More Clarification Than Rant

I know not everyone may read this on Friday but I like to have a bit of fun on Fridays because I love them almost as much as Mondays. I have enjoyed working with David,Todd and Elaine so far and I don’t expect that to change.  Since ere.net took over The Fordyce Letter I don’t think anyone has changed a single word of any post or article I have written. So readers and editors need to accept this with the lightness intended…which is not to say I don’t mean it.

The article about recruiters associated with the ‘sister site’ struck me as funny in a couple ways. First, I am sure my friend Tom, who is certain to comment on this, will redefine the overall relationship from sister to something more sinister. It took me a good chunk of my 23 years in the business to arrive at a point where I can admit that I know a few …call them ‘non third party recruiters’… I admire. It also took a while to develop a preference for working with hiring managers and the staffing function together as opposed to “HMs Only!!”. I still can’t keep up with everything about our own industry that I’d like. I’d love to know if some machine has kept visit statistics for my ‘sister site’. I cannot honestly say whether we have laid eyes on each other. There may have been a few times in the past when regular visitors to each site have had relationships that would be inappropriate for brother and sister.

Finally, to state my comment on Elaine’s post about Todd’s list of unemployed recruiters on my sister’s site a bit differently…

Just what the heck IS an unemployed recruiter?

Former, sure but unemployed is impossible here.

A Good Old-Fashioned Friday Rant

The proposition below in italics has apparently been sent to many people.

I guess in some sense, I might perpetuate the potential problem I am going to point out but I think a posting on this board will not be as damaging as sending this to totally random people on LinkedIn. I don’t even have a problem with the concept as long as it is discussed privately among people who might do it after some qualification is done. But to send this to random people one does not know does something much worse than the fairly inconsequential “cry of desperation” it sends about our industry.

What this does is invite every single person who ends up discussing a fee agreement with a recruiter to tell the recruiter he knows how much “fluff” is built into our fee structure if we can afford to give away 25% for not very much value.

I already take crap from about half the recruiting world for offering a 1k finder’s fee to people who originate a candidate I eventually place.

This guy (I do know it is a guy) is probably some franchise owner who can’t get his people to call or to get placements out of their calls and probably does not appreciate the value of a placement.  I guess I can stop now…this was a week ago. He is probably gone now anyway…

I’d like to invite you to partner with my company. If you are able to direct new business to my staffing company, I will pay you 25% of the total business generated for one year. Our average fees per hire are about $20,000.

The referral can involve you personally making an introduction to the client or you could simply let us know that a company is working with outside recruiters to fulfill their hiring needs. In any case, we would pay you a consulting fee of 25% of all the revenue generated from that account for one year. In ’07, we generated $460,000 from our biggest client, your take for simply pointing us in the right direction would have been $115,000.

** ANY INDUSTRY WORKS, OUR CLIENTS RANGE FROM LARGE COSMETICS COMPANIES TO HIGH TECH SOFTWARE.

Are All the Problems in Recruiting Solved?

Hey! I need to hear from you. We need some questions for future Pinnacle Perspectives columns. I could not think of any problems to discuss for my scheduled Friday rant so maybe they are all solved. Frank has the recession covered and he is certainly drawing comments on that.

I noted in another entry that our niche has challenges, but the recession is not one of them. It IS a problem for most in our business, and with no intent to “go political” at all, I just do not see how printing up money that does not exist is going to stimulate anything except debate.

Speaking of debate… I won’t get into a public one with Frank here, but I will say that I hope his “drooling” over the recession was intended more tongue-in-cheek than commenters seem to be reading it.

My list of stuff I wish I had not written is long and legendary. If that was one of mine it’d probably be on that list. I got as close as I wanted when I called the recession irrelevant.

Now…go out there and cause some problems for us to comment on!! 🙂

Pinnacle Perspectives from February Fordyce Letter

Just a quick out-of-cycle update. I love getting TFL in my email as much as I did when it came in the mail 20 years ago. Not because my name is in it now (that doesn’t hurt), but because it still is the best place to see both new stuff on our business AND things we need to review. I still scan it as soon as I get it and then read it with a high-lighter later.

Today’s scan was fun because I wrote the Pinnacle Perspectives column so long ago (1 month in ADHD time is like 7 years normal person time) that the responses all seemed very fresh to me and (sorry for saying so) I even liked my comments this time…BUT I am thinking about having a contest if anyone can tell me why I picked George Carlin as the writer’s name and then never explained it. I have a theory but I just don’t remember… And please… I hope no one says that I make them feel about me the way I felt about George before he died.  When I was a kid he made me laugh and think. Toward the end of his run he mostly made me feel sad for him and his bitterness. I am trying to work out a Benjamin Button trajectory on that for myself.

Maybe it was George’s line about asking the Father if God was so powerful can he make a rock so big he can’t lift it?  Not sure. Are we search practitioners creating problems we can’t solve in our handling of these ‘Who owns what?’ questions?