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Articles by Dave Staats

Dave Staats places top executives as well as implementation consultants with software companies. He also has made more placements in Artificial Intelligence than any other headhunter. His career began during the SDI (Star Wars) years and included placement of scientists in laser, stealth, and other high-tech fields. During a short hiatus from the recruiting industry in 1994 he obtained a Private Investigator's license which he keeps as a constant reminder that a headhunter is what he really is. Dave is on the Board of Directors of The Pinnacle Society and a founder of The Tennessee Recruiters Association. He has a BA from Western Illinois University. Dave also blogs at Truth, Justice & the American Way of Headhunting

Why Do We Need These Clones?

by Dave Staats July 26th, 2010

A good old-fashioned quick rant. I like Yahoo Groups. It was the first version I saw for what I needed at the time. Now there’s Ning and Google and LinkedIn and many others doing what they do best but also trying to copy Yahoo Groups. And Yahoo is messing with me too now. I got an [...]

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Fordyce – A Time-Honored Tradition

by Dave Staats June 15th, 2010

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 [...]

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My Idea of a Job Ad in the Cleared Technology Niche

by Dave Staats December 2nd, 2009

I’d rather hear what you want than tell you what I need. If you are a JAVA SW dev professional with a high-level security clearance, the last thing you need is a list of reqs to read. You can have six jobs next week if you just return your voicemails. As the basis for a [...]

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War on Sigfiles

by Dave Staats September 30th, 2009

Ok, here is what we’ll use to start the fire du jour: “If I have to scroll to read your sigfile it is TOO DAMNED BIG, PERIOD!” You need to FIX IT!

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Rockin’ Robin Will Tweet Tweet No More

by Dave Staats June 26th, 2009

It’s interesting to me how some things are tied together…or maybe professionals would find interesting how I tie them together. Either way, I wish I could claim this utterance from someone yesterday. He won’t even let me attribute it to him but it is just too beautiful to claim it as my own. The guy [...]

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One True Statement Among Many

by Dave Staats June 19th, 2009

“If I am more successful than you it is because I heard more NO’s than you.” Before I get to my point, I need to say that having just missed my first Forum, I plan to be there in 2010. I really have been busy…and while I can use that as an excuse for not having [...]

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Twitter Is At Least Another Car On The Race Track

by Dave Staats May 1st, 2009

Here’s what I got from the responses to the question last Friday about how to use Twitter and what it is good for. First, I want to thank Scott for plugging me in a bit. I know he just wants to see me eat my blog. Thank God for those printers that print on cake icing [...]

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NOT a Rant, Just a Simple Question about Twitter

by Dave Staats April 24th, 2009

Well now, THIS ought to confuse the commenter who refers to himself as “Tallis.” Two weeks ago, I played around a bit and was not quite clear. This is not a joke. I’d like someone to give us some kind of tutorial on how Twitter can be used in the search business. We don’t need single anecdotes [...]

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Very Short Friday Rant (140 Character Limit)

by Dave Staats April 10th, 2009

DAVE: is waiting for someone like Neil McNulty to tell him how Twitter will add ANY value we (recruiters who follow the Fordyce model) do not already have… DAVE: does not want to hear this from people who use job boards… DAVE: would love a serious answer since he already has some time invested trying to find a [...]

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Open Letter Instead of a Rant

by Dave Staats March 23rd, 2009

Some of you might want this for a template after changing the niche-specific part. I put all the politeness and hope I have left here. Jeff: Please don’t take this wrong. I am…well…not ‘bombarded’ but certainly ‘overwhelmed’ with offers of tools that are free and will save us, or make us, money. The problem is [...]

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I Do NOT Want To Moonlight!

by Dave Staats March 13th, 2009

Let’s rant a bit. This is sort of related to Neil’s theme from last week. I think I understand WHY this happens but it is just so dumb and counter-productive. It seems like any time it gets harder to make placements that people in our industry make it even harder on themselves. I keep getting inquiries, [...]

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Thank You, Neil McNulty!

by Dave Staats March 6th, 2009

Neil and I like to argue about the sex of the number of angels we agree are on the head of a pin. Which is to say we agree about a lot of things and at least one of us enjoys debating the rest. Today, there is no debate in my rant. The best thing [...]

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More Clarification Than Rant

by Dave Staats February 27th, 2009

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 [...]

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A Good Old-Fashioned Friday Rant

by Dave Staats February 20th, 2009

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 [...]

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Are All the Problems in Recruiting Solved?

by Dave Staats February 13th, 2009

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 [...]

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Pinnacle Perspectives from February Fordyce Letter

by Dave Staats February 2nd, 2009

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 [...]

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A Couple Questions on Fake Job Postings

by Dave Staats January 30th, 2009

An email discussion with Elaine prompted my blog item this week. Last’s week’s thread ended up having some fun discussion. Elaine: Do you think search firms are posting ads for jobs that don’t exist so that when the economy turns around, they have a pool of resumes to search among?  Dave: If anyone is doing that they [...]

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An Old-fashioned Friday Rant on Social Networking

by Dave Staats January 16th, 2009

I was thinking about the time I put into a couple ning-things when they came out and several others that I didn’t even join and I happened across a suggestion by one of the founders of one of the networks that ‘friends’ be limited to 150. Then some guy said that was way too few and [...]

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A Shameless Plug

by Dave Staats January 9th, 2009

Well, since I am all happy and have nothing in the recruiting world to complain about today, I’ll take a moment to abuse my privilege of having access to at least a few eyeballs now and then. I’d like to invite anyone within, say, a 3-hour drive or a short flight like Chicago to come [...]

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Disingenuous

by Dave Staats December 19th, 2008

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, [...]

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Please Stop Calling My People!

by Dave Staats December 12th, 2008

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 [...]

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Why Do I Think the Recession is Irrelevant?

by Dave Staats November 20th, 2008

Mark Lally asked this in a comment on a previous post. Thanks to him, I have something to write about this week. The key words in the previous post are ‘to our niche.’ Everyone calls it a hard niche but it is really just what the best trainers describe. It is something that is in short enough [...]

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“That’s like counting the number of times you go past the gym without going in”

by Dave Staats October 29th, 2008

I can’t believe I am stopping to write this but if I don’t do it now I may not get to it. I can’t believe how irrelevant all the financial turmoil seems to be to our niche. I am not complaining. At the Pinnacle meeting last week someone actually chided me for not posting more. [...]

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Email Rocks!

by Dave Staats September 25th, 2008

“No Time to Rant But There’s a Good One Hidden Below” was my title but the new one serves a better purpose. I already know I am going to have to kill my RantReminder tomorrow because I am backed up and having too much fun headhunting. It just so happens that the posting with “Balancing Trainer [...]

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Balance for a Couple Classic Trainer Nuggets

by Dave Staats September 19th, 2008

One good thing about the rare anonymous jerks who complain about what I write here is that I no longer write everything. That and being busy have made me a bit more choosy about what I want to invest the time in, live with, and defend here. There are two classic trainer lines I keep hearing [...]

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