If Recession Is Coming, I Hope It Keeps Coming Like This

At this moment we have more ‘active deals’ on our board than I can remember. And that’s on a per capita basis. I have deleted the last 3 or 4 weekly blog posting reminders just because there’s so much going on. I have often said that I’ve never seen a better,simpler blueprint for starting a desk from scratch than Steve Finkel’s Breakthrough. I point that out because what I’ll say next is NOT a criticism of Steve or anything he or others have said about the economic conditions here,coming, or past. I believe the simple fact is that recessions hurt lots of recruiters because they don’t follow Steve,Danny’s or Pete’s plan to begin with and most of the time actually doing one of those is all that’s needed.  I guess Steve would get bored if he simply said to anyone who was asking how to get through the recession… “Can you show me your 300 companies and what you have done with them?” I am not complaining here… It just feels like sometimes these things are used as crutches. I guess the bottom line here is that all the articles about ‘fine-tuning’ (remember THAT term from before locked in stations?) for recessions can’t help people who aren’t doing it right to begin with…And I believe I could support through examination the statement that very few people are. Like me, posting blather at 9:30 in the middle of prime time… I am going to spank myself and get back on the phone.

I Love My Job…Especially When I Am Doing It

Wow, this is fun. I can’t remember the last time (probably a few months ago) that I had so much to do that I didn’t stop to look at this site or RB.com or TFL network or any of my other plants in the Garden of Distraction I spend so much of my life cultivating. Yesterday I said I would force myself to come here and play a bit because it is Friday which has been ‘optional early retirement day’ for many years anyhow. THIS Friday I can’t wait to get back but there are a couple things I wanted to mention.

First, thanks to RSS feeds I got to read a whole week’s worth of comments on TFL at once. The only thing that really struck me is a general trend toward naked abuse of the comments function for advertising. I know I both endorse and criticize products all the time. I see that as a bit different than…”Nice article, you can avoid that problem by using my brand of soap” It’s a small enough crime that I’ll stop there. Also, I am only talking about comments…not articles.

The other thing was interesting. Some feedback from a recent Pinnacle Panel was something like “Why don’t you have people who just do local IT or Accountants instead of that guy who does the people with clearances who doesn’t have to make marketing calls and doesn’t have to worry much about reference checks etc etc and has candidates he has known for 20 years?.”  I just thought it was kind of sad that the person was saying they’d like to see something else instead of asking for a program on how to put oneself in a situation to perform the same way. By the way…I ,personally, don’t sell anything… I give it away.

I’ll stop with this..And no equivocation here…Anyone in this business for more than 15 years who has a list of 50 companies to make calls to for cold call marketing/sales purposes has been doing it wrong.