Chris Wellington “The Recruiting Guy”, President, The Wellington Group

“ABC Recruiters company has just added Dr. James E Worthing Jr. as Managing Director of the company’s X niche recruitment focus…Dr Worthing has spent the last 35 years of his career in senior management with a number of well-known companies…”

Being so involved in all aspects of the recruitment or executive search business, I see headlines, email blasts (spam), self made PR pieces, tweets, etc all with a very similar theme. Someone with a great career in another industry making the jump now into recruiting based solely on the credentials they have on their own resume. I am not saying this is good or bad as I myself have focused 7-8 years of education on the FDA regulated product development niche. What I will attempt to do in this blog segment is help educate you the consumer (hiring company or job seeker) on what to look for when you see this information or someone selling their past career and not their current results.

Let’s start with the obvious. How can someone who knows NOTHING about the recruiting, executive search, or the staffing industry all the sudden be an ideal “Managing Partner, Principal, or General Manager of XYZ division?” That is like saying, “we have a new Partner in our law firm with a chemicals background, he never went to law school but he has managed a chemicals plant.” What? Can this new figure-head, who has never gone through the training nor put in the time to become a professional recruiter, suddenly lead a team of people through a true talent search process?

At this point I am going to get, “Chris, they have been a senior manager before and have hired people.” That is great, it means they have been handed pre-screened resumes or the application of someone who works in another area of the company and went through a predetermined interview process, WITH ALL THE RESOURCES OR WORK DONE FOR THEM. What they lack is the 2-6 months of training before being put on your most critical staff need or taking and helping to structure your resume and bio to represent you at their client. You see, just being a manager and having to hire in the past does not anoint them as a true, professional headhunter. It goes to the old belief that if we hire a PhD in Chemistry every Chemical Company will want to work with us, ignoring the fact that we may not have a database, network nor the experience as a firm in that niche.

I have had a lot of experience in my career dealing with this very same challenge in adding staff or growing a company. Do you hire experienced recruiters to meet either your internal needs or as headhunters to meet the need of your clients? Or, do you hire someone from their industry and hope they can pick-up the recruitment piece? 9 out of 10 times the second scenario does not work out in the long run. Short term it seems great. They have a lot of connections, make a number of calls, etc, etc, etc. But, that call list grows short very quickly, more so when the past companies they have worked for are large fortune or global in nature. Take IBM for instance. Hiring an ex-IBM executive was a major trend a number of years ago with both the Manpower’s and Korn Ferry’s of the industry. The trend we thought, was if the individual has been there in the past they can call back in and WHAM we have business or we’ll have an immediate candidate base. Well, that was not the case. People, more so Sr Management, worked in very specific groups, had limited networks and employee access, and did not want to start at the bottom and work their way back into a new career (which is truly what this situation is). The same goes for ex/current legislators, judges and even HR Directors.

Here are a few questions to ask when a firm is trying to sell you on the non-recruiting credentials of this new figure-head:

1. What training have you had on the latest recruiting technologies and techniques
2. What is your firms on-boarding and training program
3. How many similar clients and staff searches do you have under your belt
4. Name some of the tools and resources you might use to fill our need
5. Do you have an HR or Recruiting Certification (to ensure they don’t get you into a hot mess by asking illegal questions on your behalf)
6. Who is on your team doing the actual research, sourcing and headhunting work
7. What is your recruitment process

At the end of the day, the headhunter or recruitment firm is representing you, your company or your brand. Be cautious on who you select with this invaluable possession - for it is not enough to have the working knowledge of your industry - the person or firm must also have the training, technology and recruitment process expertise to make them a true extension of your recruitment resources.

Chris

^{To hire The Recruiting Guy as a speaker or trainer visit The Recruiting Guy or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com.}

Chris Wellington “The Recruiting Guy”, President, The Wellington Group

OK I SAID! Now that I got that off my chest let me point you to the root of my angst. Recruiting, like any other profession, has it s own social media / networking sites where we all get to share insight, tips, tricks and yes even humor. One such site is ere.net. The post getting all the attention today was “Bullet Point to the Head” by Matt Charney.

Matt’s post was very well written and very much on target. Just look below the article at all the comments. Everything from “I can relate” to “no, that is not me.” In my years of living as a professional recruiter I have seen his comments in-action more times than not. Too much perceived work on a recruiter or even HR’s desk so they have to fly through resumes as fast as they can, learning tricks to skim and weed-out in what they feel is an expeditious manner. Why, because they are lazy.

Don’t believe me, ok. But here is a true fact. Most large HR groups, Staffing Firms and Professional Search Groups receive so much resume traffic they have to hire staff just to filter and scan or purchase software to totally remove the human component. I can remember weeks at Manpower where we might receive 5,000 applicants. In addition to this the recruiting publications are now telling HR and Talent Manager they NEED to automate. Check out the latest Talent Management article on “Make HR Happy.”

On top of this, many of today’s recruiting demographic has the technology / MTV curse of “if it’s not instant it’s not worth my time.” So, they expect every candidate to have a resume laid out in a similar fashion with all the goodies at scan level in 2.3 seconds. The trouble is that many professionals are great at their jobs but not with working on their resume (see my previous post on 8 Musts for an Effective Resume). Lazy recruiters are grab-and-go, great recruiters are diamond miners, polishing off the mud to find the sparkle below…many times at their own expense.

What is the solution? I think the bump we hit in the economy helped create some of the cure, causing recruiters and HR to transform their skills or try performing it from the unemployment line. The other solution, better management of both corporate and third-party recruitment practices. Accountability to the primary goal, recruitment and review with the intention of uncovering the best talent for the right job.

Chris

To hire The Recruiting Guy as a speaker or trainer visit The Recruiting Guy or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com.