Recruitment Dad

There are often buzz words and phrases that circulate in recruitment that make some recruiters feel more “cutting edge”. There are also those who claim to know more about these than others and I guess that is true. There are some people who know more about subject X than others. Those that know the most about subject X are therefore the ones we turn to for advice.

I entered into a debate, online, about community building and the value to recruiters. I mentioned that, as an external recruiter, I had built strong communities in my market and had also helped other recruiters to do the same. The initiator of the discussions was very derisory of the concept of external recruiters being capable (or interested) in doing so. Their claim was: only internal recruiters were in that position and that any external recruiter who claimed they had or were doing it does not understand what community building is. In fact, it is more likely they are building a database of candidates not community building (scoff-scoff). Not wishing to argue I walked away from the debate as it was clear this person was not there to debate but to criticise.

The thing that really riled with me was that this person was not open minded enough to accept that this was possible. Why invite discussion on something that you are not willing to be open enough to accept others’ opinions and evidence?

This online conversation was some time ago (6 months?) though still sticks with me as an example of close mindedness and naivety. I was also reminded of this today and a couple of weeks ago when meeting with a couple of business connections. Both are highly experienced and adept at what they do. Both are also associated with the recruitment industry and people I hold in high regard. As it turns out they both had very set impressions of what external recruiter could and could not do (skill based and competence based). As we sat and talked and I challenged those perceptions it became clear it was based upon experience. All of our experiences define our model of the world around us. The more experience we have that proves that model to be robust then the more we believe it.

My questions to all of you reading this are:

• How many people have you spoken to recently that you assume know what you do? When was the last time you tested their model of the world to see how it compares to yours?
• What did you last double check with your current customers to see if they knew what you were capable of doing, in addition to what you do for them already?
• How many times do you think assumption has got the better of you without you even knowing it?

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