With what feels like a sudden crop of tadpole recruiting boards added to the long-established split networks it seemed like a good time to mention something prompted by a discussion in the Pinnacle Society forum. One end of the ’split stick’ has people who do nothing but splits and the other has the people who say ‘Why would I ever split a fee when I can do it myself?’ I’d love to see a head-to-head poll (impossible, of course) of all 3-plus year recruiters who run a desk (exclude temp industry and the account manager/recruiter model). The two questions would be ,first,’Where are you on the stick,philosophically?’. The second question would be ‘How many splits did you do last year with recruiters outside your firm?’ I’d be willing to bet (already excited about Las Vegas and The Fordyce Forum) that if we were to throw out the 10% on either end of the stick that there’d not be very much deviation in the remaining 80%. My guess is that the majority might do 3 or 4 a year. I know some people who do a lot more splits than I do but I don’t understand how. I am philosophically on the “Love Splits!” end of the stick but I swear…If I had all the time back that I have spent TALKING about making splits with people and trying to make splits with people I probably could have done twice as many regular deals. I actually do one now and then but it just seems like way more prince-less frog-kissing than should be done. That said, I am excited about www.RecruitingBlogs.com for reasons other than splits. It looks like something that will grow into a princely frog. I like www.RockStarRecruiting.com too but that one feels like it may grow from a tadpole into a mature frog at best. I’d love to be wrong about that. Gotta run….Phone’s a ringin’
My bio is on http://www.pinnaclesociety.org
1 comment
Pam Mar 22, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I think that the key to making splits work is the quality of the network. When I went on my own, I looked into Hireability and Top Echelon and a few others. I did a free trial of Hireability and have to say the people there are great and have the best intentions. For me, it didn’t work because ironically I was too busy to put the time into developing relationships and building a network with strangers. I posted a few of my openings and talked with a few other recruiters, but there was really zero activity…and I know I wasn’t alone, as they’ve since changed their structure so that there’s no fee percentage to encourage more split activity.
I think the challenge with networks like that is the trust factor. I’ve been a recruiter for a long time and my clients are gold. I just couldn’t buy into sharing client info with strangers. I know those networks do work for some, and I suspect it’s people who connect with a few like-minded recruiters.
Which leads me to what is working. Over the past year I’ve been doing splits steadily with another recruiter. We talk daily about what each other has going on and work on each others openings. Now things have really kicked up to a great level because a former colleague of mine reconnected with me now that she’s on her own and had a friend she introduced me to, so now we have a mini-network. We know all the jobs everyone is working on and send weekly or twice weekly updates as to what’s hottest and what needs coverage.
Why this is working so well is because there’s overlap so we leverage each other’s recruiting efforts. I spent an hour looking for Java engineers for Michelle’s client, who then passed on my candidate, but then Courtney got a great job that he was perfect for a week later, and he’s going in this week for a final interview. So in a sense, it’s like a virtual ‘agency’, and we’re all emailing/talking by phone daily about our jobs and candidates.