I know many of you enjoy occasionally sidling up to the poker table to play a little Texas Hold’Em. There’s something about bluffing your opponents with a crappy hand and still managing to win the pot that is thrilling to anyone. The best poker players in the world know how to mask their ‘tells’ and read other people like a book. It’s this in-person interaction that makes the game enjoyable, challenging, and rewarding.

The World Series of Poker began in 1970, but poker has been around for much longer. Some trace its roots back to a 15th century German game called Pochspiel. Others liken it to a Persian game called Nas, recorded around the turn of the 20th century. One of the more commonly accepted stories is that the game of poker originated in the mid-1700s and was played widely throughout the Mississippi River region by 1800. Games were played by groups of men sitting around small tables, trying to convince each other that they had the best hand through bluffing and betting. Social skills were an important aspect of playing the game successfully – one had to know how to read his opponents in order to, as Kenny Rogers puts so eloquently, “know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em.” keep reading »

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Recently, we celebrated Independence Day, so I feel inspired to write about American Heroes. But not the kind of heroes you might be thinking of. If you are currently employed as an Executive Recruiter, Executive Search Consultant, Headhunter, or whatever you prefer calling yourself, I am writing about you.

Instantly, I can conjure up three reasons to support the claim of heroism for third party recruiters.

First of all, you have overcome being one of the 5 million or so Americans to continue to file for unemployment reimbursement after the recession ravaged approximately 8 million jobs.

Secondly, you most likely earn your income through pure performance.

That’s right. According to results from the Survey of Search Firms owners I conducted at Fordyce Forums 2007-2010 as well as RMAR.org owner/operators, more than 2/3 of the headhunters in the United States of America with more than 2 years of experience do not get paid a base salary; at all. So, you are probably a straight-commission “sales” professional that has learned how to execute in an extremely challenging economy to pay your bills. If you make placements often against rigorous odds and multiple obstacles, you survive. Fail to find a client company willing to engage your services and then identify the ideal candidate for them, and you perish. keep reading »

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Profitable specialties come and go, and most people who have been in the business awhile have switched specialties from time to time – usually due to a combination of factors, but most often for economic reasons. The industry or functional area they worked, for whatever reason, tanked. In an industry where two non productive months in a row can drive you out of business, flexibility is a necessity.

Desks are specialized by industry, function, geography, or combinations of these, but it’s generally accepted that geographically specialized desks run the highest risk of eventually failing, simply because geography, by its very nature, is something fixed, inflexible, and subject to nature, man made disasters, or being too closely tied to one industry (please search: “hurricanes” “oil spill” “Detroit automotive”). However, there’s something to be said for firms which dominate their local markets. I know several owners who will not work outside their office’s immediate geographic location, and over the years they have become the “go to” guys in the industry for their locations. Most of these firms have desks specialized by function, but they generate all their business from the local marketplace. I admire these firms for how they have become dominant locally. keep reading »

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Why should a recruiting firm start, develop, and maintain relationships with hiring managers as a key activity? We have found that over the years the largest contribution to our ability to survive in an ever more competitive environment has been our desire to establish and maintain strong rapport with hiring managers. It didn’t start as a planned activity – it just happened over time. The benefits have been many. It’s much easier to understand “the secret sauce” of openings when you have known the hiring managers over a long period of time. Having worked with them as candidates in the past adds to a level of credibility the competition cannot easily match. And being able to get their opinions about their ex-co-workers is priceless.

With the benefit of hindsight, the formula for successful networking with hiring managers is rather simple. You start by concentrating your attention on the best people in your industry. You get to know them professionally and, quite often, personally. You learn what they do and don’t do that makes them rising stars. You try to get opinions from people who know them about what makes them special and then discuss it with them.  In this way, you are developing relationships with both current and future hiring managers.

