are sure to exclude some very key portions of the process, all of which are vital to providing the indispensable services necessary to satisfy the needs of the employer.

So why are recruiters worth what they charge? Just a few of the often unspoken reasons are:

Expertise - Nobody knows the employment marketplace better than a professional recruiter . . . nobody! In-house human resources, no matter how effective, view the marketplace through an imperfect or misrepresentative prism and tunnel vision is their occupational hazard.

Just as physicians are cautioned against treating members of their own families, so too is it folly for an in-house H/R professional to believe that they have an undistorted and unbiased picture of the employment landscape. They are vulnerable to the pressures of internal politics and cultural dimensions which do not hinder the outsider.

Street-smart recruiters already know the neighbor-hood, including the unlisted addresses so often overlooked by the HR insiders.

Cast a wider net - A professional fisherman will always have more to show than a weekend angler. Recruiters are in the marketplace day in and day out. They know the un-fished coves, reefs and inlets that are unknown to others. The job-hunter bookshelves are filled with lore about the "hidden job market." The same holds true for professional recruiters who have a detailed road map to the hidden talent sources which will never be accessed by newspaper ads, alumni associations, applicant databases, the Internet or any of the other more familiar sources of people.

There are occasional pearls through these sources (and someone inevitably wins the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes too) but you have to shuck an awful lot of smelly oysters to find them. Recruiters only give you oysters proven to contain pearls. Your only job is to determine which pearl is the best.

Want to catch what you're fishing for? Hire a guide!

Cost - There is a misconception among employers that the cost of a hire equals the cost of the ads run to attract the person hired. Nothing could be further from reality.

Try adding these to the true costs and you'll see just how cost effective an outside recruiter can be:

Salaries and benefits of the employment/recruiting staffs plus those of the line managers involved in the hiring activity (who are not productive in their normal job pursuits when they're out recruiting); travel, lodging and entertainment expenses of in-house recruiters; source development costs; overhead expenses including (but not limited to) telephone, office space, postage, PR literature, applicant database maintenance, Internet access, reference checking, clerical costs to correspond with the hundreds of unqualified respondents, etc.

Unbiased third party input - Contrary to what some believe, recruiters don't try to put square employees into round jobs. A recruiter's stock-in-trade is their integrity and their reputation for finding someone better than a company could have found for themselves.

For a mid-level to senior executive, the average recruiter may develop a "long list" of a hundred or more possibilities. Each must be called and evaluated against the position specifications as well as the personality "fit" with the company and the people with whom they will ultimately work. Once this is winnowed down to the "short list," an even more intensive interviewing process begins to narrow the search to a panel of finalists for review by the client.

This process is not, as some believe, simply romping through the file cabinets, job boards or putting the job opening out to others on the recruiter's network with crossed fingers that someone good will show up.

It is highly unlikely that a professional recruiter will be plowing brand new ground with your opening. They deal within spheres of influence far more familiar with your needs than any internal recruiter and, more often than not, view the finalists as people who are competent to solve client problems rather than just fill an open slot in the organizational chart.

Because they want to do business with you again and again, they are looking for (and challenging you to excellence by hiring) the "truly exceptional" rather than the "just satisfactory" so often settled for by in-house hirers.

Confidentiality - Advertising or otherwise publicly pro-claiming an opening, aside from its cost and demonstrated ineffectiveness for sensitive senior level openings, often creates anxiety and apprehension among the advertiser's current employees who wonder why they aren't being considered or worry about newcomer transition problems. Just as often it alerts competitors to a current weakness or void within the company.

Speed - The recruiting process is always faster through a search professional who is continually tapped into the talent marketplace than one having to start the process from scratch. For every day that a key opening remains unfilled, a company's other employees must grudgingly do double duty. And this doesn't factor in the profit opportunities or competitive advantages lost to a company because a position remains unfilled or done on a part-time basis by others less qualified.

Post-Hire Downtime - Not only is speed an essential part of the professional recruiter's process, the ability to locate a person who can immediately "hit the ground running" with a minimum of "ramp-up time" saves time after the hire. All too often, a hire selected through less effective sources, offering a smaller talent pool, requires several months of expensive training and orientation.

