When Good Recruiters Get Bad Managers

Hey Everyone. this is a great article that was originally published by Kevin Wheeler, the original article can be found here.

When Good Recruiters Get Bad Managers

How to lead your team better

Frank Johnson was an experienced recruiter who had worked for two previous companies. He had recently started as a technical recruiter for a fairly large, high-tech firm in Silicon Valley. Frank had developed a recruiting process that worked well for him. He was an excellent sourcer, and he found talented candidates even when other recruiters struggled. That was the primary reason he had been hired.

The director of staffing had heard about his sourcing skills and wanted him to teach the other recruiters some of his techniques. Frank was excited to work for a well-known organization and have the opportunity to recruit top-notch people. But, Frank was also very good at closing candidates and had been the top recruiter for his previous employers. He started this new position in the hope that he would be challenged by a more experienced and qualified leader and that he would have a shot at the director job at some point.

But, in little less than three months, Frank was ready to quit. His manager was demanding and expected detailed accounting of the time Frank spent on each assignment and what he did each day. He was expected to handle more than 25 requisitions as well as spend a significant amount of time coaching and teaching his fellow recruiters. On top of that, he was learning to use the talent management system and the other tools that were necessary for communicating with candidates and hiring managers and for reporting. Frank's boss also had difficulty making decisions, and this was driving Frank crazy. One day, the boss would agree to something and promise to get it done and then come back a few days later and say he had changed his mind.

During his negotiations for the position, Frank had been promised more freedom and fewer requisitions; he had not gotten any inkling that his boss was such a micromanager or had such a hard time sticking to a decision.

This is a classic situation: A good recruiter with a strong record of achievement runs into a manager who is insecure and is most likely struggling to keep his own job. Frank's options within the organization are limited, but he should have little problem finding a better position elsewhere.

Inside this organization, Frank can wait it out and hope that his current manager quits, gets promoted, or moves on. He can try to negotiate for more room to do things his way, perhaps by getting the boss to agree to some measurable objectives or mutually agreed upon outcomes. He can just ignore the boss and see if his skill and success will cause the manager to ease off on the requirements. But, any of these strategies are risky and unpleasant.

Good Leadership

Hundreds of books are written on leadership every year, and leadership training programs are ubiquitous. Almost everyone who has worked for a large organization and has a leadership role has taken a class or two (or three) in management fundamentals or leadership. Yet, many recruiting functions lack good leadership. And, when that is the case, the best recruiters — those like Frank — tend to quickly leave.

I define good leadership as the ability to build and maintain a group that performs well against its competition. If you can hire and motivate a team of people to consistently outperform everyone else, then you're a good leader.

Leadership is not about knowing what everyone is doing all the time, nor is leadership about giving orders or directing work. Those might be useful skills for a manufacturing supervisor, but they are much less useful in a recruiting environment. The four themes that I present below are found in almost all the literature about leadership, even though they sometimes have different names.

Good leaders strive to get consistent results through their people by practicing the following:

Integrity

Effective leaders keep their word and fulfill their promises. In Frank's case, the manager did not follow through on what he had said in the interview, nor did he and Frank have the same expectations about the job. Without integrity there is no trust, and without trust there can be no real security or commitment.

If you make a promise to one of your recruiters, keep it or carefully explain why you can't. Don't commit if you cannot deliver.

Decisiveness

Decisiveness is about making prompt decisions, and about making tough decisions which you back up and enforce. Waffling, changing your mind, and switching back and forth between possible solutions are the elements for failure as a leader.

One of the things that I hear frequently in my consulting work is that the leader takes too long to make a decision or changes his mind partway through a project without an explanation. Often, the indecisiveness is caused by internal politics or the manager's own lack of confidence in what his leadership will do, but it doesn't change the need.

Frank's manager failed here as well, and couldn't even stick with what he had promised in the interview.