If you can create a connection when these people are happily employed and are not looking to change jobs, you build a relationship that could weather a storm for many years. Sooner or later, when they decide to look for new opportunities, you are there to help and advise. You build your rapport over a long period of time – someone with less than 10-15 years of experience in the industry is seldom senior enough to have influence in the hiring process. keep reading »

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There are several recruiting lessons to be learned from the bomb that LeBron James dropped on Cleveland late last night about his departure to the Miami Heat. Before we get into those lessons, let’s take a quick look at some of the highlights of LeBron’s NBA career with the Cavs:

• 2003: selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers as the first overall pick in the NBA Draft; signed a three-year, $12.9 million contract
• 2004: named 2003–04 NBA Rookie of the Year
• 2004-2005: selected to his first NBA All-Star Game
• 2005-2006: named as one of the candidates for the NBA Most Valuable Player Award
• 2006: negotiated a three-year, $60 million contract extension, with a player option for a fourth year, to begin in the 2007-2008 season
• 2007-2008: won the 2008 All-Star Game MVP
• 2008-2009: wins NBA Most Valuable Player award
• 2009-2010: wins 2nd NBA Most Valuable Player award
• July 2010: contract with Cleveland expires; becomes a free agent, meets formally with the New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, and New Jersey Nets

Make no mistake about it; this guy is Talented. With a capital “T”. But it takes more than one guy to make a team, as Cleveland has surely learned. Just a couple of lessons to glean from this entire situation: keep reading »

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Now that we’ve discussed how to go about cold calling candidates, let’s rewind just a bit and discuss cold calling for business.  Obviously without business, you’d have no reason to cold call candidates! A lot of the same principles apply in both types of cold calling, so why not put your skills to work on both sides of the desk? I realize that not all third party recruiters handle business development but a well-rounded recruiter should definitely be capable of doing so. The most successful recruiters are those that control both ends of the placement equation, thus resulting in more earned fees.

Smart recruiters will seek relationships with clients where they can have direct interaction with hiring managers, allowing them to gain a deeper understanding of the client’s needs and environment beyond just a job req.  Instead of competing with hundreds of vendors on VMS requisitions, targeting smaller environments where these relationships can be built is a great way to position yourself for long term success. While I certainly would never discourage big business, relationships make the best placements. Period.

That being said, what’s the best way to go about cold calling for business? The same way you would if you were looking for a candidate.  Research! keep reading »

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It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then you are made aware of an article that you just know will become a new and critical tool in your search best practices toolbox (thank you, now forgotten LinkedIn contact who first made me aware of this gem).

That is exactly what I thought when I read The Washington Post article by freelance writer Vickie Elmer titled Do Your Own Recruiter Searching Long Before You’ll Be Job Searching.

In my mind it is an instant classic.  One you can use with every single candidate you recruit, or try to recruit, who says, “I’m not looking right now.” keep reading »

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Sometimes you don’t realize the value of something until you get a little distance from it.

That WASN’T the case for me at this year’s Fordyce Forum 2010 at the M Resort in Las Vegas from June 9-11.   It was another great conference, and was just the shot in the arm I needed after a few months away from my desk and my businesses.

In four short years Fordyce Forum 2010 has become the most important training event for search and placement professionals that I attend every year.  This year was the best Fordyce Forum to date.

It had been a year since I was able to travel, in fact my last trip anywhere was to Las Vegas for Fordyce Forum 2009, which was also at the M Resort in Las Vegas almost exactly a year before.  Lucky for me, and thanks to some good health care and a little groveling to my MD and wife, I was fortunate enough to attend the 4th Fordyce Forum this June, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Again this year it was the phenomenal gathering of search and placement practitioners, owners, vendors and trainers you would expect from a brand as respected as Fordyce.

Though I have not yet completed my final written review of the event, I thought those who attended, as well as those who didn’t, might enjoy the photo and slide show below that was used in different iterations during the event.  I hope you enjoy it, and I hope to see you for Fordyce Forum 2011, which will be held in Las Vegas in early June, 2011,  for it’s 5th Annual gathering of the premier search and placement practitioners our profession has to offer.

