Disingenuous

Disingenuous refers to someone who gives a false impression of sincerity or simplicity. Also lacking candor, or giving a false appearance of frankness.

This Friday’s rant is more of a seasonal one. I had to think a bit to relate it specifically to recruiting. Now that I think about it, everyone is guilty of this crime, when perpetrated on me, has been in or close to, our industry. I mean, my clients have not done this.

Before I make my big complaint, I’ll say that I think the recruiting equivalent is having that probable, single, solitary conversation with someone who has presented him/herself as a candidate and ending it with something like, “I’ll call you as soon as I see a good position” instead of “We’ll probably never talk again. I wish it were otherwise, but I’d rather we both be pleasantly surprised than leave you anticipating something that won’t happen.”

Ok, finally, I get to the point. What defines the idea of disingenuous for me is the idea of spreading your Holiday Cheer as thin as the gold leaf in Goldwasser by telling me you are giving a gift IN MY NAME to INSERT WORTHY CAUSE. Please, by all means, give to the cause. I respond to anyone I know who asks for a donation for something but I don’t turn around and say I  did it for someone else. (Don’t start! I said anyone I know).  Many people probably do this without even thinking about it but it is just pure BS! Maybe an exception would be an actual park bench with an engraved plaque or possibly donating a couple million so they’ll name the mess hall at Cahill College after me.

I think my point is made. I need to go back to the phones and close a deal in your honor.

Happy Holidays…really! All of ’em.

Please Stop Calling My People!

I love getting these now and then. HR Director from a company we’ve had no relationship with in the past called about 2 of our people leaving too many messages for their people. I got a 13-minute lesson on “After you try a certain number of times and get no response you should know they are not interested.”

Huh?

I have 22 years of proof against that notion. We always try until we decide not to. Later attempts include “Call my voicemail after hours and tell me you just don’t want to talk and we’ll stop.” I just can’t count the number of times we made a valuable contact after 7 or 10 attempts. Anyhow, our market is small, but big enough when this happens we put a block on them for a year or so unless we get specific referrals. No reason to antagonize people who might move to a client company when it is not necessary. It WAS fun though when I said ‘besides Brendan…that I know about…who else do you want us to quit calling? Who’s complaining?’ She then rattled off 6 names. 3 of them were brand new entries to our database! Thanks, Michelle!

P.S. To Neil…Great article on selling in the moment. I count myself fortunate that my early trainers taught me well enough about niche-building that my current worries do not include the economic climate. The article is just really good for ANY times.