My first journey to the Emerald Coast beaches of the Florida panhandle began with a stern warning from the resident lifeguard. He imparted upon me his wisdom and the reality of this intended day of fun and SPF 30; “When you go into that water remember that there are two kinds of fish out there, predators and food. Guess where you stand in the food chain!” I approached the sand with a clearer and wiser perspective about wave riding!

Today’s recruiting landscape offers enormous opportunity that if effectively exploited, can land you on the beach in early retirement at the top of the financial food chain. You must face certain realities. The recession/depression/economic turndown (choose your favorite label) presented a long period where recruiters should have taken stock in what they were doing and what the challenges the recovery would put before them.

Some seized this with clarity and ambition. They came out of the trenches armed with new tools and commitment to excellence and its inevitable reward; gaining top talent. Others held on to what they did before their markets collapsed, hunkered down and waited until enough smoke cleared to start doing it all over again. Still others seized the moment to scour the land and plunder its applicant watering holes. They stuffed everyone they could into nice neat records so that when the economy strengthened and their employer started hiring once again, they would be armed with a massive database of people. Let’s explore these three groups and evaluate the potential of their strategies and impact on us.

Let us begin with the ambitious visionary. We will refer to them as the predators. This group is comprised of both previous top producers, the enlightened people, all of whom recognize that quality of service, and strict recruiting process criteria are quintessential to creating attractor factors in recruiting. They aggressively pursue multi-dimensional talented candidates. Their hiring managers must exhibit a willingness to embrace a process that, once effectively sold, is a compelling means to locate critically required people.

Hiring managers are just as busy as their more transactional contemporaries. They are, however, aware of the importance of working with a professional recruiter, who acting as an extension of their situation, must be partnered with a cooperative hiring manager.

The extent of their cooperation goes beyond a few minutes and a couple of extra questions. These wiser hiring managers understand that the recruiter must interface directly with the individual in their company making the final hiring decision. Finally, these successful hiring managers subscribe to the importance of acquiring the very best qualified people through the skilled efforts of an ethical recruiting process and recruiter.

Makes sense, right! Of course it does! The fact is, however, that hiring managers like this represent the minority of hiring decision-makers. This group of recruiters has established strict criteria by which they can guarantee the results sought. They realize that these criteria must be reflective of the process they are ready to apply. This group is not defined exclusively by the level of positions they recruit. They are best defined by the value-added, consultative service they apply to critical candidate requirements where urgency, cooperation, and sizzle exist. They are not predatory in their actions but they recruit top talented people as wisely as a predator. They do so because they know that they will help in the creation of solutions and success for their hiring managers.

The next group we will refer to as scavengers. I do not mean to denigrate anyone by using this label. Rather, I mean to portray and accurate picture of how they are typically seen by those they seek to serve as a recruiter. Scouring every source from the job boards to the web and beyond can produce countless names, titles and in some cases, resumes.

Many highly successful, value-added hiring employers avail themselves of this source of intelligence. The practice of cataloging these folks, running the job title duties and dollars of a published or offered job through a computerized matching or searching utility in order to send the “fits” to a hiring manager falls a great distance short of anything that resembles service. These actions were practiced by many recruiters in the end days of the last period of affluence. This shallow approach was accepted by many hiring managers in their desperate attempt to find people in a very shallow pool of talent. I believe that this conditional reaction by hiring managers was widely misperceived by recruiters as an accreditation to their methodology of “referral”. There is a news flash for all recruiters who think they found the Holy Grail of recruiting in these innovations…. A majority of employers jumped on this easily replicated process, bought (or renewed) their own subscriptions to the job boards and search tools and are well prepared. This is not to imply that they are competitively advantaged by these tech toys and practices, far from it.

The current and future U.S. demographics and the resultant vanishing candidate pool offer enormous opportunity to skilled recruiters who can execute a precise recruiting process. Where do you want to be in the food chain? As a predator, scavenger or just "hunkered down and waiting for happy days to appear again? Making the choice also includes a commitment to a consultative, due-diligent process, tough client and search assignment criteria and ethical practices.

Every employer organization that is dedicated to fully exploiting this recovery must choose wisely the approach they take to attracting the scarce and critical element of talented people. They must adapt a revolutionary recruiting approach that creates a conduit between the talent pool and their magnetic organization. The times of re-labeling and repainting "ageless" recruiting practices has ended, period. The great news is that today's recruiting competitions give an opportunity for recruiters and hiring managers to create a precise and effective recruiting process from the inside of their organizations out to the talent pool.

As another sage person told me at the dock, "If you want to catch the big ones, you must come here with the right gear bait and plan." Remember that the high road ends at the top.  See you there!

 
Doug Beabout, CEO
RecruiterElearning.com
850.424.6933