Reality - Professional recruiters often recognize and have a duty to inform clients that they may be mistaken as to the type of person sought, the salary required to attract them or the possibilities that the solution might just lie in areas outside the traditional target industries . . . something an internal recruiter is politically disinclined to do. Too many hirers fail to understand that a professional recruiter's pr i-mary function is not necessarily to fill a slot but to provide the right candidate to solve a problem.

Negotiation - Master negotiator Herb Cohen says that "negotiation is the analysis of information, time and power to affect behavior . . . the meeting of needs (yours and others) to make things happen the way you want them to." As a buffer and informed intermediary, the professional recruiter is better able to blend the needs and wants of both parties to arrive at a mutually beneficial arrangement with-out the polarizing roadblocks which too frequently materialize in face-to-face dealings.

Prioritizing company resources - It is often amazing to see how much of a company's revenues are squandered on non-productive perks for existing high-level employees while they penny-pinch on what is every company's life-blood . . . talent acquisition.
Club memberships and the like may be fine, but no one with an IQ higher than Forrest Gump's believes that these expenditures contribute to a company's profit margin. But one well-placed employee can be the cause of a company's profits skyrocketing. And the fee for having hired these people pales in insignificance when compared to the contributions they make to the bottom line.

The next time you think a recruiter's fees are too high, put them in the proper perspective before asking for that bargain Blue Light special or spinning your wheels thrash-in about trying to fill vital openings with less effective (but not necessarily less expensive) do-it-yourself methods. Savvy executives learned long ago that the fee paid to a recruiter is a shrewd strategic investment, not an extraneous expense.

Written by Paul Hawkinson, Publisher of The Fordyce Letter (www.fordyceletter.com)

My Latest Searches

2009-10-08T09:20:00.003-04:00

Whew...Q3 is in the books and it was a cooker. I was able to finish up some very important retained searches and was so glad to see the final results turn out so well for everyone. Without fail, as soon as I finished up one of my searches I was given 4 more. No rest for weary!

I've posted these on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. My company's group page at LinkedIn always gets the jobs first there so perhaps a note to self to join up today. Follow the link here and you are on your way to joining 3Sixty Consulting's LinkedIn group.

As for everyone else reading today...I've been asked to lead 4 critical searches for a global medical device company. All of these positions are due to growth and I can't speak more highly about the direction this company sees itself going in 2010. Let's just say that if you get the chance to get on board their freight train, I really suggest you do so without further adieu.

My client is looking for the following positions for immediate hire:

R&D Project Lead / Principal Engineer
Program Manager
Program Manager / Core Team Leader
R&D Director

All of these positions offer six figure compensation, one of the best benefit packages in the industry, and full relo.

Follow the link here to get more details and apply.

As always you may email or call me if you have specific questions.

The Extinction of Cover Letters

2009-09-17T15:53:00.004-04:00

I was thinking today that it has been a VERY long time since I last received a cover letter from a job seeker. To think of it, it has been probably twice as long as that since I last sent a cover letter in addition to a resume to a client of whose search I was leading.

In this "glimpse and run" world of Twitter, cover letters have become like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, once extremely fearsome and an effective killer...but now extinct. It used to be that you used a cover to really separate yourself and make bold, reaching introductions to your reading audience, now that is done on the first page of a professional summary/objective section on your resume.

So many resumes are still stuck in the past. They make me tired just reading them. I have called resumes professional marketing pieces in the past. You can read here. It used to be that the cover letter was the way to market yourself and the resume the way to support your argument, that thinking is now gone like our Paleozoic friends of the past.

Let today stand as the day cover letters were put on the endangered species list. Resumes need flash and glamor. To achieve this make sure that your intro paragraph jumps out and says "I am the best, read why". If you have time...invest it on your actual resume, not the cover letter...cover letters are on their way out. A victim of digital evolution. This only begs the question of when will actual paper resumes become victims of the digital evolution too? Can anyone say video resume? Bueller? Bueller?

