On the one hand, I wish John Sullivan hadn’t added fuel to the creative recruiting fire because I was hoping – perhaps in a Pollyannaish sort of way – that some of the people with the loudest ?nay? voices might just go away (curiously enough these are also the ones who appear to be depauperate in either the law or how the corporate side recruits). On the other hand, it is because some of these folks have elected themselves to the lofty status of “Amateur Attorney, Esq. and ?Recruiting Ethicist, Ph.D.” that I am compelled to side with the airing of the article (truth be told, I did call David Manaster and ask him if this thread is going to be another “Me Too, Shally!” thread).
John, you push the envelope. It’s that simple. After that, it’s about personal and professional choice. There were many who once believed that cars, planes, cell phones and the teaching of evolution were the Devil’s work (aside from SUVs this is obviously untrue). Same goes for recruiting. Remember “Inherit The Wind”, the depiction of the case involving the teaching of evil-u-tion? Towards the end, Bertram Cate’s fianc�e utters the following:
“You see, I haven’t really thought very much. I was always afraid of what I might think – so it seemed safer not to think at all. But now I know. A thought is like a child inside our body. It has to be born? Bad or good, it doesn’t make any difference. The ideas have to come out – like children.”
John’s thoughts about recruiting are just pieces of clay; how we mold them using the ideas in our own heads is what makes for progress. But all associated shooting-the-messenger or attacking a successful recruiting program does is debase the purpose of business recruiting: To find the best talent for the organization. As uncomfortable as it is for some to admit this, recruiting is a commodity-based process. Time and cost parameters are important.
When did business in the eyes of some recruiters move from a competition for sales and customers to the same pitiful space as, for example, holistic education where its more important for the student to feel good about themselves than it is to learn multiplication tables or proper grammar? Is it any wonder that most recruiting organizations need a major Fab Five makeover? If your recruiting leader isn?t a valued charge of the CEO, something is very wrong. So the TPRs out there don?t choke on their smugness, realize that many of you are no better a business person or more immune from stupidity and the law than some in-house recruiters (read the case law and weep at the details).
So…don?t like being told you’re not special? Suck it up or find something else to do.
But if you want to stay in the profession, lay off the personal attacks; those who proffer them come across as ignorant about recruiting and the very people whom they feel they intuitively know. When someone elects to flame and make personal attacks on Michael Homula ? because he has been successful on both sides and has been designated by John Sullivan as being a progressive recruiting leader ? nothing is accomplished. In fact, attackers succeed in nothing more than coming across as pithy, close-minded, and judgmental.
It?s no different than quoting summary judgment of a legal case about recruiting without reading the details of the case then generalizing to the entire profession. Or passing judgment on a progressive corporate recruiting organization, its leader, recruiters and anyone else ever associated with them without ever having built or lead one… after spending the bulk of one?s career selling computers. Just pitiful.
Get on with it – and remember, many still believe the Internet is the Devil’s work.
Want to talk? Call me on my Samsung P777 at 203-216-6226.
The Recruiting Inferno 