http://www.ere.net/erenetwork/groups/posting.asp?LISTINGID={F011C9CC-13E5-49AB-B04F-7DF36C34E728}’

Speak for yourself please.

‘Call it whatever you want – it doesn’t matter to us. Just recognizing the power an Executive Recruiter has is what is important.’

Us? It matters to me and I hope most others on ERE

All this Gorilla talk and chest beating really doesn’t do any of us any good so again, please speak for yourself rather than the community.

This is a profession and we should all act like professionals. Our priority should be to help companies, not destroy them.

The Executive Recruiter has no power if no one uses them, however hard they beat their chest.

Each day, I impact the bottom line of the organization by introducing quality candidates to hiring managers. These candidates, when hired, have the ability to move this organization to the next level of greatness. I not only consider what they can bring to the table in the role that they are being considered for but also where they could go as the organization changes.

Being ‘futuristic’ is part of who I am as a Recruiter and this big picture thinking has served me well throughout my recruiting career.

http://www.ere.net/erenetwork/groups/posting.asp?LISTINGID={F011C9CC-13E5-49AB-B04F-7DF36C34E728}

As far as whether recruiting is a profession, consider the fact that a recruiter (especially an executive recruiter) can do more to help or hurt a company than just about any other player.

A CFO can redeploy capital, buy back shares, select projects with higher payoff potential, etc. These actions can have positive or negative short-term and/or long-term effects.

However, an Executive Recruiter can pull your CFO, your COO, and your VP Sales & Marketing in the same day.

Call it whatever you want – it doesn’t matter to us. Just recognizing the power an Executive Recruiter has is what is important.

Because if you don’t, your competitors do, and nobody likes to walk into a meeting of empty chairs in the board room.

I think there are such things as ‘honor’ and ‘professionalism.’ There are if we make them so.

Regards,
Sean

As for his response in this thread, my first reaction was that perhaps it’s his seemingly abrasive and pessimistic attitude that keeps him from re-entereing the ‘corporate’ world. However, his post does highlight a growing perception of recruiters that I would liken to professional baseball’s expansion problems. As Major League Baseball adds more teams, the overall quality of players decreases. Yes, there are still superstars in the majors (the guys that have natural talent that you just can’t teach). As a result of expansion, though, the league needs more professional players, but they’re still drawing from the same pool of people.

I think the same is true for recruiting. There are still superstar recruiters, and there always will be. But, more and more companies need recruiters, so they hire people into these positions with little or no training. This, I believe, diminishes the profession. However, like in baseball, we are drawing more people from the same pool, so this is to be expected.

However, as much as Bernie may not like it, recruiters ARE gatekeepers. It is one of the primary functions of a recruiter: sift through the resumes and find only those who meet the qualifications as outlined by the hiring manager and/or company. In my experience, it is not the role of the recruiter to be a ‘visionary’ – to see what potential a candidate may have. It’s great if it happens, but it’s not the role. And recruiters cannot be exepcted to inundate hiring managers with visionary candidates. The only time I would expect it to occur is with recent college graduates who have little or no work experiience, and whose only possibility of getting a job is on their potential.

I’ve been in recruiting long enough to see the good, the bad and the ugly. Where and when we can, we should try to fix the bad and the ugly while improving on the good.

Oh, by the way, recruiting, like ANY profession, is only a profession if you are dedicated, involved and continuously improving yourself within it. Otherwise, it’s just a job.

Instead of getting mad, and offending, I suggest you find a list of companies that you would be interested in, and start applying!

BEST of LUCK!

I know many ‘C-Average’ multi-millionaires.

Obviously, they possess something that schools fail to measure, emphasize, identify or evaluate. This is more of a statement against the education system than it is of anything else.

It does not mean they are ‘stupid’ because they were ‘C-Average’ in a ‘community college’ (As you so put it). It means they were lousy students. Yet highly successful business individuals in certain cases.

I know of a million dollar per year stockbroker who can not talk about anything other than sports (hockey baseball). Most of my conversations with him have to be ‘dumbed down’ as he never spent one day in a college. Is he dumb? No. He earns a million a year in fees so he can’t be that dumb.