Building a Culture of Appreciation

2009-09-16T09:43:00.006-04:00

During tough times it is so important to remember that in the end we are all human and we all have feelings. We are people. Living, breathing, working, and worrying for at least 40 hours per week for a paycheck, a vision, a goal. Typically we are all pieces of a larger puzzle, but that puzzle wouldn't get completed without our efforts.

Myself, having grown up in a "awards for accomplishments" type of world, both in sports and in business, always appreciated when others took notice of my hard work and gave me the proverbial pat on the back. Sure, cash bonus' along the way were always nice too, but I was always a trophy or plaque kind of guy. Give me a trophy so I can remember what I accomplished. Sure, I may not look at it much after the memory fades, but when times get tough and I get in a funk, I can always close the office door and look on the wall and remember what it took to get to that level of accomplishment.

Sometimes lost in the daily grind is the appreciation for others' contributions along the way. Never underestimate the power of telling others that you appreciate their good work and contributions and that they are valuable members of the team. Coming up in the executive recruiting business I was fortunate to have worked for managers that really understood this concept and it always made me appreciate them more in return and want to push a little bit harder for them during crunch time knowing I didn't want to let them down.

I read an article recently that talked about managing and showing appreciation along the way. Read the article here.

Enjoy!

Retained In A Recession

2009-08-17T22:52:00.012-04:00

Often times companies don't understand the true leverage you can give a professional recruiter by retaining them. Forget about the fact that your search goes straight to the top of the priority list and everyone else gets pushed down the ladder. It's not even about the fact that retained clients get the top candidates first. Just the sheer power of being able to market your opportunity as one that is retained says a thousand words. Let me tell you why.

This year more candidates have asked ME if I am retained or if I am working on a contingent search than ever before. That's right, candidates ask ME if I have be retained. Are they crazy? No. I don't blame them though for asking. Want to know why? Well for starters, being retained in a recession has now become just as important as the job itself.

When I am on a search and I am asked if I am retained when calling people that previously have not given an outside company or opportunity a second thought, I love saying "Yes, in fact I am" Why? Because of the strong message it sends about your company. Sure, there are opportunities out there for the right people, but a lot of those "right people" are not returning phone calls or getting online to hear about those opportunities.

So companies turn to recruiters, but the problem is not solved by just hiring a recruiter. The people you are looking for are too busy working their current jobs to want to hear about another regular, old contingent search by another regular, old recruiter giving them a call out of the blue. They are happy (safe) and things are good (boring). Your recruiter and your opportunity have been typecasted right on the spot. Without sizzle and leverage you have lost.

Recruiting requires strategy in order to achieve execution. That strategy starts on the front end when discussing how to go about attracting the top talent for a search. Being retained in a recession sets a standard and sends a clear message in an otherwise crowded market. Nothing says hear me out or call me back more than being able to convey the fact that you have been RETAINED. A retained search conveys many messages.

1) From the recruiter's standpoint it says I am good enough at what I do to have been chosen to lead this search and you should listen to why I have called you. I'm not here to waste anyone's time.

2) While companies gain recruiter's top priority status by retaining them on the search...top candidates also place retained opportunities at the top of their priority list and remember it come decision time when on the fence.

3) This company has placed enough value and importance on this search that they have invested in it on the front end. This is clearly a stable company who is playing their cards right. I wonder what they are looking to do? Why am I being targeted for this opportunity?

4) This company understands how important it is to attract the best players for their team and they allocate the resources to do so. This is a company that knows what it wants, is aggressive, and goes after the best. It must translate into their business model if I were to join them.

In today's market, candidates want to be on financially successful, winning teams; especially in a recession where feelings and thoughts of doubt and worry are more prevalent than hope and optimism. There are good people out there, potential difference makers for your company, but you have to make an immediate impact and get them off the fence. There is no better way to do that while clearly separating yourself from your competition by giving the power and message of what a retained search says about your company and your opportunity. Give this power to the right recruiters and watch what starts coming in your front door.

Invest In Karma: Pay It Forward

2009-08-06T10:16:00.005-04:00

Remember the movie years back called Pay It Forward? If you do and saw it like I did, then you will probably get this message more clear than others. In my early years in business I was a fresh faced, gung-ho, take orders, produce results, get promoted kind of guy. And it worked, believe me. I worked till my fingers bled and yearned for results. I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by intelligent people along the way that shaped who I am today. I laugh at those early years, because now, almost a decade later I realize that I was only a part of a machine; someone else's machine. This machine was built on principals, values, and goals that I didn't believe in fully.

