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Recruiters work for clients.
We work exclusively for clients, but
we have this kind of odd three party symbiotic relationship.
It's completely unique in professional service representation,
where we get paid by one side of a transaction.
But have to be perceived as fair, balanced, and
delivering value to both sides.
Lawyers don't get that.
I mean, you got two companies fighting with each, company A's got a lawyer,
company B's got a lawyer.
The lawyers fight with each other, but they know who they're representing.
They're not trying to be fair.
They're advocates.
They're advocates for their side.
Marketing people, PR people, accountants, they're working for their clients,
and every client has one of those.
But the search profession is pretty odd.
So the people that do it have to tread this line between loyalty to a client and
respect and loyalty among the candidates.
because unless they can put a transaction together with two
willing parties who were both smart.
And ideally,
not going to do something that's not in both of their best interests,
no transaction happens, no search gets completed, and nothing gets done.
And that person doesn't stay in the business very long.
So you can make that work for you, as long as you understand that
it's not the recruiter's job to find you your next position.
It's a recruiter's job to solve the problem that their client has.
And if you can be the solution to that problem, then they're going to be real
happy to bring you forward, and have you be a candidate for that project.
If you're not the solution to that problem, two things can happen.
If you recognize it early on and raise your hand and say,
this isn't right for me.
What I'm really interested in is x.
Let me try to help you with a suggestion of somebody better than me for
this project.
And would you remember me for something or
introduce me to one of your colleagues who's working on what l want to do?
That's a good interaction, that will serve you well.
What won't serve you well is either trying to convince a recruiter,
any recruiter really at any level, that you're something that you're not,
because they'll figure it out eventually.
Or that you are interested in something that in the end you're really not
interested in.
Because you're wasting the recruiter's time,
which is the only asset they have to make a living with.
And they don't appreciate it when their time's wasted.
They know every set of interactions is not going to lead to a successful outcome.
And you may go all the way to the end, and you may decide or the client may decide,
this isn't right, it didn't happen.
But as long as that was done with good faith, nobody has any hard feelings.
But if it was done with bad faith, and bad faith can be on the client side too.
I've experienced this as well.
In which case I apologize to the candidates and
try to make it right if I can.
But nobody worries about that as long as everybody is
proceeding along the path with good faith.
Recruiters when they do searches use a variety of techniques.
One, they all have databases of candidates that they maintain.
Not so much from resumes sent to them but by profiles they've created over
the years of candidates they've interviewed, maybe presented and
wanted to present again, because they've got qualified people.
So they look at that, that's all categorized.
They look at their own prior search work that's similar.
Where did we do a search like this the last time?
And who were the candidates who came in second, third,
fourth on that search, that maybe would be a good fit for this.
They do industry sourcing, which is what you talked about, where they call around,
typically at a level or two above, what they're trying to find.
If I'm doing a search for a marketing VP, I'm calling CEOs and
saying, who are the best marketing people you know in your competitors.
Maybe not one of your people,
sometimes they'll even suggest one of their people that is blocked.
Surprisingly it happens.
Who's worked for you over the years that you think is really good?
And here, this is where if you've worked for really strong mentors and
strong performers, they know about you.
And if you stay in touch with them, even if they've moved on from where you are,
they'll think about you, they'll recommend you.
because they're the people with the reputations who are going to get
the calls, the weak ones don't get those calls.
The strong ones get those calls and are in a position to help influence the hiring of
people that, either they know about, or more likely have worked for them or
on their teams over the years.
And really good executives I find tend to take very good care
of people who've performed for them over the years.
I mean, they'll recommend them for jobs.
They'll proactively recommend them for jobs.
And in fact if you've got a good relationship with them,
you can go ask them to do that.
Go to somebody who was a boss of yours in another company,
if that was a good relationship, he or she has a good feeling for you.
Call him and say, look, I'm ready to make a move, who should I be talking to?
Who in the search firm world do you know, that you'd be willing to introduce me to?
And if somebody reaches out to you, keep me in mind.
Be specific, be special.
Try to be very clear when you're dealing with recruiters of any kind, what it is
that you want, what you're willing to do, what you're not willing to do.
And ask the kind of questions to try to decide if this opportunity that they've
put in front of you or called you about is the right potential one for you.
If it is, say so.
Don't be cute, don't play hard to get, be honest.
And there'll be plenty of time for negotiation at the end.
If it isn't, pull out fast and don't waste their time.
Don't lie or embellish your resume.