Just smart in a different area: that of convincing people to fork over money!

I had a gentleman call my office early this year demanding my coaching services for his failing recruiting practice. He was handling ‘Civil Engineers’. He went on lambasting, ranting and raving how ‘lousy’ it was to be a recruiter handling civil engineers and how ‘all civil engineers are overly analytical’ and ‘ruining his business’ … etc. etc.

I discovered he had a degree from Harvard. In fact, he made a point of telling me at least three times during a 15 minute conversation he was a ‘Harvard Grad’.

I very politely told him ‘Perhaps you are now learning that what you learned in Harvard and what is required to succeed in the real business world
are two completely different skill sets?’

I don’t think he ‘got it’.

Later the next day my wife who had stopped in the office overheard one of his follow up messages play on the speakerphone. She was able to pick up the bitterness in his voice and told me ‘You’re not thinking about training THAT GUY are you?’

I had by then concluded I was not.

I called him back and politely told him to seek out another recruiting training service as I felt his mind-set, attitude, demeanor was all wrong for our business and no amount of training at any price (for the record he had agreed to pay the full rate for one-on-one coaching for whatever length of time was required) was simply not worth my time.

I saw no point in having my time wasted by a student that was not going to benefit, not listen and was too disgruntled and frustrated to be able to succeed and get out of his own way.

I hear want you are saying, but I do want to point out that every organization is different. In the firm I work for, recruiters are part of the retention process and you know why? Because recruiter are naturally relationship builders (most HR professionals are not). So who better to develop a long-lasting relationship with an employee? Answer: A recruiter. But I do agree that if that is part of a recruiter’s job, comp them for it…

Robert

IMHO, I think we should stop trying to get respect from people who require making ourselves over into their image to consider granting it, after all, most of us are ‘NQTT’ (‘Not Quite Their Type’). It’s not worth it.

I believe John Falstaff said it well:
?Honor pricks me on. Yea, but how if honor prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? no. Or an arm? no. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honor? A word. What is in that word ?honor?? What is that ?honor?? Air. A trim reckoning. Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ‘Tis insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore, I’ll none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.?

-Henry IV, Part 1

Substitute ?professionalism? for ?honor? and you get my point.

Keith D. Halperin,
Sr. Recruiter
415.659.3511

John Lenotte
Staffing/HR professional

We all know that there is a distinct difference in the operational model between head hunters and corporate recruiters. We are also very aware that both types of professionals work diligently to satisfy clients. Having worked a full desk through search and exercise my political prowess in corporate, I would venture to say that there needs to be a merging of the three pillars of Recruiting that would assist in having what we do globally recognized as a profession. The art, the science and the process.

There are countless concepts, theories, methodologies and models that can be packaged in a manner similar to law or medicine to validate our profession. Our ‘profession’ is in essence a practice. Visualize this with me for a moment ? you?re at happy hour and you meet someone new. ?Nice meeting you. What do you do?? you ask. They respond, ?I practice law.? You know immediately that they are an Attorney. What if they would have said, ?I practice talent acquisition?? Would you know immediately that they are a Recruiter?? You should! But it is not intuitive to our society, culture, economy, business environment ? however you want to slice it. In recruiting there are no absolutes, no guarantees. But factoring in research, historical trending and solid expertise in the field, a good recruiter can infer their propensity to be successful as a professional.

So yes, Recruiting is a profession. When will we take ownership of our life’s work and demand respect from our society. The Chief Recruiting Officer role or at least a Chief Talent Officer role should be just as common as the CEO, CFO, COO and CIO. Can we imagine what our discussions will be like when our perception of our profession is a given and not a variable???

By it’s very definition, ‘Recruiting’ is what takes place prior to the individual beginning their employment with the company. Once they’re on board, they fall under the jurisdiction of ‘human resources’. Retention is an HR issue, not a recruiting issue.

As a career Recruiter who also did time in various corporate HR (including non-Recruiting functions) roles, I certainly appreciate the intent behind a Recruiter taking pride in doing their job well enough that the people they Recruit actually do stay where they’re hired/placed. I am completely on board with that. However, we’re setting ourselves up for misplaced blame by allowing the retention issue to reflect on our efforts.