Competence

Leaders do not have to be an expert in everything, and usually cannot be. But they do need to have a basic level of expertise and enough wisdom or experience so that they can evaluate issues and make informed decisions. This is why experts are often promoted into leadership positions, but, by itself, it is not enough to make a good leader.

We don't really know the background of Frank's manager, but he seems to lack wisdom in making decisions and in talking to Frank.

Vision

Perhaps the most important of all these is the ability to explain the purpose, meaning, and significance of an undertaking; to generate enthusiasm and excitement; and to build a team with a vision of where it is headed.

Frank was looking for someone to challenge and excite him, not someone to watch every move he made. We all want to be motivated to do more and to beat the competition. Without leadership willing to help create this excitement, not much gets done.

If you are a recruiting leader or want to be one, these are good themes to incorporate into your daily life. You will find your retention rates go up, your recruiters will be more engaged and committed, and you will make much better hires.

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I'm a YahooGroup Moderator!

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to announce that I am officially a Co-Moderator of two different discussion groups on Yahoo!.

If you are presently working in North America or WANT to work in North America, I urge you to join our job posting group. It is free to join, and has some real interesting jobs posted, quite regularly. To join click on the link below.

Both are projects of mylinkingpowerforum.com

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyJobTIGER

On the other hand, if you are a recruiter and are using linkedin.com as a networking tool, I strongly urge you to join our other discussion forum,

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LinkingRecruiters/

a Discussion group dedicated to the discussion of the efficient use of linkedin as a Recruitment and Social Networking tool.

See you there!
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Great article: how to deal with Recruiters

I found this article while surfing the net. It is recommended reading for anyone and everyone who are looking to begin their career search in earnest. for the original article, go to

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/10553203/1/c_2984279?f=home_europe_featured

What You Don't Know about Headhunters: 10 Tips

Understanding what makes recruiters tick is a vital but often overlooked component of the job hunt. In a shaky economy, it may be more crucial than ever.
David McCann, CFO.com | US
January 18, 2008

At long last, you have made the tough decision: it's time for a new job. Or maybe someone else decided that for you. Whatever the motivation — new owner, new boss, company going bankrupt, getting fired after a restatement — the first thing to do is find some executive recruiters. Right?

At this point, you might as well. But it would have been smarter to forge relationships with recruiters when you weren't in such a hurry to move — that way, a recruiter could have contacted you as positions became available. Not only is that how they prefer to work, it's a far surer path to making a change than pushing the panic button and expecting something to happen overnight.

Understanding what makes recruiters tick is a vital but often overlooked component of the job hunt. Here's what you need to know:

• The right recruiter. There are two kinds of recruiting firms: contingency and retained. The contingency firms get paid only when a candidate they found gets hired by a client. "There are some good ones, but many of them just throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks," says Lorraine Hack, a partner in the financial-officer practice at Heidrick & Struggles, a retained firm. "If you don't want your résumé to be all over the place like the daily news, you might not want to go that route." Companies hire firms like Hack's on retainer to identify candidates, thoroughly learn about them, and present a short list to be interviewed. But the lower the salary allocated for a slot, the less likely retained recruiters are to take on that search, so recruiters paid via contingency fees are frequently used to fill lower-level positions.

• E-greetings. To make initial contact with a recruiter, send an E-mail. "Some candidates think paper résumés stand out, but E-mail is interactive — I can just hit 'reply' to get back to you," says Hack. And her opinion about cold calls: "Very poor." Some recruiters, like Chuck Eldridge, managing director of the financial-officers practice at Korn/Ferry International, don't mind a phone call or even a brief visit to get acquainted — to a point. "I can't do that with every finance person in the country," he says. Which brings us to the next point.

• It's a rat race. Working on about 10 searches at a time, a recruiter might make five calls to prospective candidates per week on each search, according to Hack. That's 50 calls. Each client wants weekly telephone updates on the search progress, which eats up several hours. Candidates who pass initial muster must be interviewed, followed by a written report to the client; this process takes a couple of hours a pop, and sometimes a whole day, if the recruiter must travel to do the interview. That's not to mention their own intracompany meetings or the small matter of finding new business.