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Our friend (and yours!) Jerry Albright made a brazen announcement yesterday that he is quitting Twitter, and that as of June 30th his account would be gone. On his blog, he states:

“It was pretty easy to feel “OK” about being on Twitter during most of 2009. Everyone was there – and more were joining every day. It was “interesting” to feel like one of the first rather than one of the last – so I hung out. It has now become apparent to me that there is no viable BUSINESS reason to spend much time on Twitter as a 3rd party recruiter. Might be great for plenty of other professions – but recruiting? No way. Sorry.”

This is a common sentiment in our world of recruiting – that Twitter is a waste of time, and that real recruiters are on the phone with candidates and not tweeting out job opportunities. On the other hand, others argue that Twitter is a growing source of candidates, as well as a valuable tool to develop a good online presence and enable candidates to find you as well.

As search professionals, to which of these thought processes do you subscribe? The way we approach recruiting is different than the way our corporate recruiting counterparts do. Neither way is right or wrong; they are simply different. Twitter certainly has value it can offer, but does it belong in a 3rd party recruiter’s resource toolkit?

We want to hear from you! Do you use Twitter? Do you find it to be a waste of time, or a good resource to add to your arsenal? Have you made placements or gained new clients based on conversations you’ve had via Twitter, or has it been a dead-end street for you? Share your experience in the comments below.

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Did anybody else read this most recently emailed NAPS Legal Update for June?

If you haven’t, you should.  Doesn’t matter if you are an owner or a producer on a desk, this could be a game changer, and for much more than just LinkedIn messages and contacts.

In this email which NAPS Legal Counsel Bob Styles typically sends out on a monthly basis, tucked between two updates that didn’t have much application to my desk/business, was the below two paragraph notice about a yet to be adjudicated case titled “LinkedIn Messages As Evidence in Non-Compete Case“:

Did anyone else just feel the ground shake? keep reading »

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Nope, it’s true…they are making a comeback!

At the 2010 Fordyce Forum, Jenifer Lambert led a great presentation on her research based on client needs and satisfactions.  One of the topics that came up in that discussion was the resurgence of counteroffers.  I remembered an article I had used in 2005 as we were experiencing incredible competition for talent.  I often gave this to candidates as I conducted their initial interview to try and head off counteroffer acceptances. I want to offer that to Fordyce Readers as a downloadable pdf to share with their candidates as the situation arises (and it will!).

Counteroffer – Just Don’t Take It!

Picture this scenario:  After working several years for your current company, you feel your job has become stagnant.  The working conditions have declined, or were never what you expected, your company or position has not been challenging to you, and there is little room or opportunity to reach your full potential.  Fortunately, you have secured a new position at another company and you are looking forward to a better environment, management, salary, commute, promotion potential, flexibility, or whatever the benefits may be that will be an improvement over your current situation. When you inform your manager of your decision to leave, s/he may give you an offer to entice you to stay, even promising to match whatever benefits your new position may be offering. It could be a higher salary, better benefits, more responsibilities, or a job title to make your colleagues green with envy.  This is too good to pass up, right? keep reading »

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Financial services search professionals are seeing an uptick in business, as Wall Street reports a return to hiring to replenish a diminished workforce. This adds to the list of industries that are starting to climb their way out of the recession. According to a Businessweek article this morning, “[financial] firms are adding jobs for the first time in two years, rebuilding businesses cut during the financial crisis and offering guaranteed payouts to lure top bankers.” Five big Wall Street players — Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley — reported to have added significant head-count in the first quarter of this year. The attractiveness of these jobs is due largely to guaranteed bonuses, which are bonuses paid regardless of an employee’s or the company’s performance. This practice is being brought back as firms are returning to recruiting individuals from their competitors and not just recruiting professionals out of unemployment.

Additionally, Wall Street firms are also looking to hire more college graduates this year. Securities Industry News shares that ”75% of Wall Street firms plan to hire an increased number of college graduates in 2010″, according to a survey conducted by 7city Learning. Last month, a Training The Street survey revealed that MBA graduates are being aggressively pursued, finding that “69% of respondents [business school students at the top 25 MBA programs] received an internship and/or job offer, and 39% have received more than one offer.”

For search professionals, this is good news as entry-level as well as experienced professional needs increase while internal recruiting teams are feeling the pressure to bring on new talent with a lean workforce.