My colleagues and
I spent years honing skills to smell bullshit coming a mile away.
I mean,
a good recruiter will not let you get away with claiming something that isn't true.
That's fluffy, credit for something that really maybe you had a small part of and
you're trying to take too much credit for.
You don't need to do that.
You've got good records, just be honest and and
try to position yourself someplace where your skill-set and
your interests fit with the client's needs.
I'm covering some of this other stuff.
The second one though, I want to come back to.
Because as you think about what it is that you want to do, there is a role there for
executive recruiters to play over a long period in your career.
And the key, I think for all of you is to figure out literally that handful.
And it's probably no more than that in any particular geography.
If you go more broadly global, it could be a little more.
It's still not a big number.
And I doubt for most of you, the critical mass of recruiters
among the major search firms who would be in a position to
be really good career long allies and sources for you.
I would be very surprised if that was more than 10 or 12 people in total.
That's a number of people that you can over time get to know.
It's not hundreds, that's hard.
But 10, 6, 8,10, 12, you can do that.
Particularly if you identify who they are and
have a strategy to get to know them in a positive way,
through introductions of people, other search people, others who will help you.
But get to know them in a positive way, stay connected.
Don't be a pain in the neck, but stay connected, and
build a very long-term relationship with them.
Particularly the ones that are working in your chosen field, a level or
two above where you are now.
Because over time they'll move up too, and as you move up,
you'll be heading into their space from below as it will, and
those are the people you want to be dealing with.
Not the ones that are working at or below your level now, which by the time you get
your next promotion, you've outgrown them and they can't help you anymore.
So you want to be aiming high.
It starts by figuring out what it is that you want to do, and being as clear and
specific about that as you can.
And then you get to people in the recruiting firms, and
there's five large ones, large global ones, mine was one.
And then there's a dozen or so mid-tiered ones, and then lots of small ones,
many of whom are founded and staffed by alums of the big ones.
So the quality is just as good, they may be small.
You start asking people around, who does this kind of work?
And you ask enough questions, the same names will come up.
The second way to do it is, reverse engineer searches that got done.
If there's a job out there that you would like to have had or
would like to have the next time, and it just got filled.
You saw the announcement in the paper,
chances are there was a recruiter that did that search.
Call up the company, call up the individual in the job and say, look,
I see you got this promotion, or send them an email.
You can reach him on LinkedIn, by the way.
We'll come back to that.
And say I'm curious as to was there a recruiter that handled this search and
if so, who was it?
And were they good?
because if they were good for them, they'll be good for you.
The one thing about the recruiting profession is, once you start
building the reputation for doing certain kinds of searches, the industry knows.
And they'll come back to the same people time and time again, for those projects.
That's how they build specializations.
And the same thing happens within the search firms.
I got a lot of calls because I was high profile from companies wanting
searches done.
Almost never would I do them.
So the question would be, who would we recommend that they talk to?
And it's going to be the person in our firm that has the best track record doing
those kinds of searches, and everybody knows who they are.
And so, at that point, your goal is to figure out who those people are.
And try to get an opportunity to have them know who you are.
And if they're willing, just spend a little bit of time, not a lot of time.
But 15 to 20 minutes meeting you and just saying, yeah,
maybe I'm not a candidate for anything right now, but
I'm a candidate for what you do as a recruiter.
And one of these days you're going to have an assignment that I'm going to be
qualified for and interested in, I wanted you to know who I was.
And that line of discussion works if your facts are right,
and you've done your homework.
It's a waste of time if it's a random blast at the recruiting world.
And just as it's pretty much a waste of time to send resumes to recruiting firms,
don't bother.
It's not worth the paper you're printing your resumes on.
They get tens of thousands, most of them unfortunately go in the scrap heap,
including some of the very same people who come into them
through their sourcing exercises later on a search.
That they pay a lot of attention to, they wouldn't have paid any attention
to the resume coming in, because they're not geared to do the scan and match.
By the way, LinkedIn is an excellent way.
I mean, LinkedIn didn't exist for most of my years in the recruiting business.
The search firms are using LinkedIn now, massively.
And so, you need to make sure that your LinkedIn
profile is current and is as good as it can be.
And if you want to get to somebody, a recruiter or
somebody that you don't know, and you don't know what their email address is.
If they have a LinkedIn account,
you can send them a LinkedIn mail on the LinkedIn account, and they'll get it.
It's the best way to reach somebody that you don't know how to reach.
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