No matter how great a job we do in the corporate Recruiting domain, the reality is that there are simply too many factors (that we have zero control over) which impact an individual’s tenure…any number of things can and do change which serve to materially alter the landscape of what we Recruited someone in for. As Recruiters, we simply don’t have the authority to fix a lot of that…so why do we allow ourselves to take shots for what are really HR issues?

If corporate America wants to hold it’s Recruiters accountable for retention, then two things would need to take place.

1. Recruiters would need to be given the authority to fix the issues which might be impacting the tenure of their recruits

AND

2. Corporate America would need to reward it’s Recruiters for successful retention of their hires. How about a bonus every time one of your hires completes a year of service…or gets promoted…or is rated ‘exceeds expectations’, or exceeds their sales quota…etc?

Neither of those is likely to happen…and they probably shouldn’t (although I will make a case for them being highly applicable in professional services firms) because there simply are too many things which impact an individual’s tenure that are beyond the control of the Recruiter.

Let’s absolutely take pride in what we do, Recruiters! But let’s also recognize that we shouldn’t set ourselves up to take the hit for something that’s not in our control.

I’ve asked this here in this forum before and I’m asking again, can someone show us even one corporate compensation program which rewards their Recruiters for, specifically, retention of their hires?

The reality is the Corporate Management teams have very little value in the HR Departments. Many of the HR departments are occupied by people with poor training, low skill level and poor pay. This is due to the automation of the hiring function.

I am a 3rd party recruiter with 20 years of outside sales experience. I do not consider myself superior to the HR professionals but simply very experienced in networking and negotiating which are clearly sales and marketing functions. I have also spend many years training to be the best at my professional learning new skills and attaining greater knowledge of industries and laws. My goal has always been to add value to my clients in order to be taken seriously.

The corporations think very little of their HR departments. In fact they think very little of their sales people who they think are expensive and overpaid. The hope is that automation of these valuable functions and or simply the relocation of these functions to ASIA will prove to be successful in attaining greater profits.

The end result is a backlash from hiring managers who wind up spending considerable time hiring rather than doing their job at no extra pay. They simply leave because of spending too many hours on the job at the expense of their personal family life. There is also a backlash from customers who realize quickly that the supplier is not providing very good service or has huge turnover, or poor quality products as a result of these turnover issues.

The reality is that the OBVIOUS GREED OF OVERPAID SENIOR EXECUTIVES is in fact creating conflict and tremendous turnover with the very companies that they manage poorly.

We need to change the mindsets of these corporate management teams that are so focussed on profits at all costs including conflict, employeee turnover, no law compliance, shareholder revolts. We need to hire Corporate Executives who put the stakeholders first in priority and not their personal interests which include multimillion dollar salary packages that are rewarded even on poor performance.

People need to work together….and not in isolation with technology. I can never be replaced…..because Passive Advertising does not always work in gain new clients or negotiating contracts.

John A’s incredulous remarks are a prime example of someone who?s had to work mostly with resume pushers, not experts, and further proof that Recruiters have to earn respect.

You go to a doctor, dentist, or hire a Big 4 consultant for their degree and training as much as for their experience. Do we need a Harvard Recruiter School or a Masters from Stanford in Staffing to be a real profession?

How about the compensation? Does a 6-figure salary lend credibility? Many of us make as much and often more than the Hiring Managers we support, those Manager’s whose license plate frames have to tell you they have their MBA. Big Deal!

To call myself a Recruiting Professional is to prove my expertise every day and work as hard as any top Recruiters do to make the impossible talent search, possible, even if we do sit somewhere in the middle of the totem pole.

You broke the process down to the sublime and mundane to expose who you are and who we are……recruiters/salespeople and real proud that we are able to come to grips with the fact that we are not HR and don’t care to be.

Perhaps HR should have a good look in the mirror and come to grips with who they are as opposed to who they are trying to be. More than likely you will realize after a fashion that we as recruiters/salespeople actually know what we are doing and most definitely will save you money and have no desire to step on your turf, just stay off of ours.

Regards,

Dan R. Friesland-CEO
The Hygeia Group, Inc

Let’s all breathe. In. Out. I’m a recruiter. Head hunter. I’ve been doing it for a long time.