For those of you who work in the financial services industry, have you noticed an increase in your clients’ needs recently? Are these findings indicative of your workload? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

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At the Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas earlier this month, it was announced that I would be taking over the duties of Editor for The Fordyce Letter from Elaine Rigoli, who will remain tied to ERE Media and Fordyce as a business writer. It dawned on me that after returning from the Forum, the news was never shared here. My apologies — I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to the readers of The Fordyce Letter and tell you how honored I am to be part of the history and tradition of this publication.

I am a graduate of the University of Florida, and I recently moved across the country and live in northwestern Washington state. I started my career as an Internet researcher in Jon Bartos‘ office, JSI, in West Chester (Cincinnati), Ohio. I spent four years working for Jon, and I remember some of the first resources I was provided with to learn about the recruiting business were old copies of The Fordyce Letter. I learned all of the basics of recruiting while I worked for Jon.

After leaving JSI, I joined Tom Johnston and SearchPath International, a recruiting franchisor. I was the manager of Internet research with Tom’s company, and I helped to train the new SearchPath recruitment franchise business owners. Topics I trained on included database usage, Internet research, and business/personal marketing through social media channels. I learned great lessons on working independently while at SearchPath, since I telecommuted during the time I was employed there, as well as client relations since I worked with up to 50 franchise owners at one point.

keep reading »

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A few weeks back, I was at the 2010 Fordyce Conference in Las Vegas. It was held at The M Resort. Check it out! Great spot and first class!!!

While this was my maiden voyage attending their annual conference, I have attended many recruiting/executive search conferences since the market went south. At this year’s conference I was asked to speak on the topic of business development. My talk was very upbeat – but that seemed to be the case for everyone who presented at this year’s conference. And it’s not just us search professionals. You can feel it everywhere. Las Vegas is a different town today. Everywhere I visited, the hospitality business had a ‘let’s make a deal’ mentality and seems to have adjusted their offerings to today’s market. The casinos were not what I would call full by any stretch. But people were moving around and it felt better. Much (much) better.  A lot has happened in our industry in the past two years (to say the least).  Many search firms have taken a bath or been wiped out by this multi-year recession and it’s not entirely over yet. keep reading »

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Being retained by, advising, advocating for, and representing prospective employees can be a fulfilling career in the recruiting industry, especially for those who enjoy individual job search coaching, extensive interaction with candidates, and focusing on individual candidate’s needs.

Executive talent agents and headhunters (also called executive search consultants or external recruiters) are often mistaken for each other. They appear to produce the same outcome: introducing executives to potential new employers. However, the two roles should not be confused. The two professions are paid by, loyal to, and represent separate parties that may have different priorities and opposite interests related to the employment transaction.

For candidates, having an executive talent agent can be a competitive advantage by providing expert, confidential, personalized career guidance, exclusive entrée to prime inside connections, and comprehensive professional services that support the daily job search-related needs of busy executives. Various financial models exist. Some agents collect 100% of their compensation from candidates. Others work on a modest retainer from candidates and charge employers a much larger placement fee. Total compensation for each client can range from a percentage of an executive client’s annual compensation to a project-based or hourly fee. While executive agents are engaged by candidates, hiring authorities also benefit when an experienced third party serves as a liaison brokering a transaction. keep reading »

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I did a quick web search this morning for the phrase “companies are hiring again”, and here’s a snapshot of what came up:

These results are all fairly recently written – within the last few months. According to the Wall Street Journal, Intel is planning to hire 1,000 to 2,000 people in 2010. Even one of our favorite recruiting tools, LinkedIn, added 184 people to its workforce last year. And they’re not just hiring… they’re hiring fast. One man who had offers from five companies, including LinkedIn, stated that he “interviewed on a Friday and had an offer by Tuesday.”