Why should you care? "If you call a recruiter and they don't call back, it isn't necessarily because they have a bad feeling about you — it's that they're overwhelmed," says I.H. "Chip" Clothier, managing partner of HFC Executive Search. "There's an assumption that if you call someone they're going to call you back, but it physically can't work that way." Also note that while you may be out of a job, calling recruiters every week for an update is not productive and likely will just annoy them.

• Poor returns. On the other hand, recruiters take a dim view of you not returning their calls. Aside from providing all information about your accomplishments and employment history, the single most important thing to do when making a career change is to return phone calls, according to Eldridge. "It's simple, but the number of people who don't return calls is unfortunately very high," he says.

• It's a cold world. Cold-calling not only can be an annoyance to recruiters, as indicated previously, it's also not likely to land you a job in the short term because headhunters generally do very specific searches. The vast majority of positions they fill are the result of their own proactive searches. Even if you get through to the recruiter and ask what searches are in progress, finding a match is a longshot. "Our clients usually have precise requirements for what they want," says Eldridge. "A lot of times people will try to 'bend' their résumé to fit the situation, but I have to tell them I can't — the client was very clear."

• Heavy hitters. Don't make the mistake of assuming that a recruiter is a lightweight go-between that you cursorily pass by on your way to the real interview. Retained recruiting firms play an enormous role in helping determine who gets hired. If you don't ace your interview with the recruiter, you will never get to see the actual employer. And do not assume you can b.s. the recruiter because he or she knows little about finance. Hack, for instance, is a former CFO, and Eldridge had a long career at a Big Four accounting firm.

• Back-scratching. Among the best ways to build a relationship with recruiters is to help them succeed. If one calls you about a job that is not right for you, make every effort to refer him or her to someone else who might be more appropriate. "I don't forget that, and I try to pay those little dividends back," says Clothier.

• A wide net. Don't limit your efforts to network with recruiters to E-mails and phone calls. "Getting to know recruiters through other means is smart," says Clothier. There are professional conferences, finance-industry events, and networking organizations such as the Financial Executives Networking Group, where you can rub elbows with recruiters. "Those are great opportunities for getting to know somebody face-to-face in a 10-minute conversation that can be followed up on later," he adds.

• On the record. Most major recruiting firms offer Websites where you can enter your profile and a résumé into a database that all of the firm's search professionals can tap. The information can be updated at any time; if you are moving to Denver, say, make a note of it in your online profile, which typically will trigger E-mail alerts to the firm's finance recruiters.

• The ship is already sinking. And, yes, do not wait until you are in trouble or transition to start calling recruiters. "It is extremely unfortunate that so many people don't network or do it too late," says Eldridge.

Is there a problem with being overqualified?

...There is definitely a problem with being overqualified for a role. The braver more mature hiring managers will even be happy to tell you why! And while there are many reasons and excuses, I find that the most important/primary reason is simple; Retention!

In most cases, a hiring manager is usually responsible for a business unit or a certain business function, aside from hiring. As a result, his/her main goal is to fill a role with someone who will ideally be there for a very, very long time, because, the fact of the matter is...if you are TOO good for your job...you'll get bored and quit very very soon. Leaving the hiring manager with the difficult task of looking o RE-fill your role sooner than he'd like.

Exacerbate the "pain" by the thousands of dollars in "down time", that the open position will cost the company, the stress on the team for taking up the slack, and the time the Hiring Manager has to take away from Managing the rest of the business functions, and suddenly, you understand why no one wants to hire a quitter! I know, that it can seem very, very frustrating when you are out of work, and looking for a job, but, this is the candid perspective.

From an HR perspective (which is the one I am aligned with myself) however, you should not be in a role that bores you. Once one has enough money in the bank to meet your physical needs, then the best workers need to be challenged to remain happy.