I’m not an HR person. Never have been.

Recruiting is not an HR function. I know nothing about HR. I don’t pretend that I do. I place C level execs. Don’t know a darn thing about what they do. I have never seen one of my clients offices. I don’t have time to do all that traveling. I also have no intention of telling them how to run their businesses.

I know the things you don’t know. The things you will never know. I know why your last offer was rejected. I know why nobody will work for your Tech Director. I know why the last 5 engineers left your company. I have your VP of Operations resume. I am not HR.

I’m a salesperson. This week, I convinced two people who are valuable to my clients to accept jobs that they wouldn’t have accepted otherwise. Both of them had turned down the jobs previously. I convinced them to accept. I had to twist a CEOs arm to get 75K more for one of my candidates. I’m not sure anyone on the inside would have had the you-know-whats (male or not) to do that. I have been doing this all of my adult life. After close to 30 years, I believe that recruiting is a profession, and has nothing to do with HR.

I am a recruiter, a salesperson. I can’t be replaced my Monster. Job boards can’t touch me, and HR is hostile. I am a closer. I convince employed high level people, or highly skilled people to change jobs.

I will get your man. Whether I find him on a job board, one of my assistants finds him, or you tell me exactly who to go and get, I bring him in. Yet, I know nothing about HR.

I know exactly who I am.

Why don’t you?

I am once again reading paragraph after paragraph about irrelevant nonsense containing no hints on how to get your ‘submittal to hit’ ratio down to a tolerable level, say 3 to 1.

I have recently spoken with several 2nd level types in small to mid size manufacturing organizations, and they informed me that ‘things haven’t changed’, and, in fact, are much worse than when I left the business.

From what they said, it appears that the pool of recruiters on ‘both sides’, are over over 95% female, and further that whether male or female, these recruiters know little or nothing about the industries, the disciplines, the products, and the cultures. That is not exactly ‘professional’.

They also mentioned that HR mandates the use of forms which makes articulating job specs difficult.

In addition, they said that these job specs are ‘translated’ by HR into some nonsense emphasizing ‘style’ (color of necktie, team player) rather than ‘substance (relevant experience, expertise), resulting in a total waste of time reading dozens of resumes of candidates who are not even close to the job spec!

If a COMPETENT recruiter were to read one of these ‘translations’, he/she would probably at least get a laugh out of HR’s total lack of knowledge as to what ‘tools’ are inherently required to perform a task. For example, here is what a typical example of an HR ‘translated’ ad might look like:

‘Mercedes Mechanic wanted…10 years minimum experience in automatic transmissions. Must know how to remove a transmission. Must know how to change transmission seals. Must know how to add fluid to a transmission. Must know how to re-install a transmission. Must know how to use wrenches. Must know how to make a hydraulic lift go up and down. Must know metric measuring system. Must have opposing thumbs’.

DUH!

I recently saw an ad for a Quality Control Manager written, evidently, by one of these ‘pools of ignorance’. Among other qualifications, it said:

‘Must be a good listener;
Must be a good communicator;
Must be able to establish communication at various levels;
Must be able to manage;
Must be able to communicate with other department heads;
Must have knowledge of Quality as it relates to customer’s specifications (NOT QC’S JOB, BY THE WAY. THAT IS A FRONT END RD&D FUNCTION!)
Must be a good writer;
Must be a team player (OVER USED DRIVEL TERM!);
Must be sensitive to subordinate level workers;
Must be…’ (BLAH BLAH BLAH!).

No mention of product knowledge, or of quality test systems, or ANY other really relevant requirements.

So, I have decided that my words do not fall, in most cases, on deaf ears, BUT rather on ears of those ‘pools of ignorance surrounded by dikes of arrogance’ in recruiting who I mentioned a few months back. It’s a waste of my time.

For those few of you who really want to know what they are doing, and who want to ‘do da job professionaly’, I urge you to get out of your high chair and begin touring your ‘customer’s’ facilities…ask questions…make notes…get demonstrations….talk with the worker bees…GET SMART! BECOME A POOL OF INTELLIGENCE!

END