Technology companies aren’t the only ones starting to see the light at the end of the recession tunnel. Legal search professionals are also seeing a rise in hiring from their clients. And health care is also a hot industry in which to work right now. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average rise in health care employment over the past year has been around 20,000 new jobs per month. The Robert Half Professional Employment Report which was just released earlier this month describes the hiring environment as one of ‘cautious optimism’ – and they state that companies are struggling with finding, recruiting, and hiring highly skilled professionals. Even CNN Money shows a glimmer of hope. In their March issue they state, “The Labor Department said the economy gained 162,000 jobs in the month, compared to a revised reading of a 14,000 job loss in February. That makes March only the third month of gains since the recession began.”

So what does this have to do with you? I wrote an article last year on my thoughts regarding the recession and the effects it would have on recruiting. Corporate recruiting teams have thinned out since things started getting bad, leaving small numbers of people (if anyone at all) to handle any hiring needs that have come up during the recession. I predicted that once companies started hiring again, there would be a significant increase in the need to partner with external search professionals to fill those needs since the corporate teams would be unable to handle any volume of hiring due to layoffs. The time is just about upon us to where we’ll be seeing this happen.

We’re not out of the woods yet, but those of you who weathered the storm of the last 18-24 months will have some great opportunities in the coming months as your existing and new clients begin looking to add to their head-count once again. Their internal teams are either non-existent or so small that they will need help. Now is a great time to be a search consultant – clients need your help and guidance more than ever.

Is this already happening for your industry? Share your experience in the comments below!

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If I don’t stop to do this at lunch I just won’t do it. Work has been busy for a few months so I have not been blogging. Q1 was busy because clients were all filling their shopping carts, getting in line, and then leaving the store. NOW, they seem to be lining up five deep to fight over the same “Code Me Elmo” doll. And, it also seems the ‘commercial world’ is coming back. This has to be short because we have hot new clients who want us calling people, which is always a good thing. Maybe I can get back to finding something to poke at on Fridays.

Until then, I just had to stop and reiterate something I said at the end of our Pinnacle Panel at the Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas last Friday. I told David Manaster, in slightly less detail, that I have really appreciated how the Fordyce name has been honored since ERE took over. Having read almost every issue of TFL since I started recruiting in 1985, I was very worried about what would happen when Paul Hawkinson left. It has been long enough now that I think the best compliment I can pay is that it just doesn’t seem a lot different. I also want to thank ERE for making the last four Fordyce Forums happen. I have been to three of them and want to say, for anyone considering the next one, there’s nothing like a Pinnacle Society meeting for me… but if I didn’t have them, the Fordyce Forum comes pretty close. This year’s venue, The M Resort and Spa, was a great place for this event and the content is stuff that just isn’t available elsewhere. The Fordyce brand remains dedicated to search and placement; no other organization that I know of is. (No offense intended NAPSers – I am a member and a CPC but just not into ‘staffing’) David, Todd, Kate, Amy, and Amybeth…oh and that Jeff character…Thank you VERY much for a great event!

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Several years ago, I was unemployed in London after moving to the U.K. to marry a U.K. citizen.

I quickly noticed an obvious difference in the employment process I encountered in London during my job search as compared to the process on job searches I had conducted in the United States. As a recruitment professional (with major American corporations) all of this seemed very odd and strange to me; I intuitively thought somehow American federal employment law must (or at least should) certainly apply (even in the U.K.) since I was being interviewed and screened for (or seeking to interview with) American firms.

I vowed someday to find out about the international reach and applicability of American employment laws.

After all, as an American living in Britain, I did not have the inherent right to criticize or challenge the employment practices of British firms, I am not British!

However, as a native born American I possess the inalienable right to question, criticize, and challenge the employment practices and behavior of my country’s firms (no matter where they operate)! And I have the absolute right as an American citizen to hold them accountable for their employment behavior even in the U.K. since it was different than what I had experienced in the States.

keep reading »

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This is the third Fordyce Forum that I’ve had the pleasure of attending, but the very first as the new Editor for The Fordyce Letter! The perspective is somewhat different as an employee but the experience is the same – learning, networking, developing new connections and appreciating existing ones. One of the things I’ve enjoyed about all of the Fordyce Forums I’ve attended is the fact that they are more intimate, and therefore the atmosphere is perfect for really getting to know your peers. Our conference chairman, Jeff Skrentny, kicked things off by asking everyone to think about why they came – obviously to learn, but also to be convinced of the value of new technologies, to retrain on basic skills, and of course to understand concepts in order to bring home new material to train the rest of our offices.