Most recruiters have the best of intentions, however at the end of the day they are part of a machine. The machine never sleeps, it consumes, and consumes more. Thinking nothing but consumption. The machine doesn't take into account favors, feelings, or morals. It consumes. It lives on revenue production and wants it in any way fashionable. The journey doesn't matter, only the destination.

Somewhere along the way about 3 years back I realized that the machine's goals were not the same as my clients and I felt stronger about my clients (candidates AND employers) than I did the machine. I started helping people out as much as I could without the need for compensation. Stupid? Maybe. Maybe not. What transpired is the machine asking me why I was specializing in "non-revenue generating tasks"? My immediate answer was that business was slow, but I could still impact people in a positive way with my network and ability. The machine didn't understand this at all. It made no sense to it.

I realized long ago that even if the dollar is not trading strongly that karma always will be. The return on investment for karma is amazing. Those that know me know how strongly I feel about this and how many times I've helped people along the way because I wanted to not because I needed to. I've payed it forward and it has come back around to me when I've least expected, and ironically most needed it to.

I run a well oiled recruiting machine these days built on different values and goals than I did when I first entered the recruiting world. I reached a point of evolution where I realized I don't NEED to do a lot of things, but I do them anyway because I know that I can impact people in a way that will help them on their own personal journeys. My machine is built on karma and I feed it often.

I was inspired by someone yesterday (who I am excited to help out because they have a great energy about them) how am I compensated if I am not going to ask for anything in return from an old client if I make an introduction and they get hired or from them personally if I help run a strategic search? My answer was simple, it has been for years. I specialize in karma. Best of all...karma always comes back around when you least expect it to!

The Evolution of HR

2009-08-04T22:02:00.006-04:00

I was inspired to tackle this topic after catching a LinkedIn update from a friend who pointed out that in a lately popular trend, GM becomes the fourth corporate behemoth to appoint a new Chief of HR that is not from HR. Interesting move? Maybe not as much as you would think. Let me point out why.

This year has revealed so many challenges for companies of all shapes and sizes. Challenges all focused around external factors. The words of the year: attrition, defection, turnover, layoffs, cutbacks and severances. Put these external factors together with words that encourage fear, uncertainty, and sometimes resentment and you are dealing with a highly flammable situation. Enter the firefighters (Chief of HR, EVP and VP of HR) who are tasked with putting out these fires as well as preventing future ones. Without the correct solutions applied you are dealing with what you get by throwing water on a grease fire. Water usually puts out flames, but not in this case.

What both GM, Danaher, Merck, and Microsoft did is a noble acknowledgment of the evolution of the Human Resources function. HR is an under-appreciated unit in corporations. Still to this day the thought of HR acting as a true consultative internal business partner is more of a wish than a reality (ask those in HR).

In order for HR to be looked upon as an asset instead of an expense there needs to be those at the top that can build the proper team and drive top-down change (NOT) at the expense of company culture. This is why some of the best and brightest, such as Danaher, GM, Merck, and Microsoft have realized the need to appoint individuals that understand the application of formal business acumen only learned theoretically in a higher education setting in order to effectively implement the necessary change tactics that will enable corporations to sustain the tough, external factors they and their employees are dealing with today and into the future.
HR has become siloed over the years. With a lack of cross-pollination with internal business units and exposure to formal business educations, they have become masters of playing in the same HR sandbox. The problem is that the game has moved outside of that box and now more than ever if you don't have the formal business education attained through a concentrated degree program or an MBA, then you may be on the endangered species list in the near future. To their defense, the last decade has pretty much been business as usual.

Sometimes HR focuses too much attention of the development of their own staff when they should not forget about themselves and what is going on OUTSIDE of their world. They need to invest in themselves as well. All of this doesn't mean the extinction of traditional HR folks, this just means that change is in the air. Everyone is sensing it, but not everyone has embraced it yet. GM, Danaher, Merck, and Microsoft have...who is next?

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