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The most important part of the recruiting process is the recruiter’s initial meeting with the hiring manager. With the right approach you can save an incredible amount of time and energy, and hire better candidates. In addition, you raise your standing with hiring managers to that of a true business partner.

In any profession, whether it is in business or sports, one must study the best to learn what they do that sets them apart. In sports, athletes like Kobe Bryant, Lionel Messi, and Lance Armstrong are legendary for their relentless drive for perfection and extraordinary work ethic in training. In recruiting, we can study executive recruiters who are given key assignments by business leaders and regularly command large commissions.

I recently spoke with Robert Fong, a managing Partner for the Global Advanced Technology Practice at Nosal Partners, an executive search firm in San Francisco. We discussed the importance of the first meeting with the hiring manager.

Two key factors that set them apart are the time reserved, and the order in which they approach gathering information:

• An hour to an hour and a half is typically reserved for the meeting.
• The recruiter spends the first part of the meeting learning about the business and what priorities the position will address.
• The position description and how it relates to the business priorities is then addressed.
• Only after learning the above, does the recruiter gather information about the candidate qualifications.

This is the diametric opposite of the approach taken by most in-house and agency recruiters. They:

• Spend 10-30 minutes at most in the intake meeting.
• Focus almost solely on the candidate qualifications.
• Spend little time on the position description.
• Spend no time on learning or understanding the business.

Let’s break this down step by step: keep reading…

For a number of reasons, Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, Outliers, is a good read for recruiters and managers, in fact, for anyone who wants to get ahead in life.

The basic premise is that circumstances are far more critical to ultimate success than any other factor. For example, he cites the fact that Gates, Jobs, and comparable computer all-stars were born in the mid-1950s as being a critical factor leading to their industry success. When the PC revolution started they were just the right age — old enough to participate, but not yet established on a career path that prevented them from taking risks.

For another example, Gladwell points out that most professional athletic stars are born in the first quarter of the year they were first allowed to participate in their sport. The idea here is that whether it’s youth hockey, baseball, or any sport for that matter, the best players at this early age are more mature since they’re 3-9 months older than their competition. This difference means a lot when you’re five or six. The chosen ones are then given more opportunities to be trained and play more often. Overall, the best of this group put in thousands of hours more honing their skills, in comparison to those of equal talent who didn’t make the team just because they were too young at the time.

Of course, opportunity is just one factor involved in success. Talent is still critical and essential, but according to Gladwell, not as important as hard work. This is where the extra thousands of hours of effort comes into play.

To become a master at any craft requires plenty of hard work, at least 10,000 hours, according to Gladwell. As an example, he cites Mozart who didn’t write any worthwhile music until he was in his mid-20s, after about 10,000 hours. The Beatles are another example cited, who worked 10 long years perfecting their craft at all-night clubs in Germany.

Now what does all of this have to do with recruiting and hiring top talent? The answer started back in 1978 when I first became a third-party recruiter.

keep reading…

Over the past two years, I’ve attended 15 different recruiting events and HR-related trade shows. Surprisingly, over 95% of the recruiting solutions presented had more to do with technology, sourcing, Web 2.0, assessments, and tracking data more efficiently.

Yet in our annual recruiter survey, 50% of most hiring problems are attributed to the lack of assessment, interviewing, and recruiting skills on the part of the hiring manager.

Taming this 500-pound gorilla is the big problem that should be addressed, not seeing more candidates who won’t get hired by anyone. From this cynical perspective, here are some ideas on how to tame your personal gorillas:

keep reading…