Take away the challenge, then what are you left with? Boredom...And let's be fair; once you are bored then your productivity drops, then you begin looking for another job...thus, increasing your frustration all over again, leaving your former employer with the thankless task of having to fill the same role again, all over again.

Just my two cents. And one of the key reasons my clients don't like overqualified people.

What's the best way to used linkedin in my job search?

Linkedin is possibly the greatest networking tool for someone in your situation. Personally, I can't help you, as my firm focuses exclusively on job seekers at the Sr. Manager level, and up. BUT, that doesn't mean I can't give you some solid advice.

Steps to successful networking via linkedin:

a) Find the top 3 industries you feel you could best leverage your experience in (we can talk about the "why" later)

b) find the "Top 50 Employers in Canada" or if you're in the US, money.cnn.com and Fortune have similar lists for each industry, or find the best 2-4 companies in each of the 3 industries that you find in section a. using the top 35 list, and other sources.

c) go to linkedin and identify everyone in your/our network that you feel are important roles in each of these companies...and network with them. Call them directly, or send them an email. Talk to them, let them know what you are doing, and listen to what they have to say. If you are new to an industry, talk to Industry experts, and really listen to their insight...And after 10-15 minutes of listening. Ask them "Do you know anyone that would be interested in someone with my skill sets? Or that I could network with to help identify potential opportunities?".

Hopefully, this will give you a new solid list to work from as you begin your job search effort.
I don't have any upcoming opportunities that you'd be a good fit for (mostly because I work on more senior roles), but, again, go through my network, and if there is anyone you need help connecting with, please, use me as a reference.

Good luck,

Konstantinos Kasekas

I just finished my MBA and I am looking for work, what do I do?

"...thanks for reaching out, and more importantly, CONGRATULATIONS on finally finishing the MBA - it's a great way to tell employers "See, I can finish anything I set my mind to!".

As for your career search, there are several ways you can go about it, but if you have already graduated, then you are a few months behind the program!

Your search should have begun months ago, during the last term/semester of your program. I am sure there were several corporate recruiters attending job fairs throughout the year on campus, and I hope you made it out to see them. If you did, your best bet is to start calling everyone you are interested in working with. Then, let them know what type of role you are interested in. Sending a generic resume with a generic cover letter, is a sure way to get your resume filed in the round "G" filing cabinet, under the desk, or sent to the bottom of the pile...Unless of course, the employer is desperate, in which case...you should ask yourself; do you really want to work there?

Go to your career centre; part of the criteria when those magazines evaluate a Good B-School is their placement rates. It is in your school's best interest to get you a job ASAP (That's what keeps THEM in business and high on the "Top X" list), so go, check out your career centre, talk to a Councillor, and see how they can help you, you'd be surprised at the wealth of knowledge they have at their fingertips.

Do you know what type of job you are looking for? Sure, it's easy and great if you have a specialized degree, but what if you don't? Figure it out. It's important, not just for personal growth but to help hiring managers/recruiters etc. see how they can fit you into their puzzle. Don't make me, or some hiring manager have to figure it out, because we are usually only worried about filling the precise openings that are on our desk/division/mandate (the alternative is that we will be out looking for our own jobs, quite quickly). So, very quickly, you need to be able to tell them "Hi, I am looking for X job, in Y division, do you have any opportunities for me?".

Now pay attention to this part: If they say "no, I can't help you", you're immediate follow up question should be "Do you know anyone that has such an opportunity, or that I could network with to identify such a role?".

This is a very important question, so don't forget to ask.

Anyway, this is a start. Of course, check the job boards, and see what's there...but, most importantly NETWORK NETWORK NETWORK! my tool of choice is linkedin. If we aren't already connected, connect to me by going to my linkedin home page, and connect. My address is on my site, add me. www.linkedin.com/konst2k I accept all invites. Then, explore my network and see who can help you find your dream job. If you need to use me as a reference, email me at my address, and tell me why.

That's it for now!

Good luck.
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