There were two overarching themes at this year’s Forum: the resilience of those individuals and teams who made it through 2009, and the absolute importance of cultivating relationships. The three keynote speakers – Jon Bartos, Jenifer Lambert, and Jordan Greenberg, each touched on at least one of these topics. Bartos’ presentation began with a recap of the difficulties we all experienced in 2009 and addressed the question, “Where do we go from here?” During her session, Lambert stressed the importance of building trust relationships and provided the formula: Trust = Truth + Time. She also shared the need for search partners to respect the process and develop partnerships with HR counterparts.  And during Greenberg’s session on Friday, he encouraged the audience to speak more positively and expect good things to come. He said to put ourselves in our candidates’ shoes to remember that stress happens on both sides of the table. Remembering things like this helps us to keep our jobs in perspective and remember the importance of that relationship.

General sessions brought topics of business development, closing skills, and personal marketing and promotion. Presenter Tim Tolan shared some of his business development practices with us, including how to know when to walk away from a bad client. He also stressed the importance of reviewing, and if necessary rewriting, your business plan on an annual basis. Carolyn Thompson showed us press kits and some really great ways to market ourselves and gain exposure with our target audiences. Her credibility as a Pinnacle Society member and the fact that she still works a desk while conducting these marketing campaigns was proof that we can (and need to) find time to promote our expertise. The Pinnacle Panel is always a crowd-pleaser – moderated by Jenifer Lambert, participants were given nuggets of wisdom from Dave Staats, Tom Keoughan, Rick Rush, and Fernando Espinosa. Questions coming from the audience ranged from office structure to niche markets to most difficult adversities overcome.

Our break-out session leaders provided workshops on using technology tools, how to take your billings to the next level, developing strategic partnerships, developing a niche, and closing techniques. Many thanks go to these individuals – Neil Lebovits, Rob Mosley, Jeff Skrentny, Paul DeBettignies, Jeff Kaye and Karen Pickens, and Shannon Myers. I did not have the opportunity to attend the pre-conference workshop on sourcing conducted by Shally Steckerl but those who attended it said that it was well worth arriving early for.

Of course, some of the best conversations at these conferences happen in between sessions and at the networking happy hours. I was on a mission to meet as many attendees as possible and ended up in so many interesting conversations. It was fantastic to observe new friendships being forged and to know that at the end of the day, we’re all rooting for each other’s success in our businesses. There was a sense of camaraderie with this year’s attendees – a mutual respect in reflecting back on 2009 and how, even though things got really tough at times, everyone there made it through and is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Special thanks go to our event sponsors this year – PC Recruiter, TFI Resources,  Big Biller, Top Echelon Network and Top Echelon Contracting, NPA Worldwide, cBizOne, CATS, ZoomInfo, FileFinder, and The Right Thing!. We could not put these events on without you!

We certainly hope you’ll join us for Fordyce Forum 2011 next year. Please stay tuned for more information in the coming months and keep reading The Fordyce Letter. I am looking forward to getting to know all of you!

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Jordan Greenberg’s average fee collected in 2009 was down 53% from 2008. He had had a good life, home, and education for his kids — but things sure turned awful, he told the Fordyce Forum today.

He made sure things wouldn’t stay that way. In short, here’s what he did: keep reading »

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One of Shannon Myers‘ favorite tools is one you’re also likely to find valuable in your recruiting and contact management.

Myers, speaking at the Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas, suggests you take a look at “Friend or Follow.” keep reading »

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Jenifer Lambert says she knows what recruiting firms’ clients want, and has even boiled those wants down to something so short it could fit on a Twitter tweet, as follows:

Good news! Your clients want to pay you. They would be happy to pay you, but they have expectations that you must not violate.

Lambert, speaking at the Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas today, knows clients can be pains in the rumps. keep reading »

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