Not sure I want to interview. I’m loyal to my company.

That’s not the “recruiter ploy” it easily could be if I didn’t support it a bit further. There’s even a bit of this my clients might not like as much as I do but it’s what I believe….Here’s a scenario….Rhetticent looks internally  while at the same time talking with 2 of our clients. Both clients AND GD are interested and make more or less simultaneous offers (at least our clients(though probably not GD) would know what’s going on and would wait while it happened). Scott then does what’s best for Scott and family.GD has an edge here. Our clients are good enough that a certain percentage of the time they can beat that edge and they don’t mind competing against it. I’d hate to think that you took a slightly lesser job or a slightly lesser salary because a company that sponsored your clearance and made profits from it is also trying to recruit other people the same way. (Ok, that others do it does not make it more right so throw that point out).Biggest point here is that the only way for you to know is to actually make the comparison. Secondary point is that “companies” are collections of people and companies cannot and do not feel loyalty. I know a guy at YOUR company who came there to work for a guy….that guy left for SAIC the day he started….If you tell me there is one human who sponsored you and that he’d be devastated if you left I’d make a different argument (the one where he’d interview too and bring you along if it was a good opportunity).An introduction might be something like….Rhetticent is trying to find a better home within his current organization. We have persuaded him to speak with you on the condition that this is understood up front and that he may not be able to make a commitment until he is certain the best place for him is not GD. If that is accepted up front he could interview….blah blah…I’d even have you approve the language if you like…I appreciate your willingness to discuss these things and there are no hard feelings here if you don’t pursue this at the moment. Unless you are able to accept that, as hard as we are trying to persuade you to interview, we celebrate that the world could be best served by your getting a better position in GD then this could appear pretty self-serving.But since it happens to be true it is why we have been successful for 22 years and had many guys like you hire us to find people once they find we really ‘walk our talk’.  In any event, we’ll respect your decisions and do what we can to help you even if you choose not to interview.Thanks, Dave.

I used to hire everyone, I must be getting old.

Psychiatrists have to go through a complete course of therapy before they can practice because they have to know themselves before they can treat others. There is a bit of that in the way we do business as well. (I’ll stop for a minute and say that you can get into this business every day with someone here in town and no hard feelings if you do. I have good mutual reasons for making it harder here).If you aren’t too ticked off by what I am going to say then I’ll suggest you do an online assessment that suggests a pretty reliable compatibility level for this business.First, in the beginning, this is as far away from an executive level sales position as one can get.Second, executive level sales positions are not available to those who have not finished school (personal experience speaking here).If you can also accept the notion that ” but I do have more than enough real worldexperience to make up for it” is a statement scorned by those who went straight through school, that ALL of the candidates you’d speak with as a headhunter here got at least BS degrees and about 25% of them are PHD’s, and that I know this is just something I told myself as an ego defense for 14 years while I worked on my degree, then please do send me your resume and I’ll follow up with a code for the test (taken online and takes about 40 minutes).We’ll talk after I see the results. I look forward to speaking with youSincerely,Dave.S e a r c h P a r t n e r888-322-8210x100tf301-560-1850×100 From MD703-880-4733×100 From VA615-400-1110cellwww.SearchPartnerLLC.com  www.PinnacleSociety.orgBoard of Directors—–Original Message—–From: jobseekermadeup@hotmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 8:55 PMTo: dave@searchpartnerllc.comSubject:Mr. Staats,I discovered your website today while doing an internet search for executivelevel sales positions in the Nashville area. I read most of the informationon your site and I must say I am intrigued by what I read. My experience insales has been in business to business sales and the mortgage industry. I amnow actively seeking a new career, but would like to stay in sales. I readthe article on your website by Paul Hawkinson and I do believe that I havethe attributes which are necessary to be successful in your line of work. Ido not have a college degree, but I do have more than enough real worldexperience to make up for it. I am a very driven and determined individualwho is simply looking for my niche. Would you be interested in talking withme about a position with your company? I would be happy to forward a copy ofmy resume’ to you, then perhaps we could meet and talk. I look forward tohearing from you.Best Regards,Job Seeker

Figure out what I saw in Penelope Trunk’s column

Penelope, I can’t wait to meet you in October. It’ll be huge fun. Commenter Aaron, “marks’ is an ugly word. If I saw people as marks I would not have 2 people I have placed 3 times,3 people I have placed twice,1 guy placed at the same company twice ,both times for a fee, a million dollar client who became a candidate, a candidate who took a counter-offer hiring a dozen people from me and many placed candidates hiring people from me later. My two oldest relationships in recruiting are the second guy I ever placed and another guy I’ll never place.      Since this is all about ‘ideals’ Let’s stipulate that the best recruiters and headhunters only talk to the best people. The bottom 80% or recruiters/headhunters will certainly fall for tricks like ‘making yourself open and available on places like LinkedIn’ but looking like a top performer is not the same as being one. It is nothing more or less than humane to minimize one’s time with those we can’t help so we can maximize it with those we can…regardless of who’s paying whom. I need to get back to the phones but before I do I am going to go see if I can find a blog somewhere lamenting the fact that hairdressers don’t pay more attention to bald people because they’re too busy working with hairy people. P.S. Erik, if I see the phrase ‘using a headhunter’ once more, I’ll stick my finger down your throat. 🙂

Tired of the red software nag

Gosh… I love writing in the blog when there’s something to say…and I also love the discipline of doing this but since the last post on the Fordyce Forum I just have not had any of those enlightening,maddening or funny incidents that usually get my fingers cursing. So here’s something for my legion fans just so I can honestly clear the task this time…I have been a supporter of Sprint’s technical actual phone service for quite some time…10 years maybe. I just never hear of, or see, anything better but I did have the opportunity to ask someone in the retention department just today if they are trying to just totally kill their company. It took 42 minutes of talking to 2 different people to have them understand that I should not pay activation or cancellation fees on a number I never had and that I actually canceled with them 2 months before when it came attached to a new piece of equipment. It was truly amazing. Having to make the same explanation 8 or 9 times is hard for normal people. Those who know me are laughing now. On the other side, our 2 week old office coffee pot from Starbucks started leaking this morning. I went there at lunch and swapped it out in about 2 minutes. Faster than getting a drink there. Howard!? Do you need a phone company?!