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 I was talking with said “Yeah, Twitter is just like CB radio.”

What a moment THAT was for me. I was 52 yesterday and just old enough to really appreciate that statement. CB radio was a fad. Lots of people who had no need or purpose were adopting ‘handles’ and “Hey,good buddying” each other for a few years there in the mid-70s. CB radio today remains a good tool for some very narrow purposes and is of limited use.  I think that’s where Twitter will end up too. No disrespect to my buddy Harry Joiner who may just be the CW McCall of his age.

Why the song reference?  On the same day my ‘good buddy’ made his CB reference it was announced that the King of Pop and Hero of (censored) was gone. Just as Twitter indeed does feel like a recycled CB Radio fad, Rockin’ Robin was a recycled hit from right around the same time as the CB craze. There is one big difference though… I believe Twitter will go much more quietly.

“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 bloviated here in a while, I don’t plan to use that one on myself next June when it is time to go to Las Vegas.

For those of you who have never gone to a Forum…ask yourself if a guy who thinks he has heard it all and said it all in the past 23 years regrets making time now that it is over is enough reason to go to the next one yourself. It should be.

Back to the subject… I have no issue with Barb Bruno’s quote and none with her over it because all sales trainers say similar things. I am also certain this is true for some people. But not for all people.

We all remember in school there were kids who looked and acted like Jeff Spicoli but still got As because they just took the test and the stuff was just there in his head. We also knew kids who did nothing but study all the time who also did well.

All you bosses come and shoot me now for telling the real truth. I absolutely agree that more nos=more yesses but I’ll also tell you that there are one heck of a lot of people who learn how to do a few elements better and since they do it better they can do it less. They also continually focus on improvement of those elements.

I find it demoralizing and debilitating to be told over and over and over that the path to success in this business is 4 hours a day of actual phone time. It may have been true in the past…but not in the 23 years I have been doing this. Maybe it is A way but it is not THE way.

I also average about 1 ‘marketing’ (sales) call a week. I can’t fill our jobs.

I just think more people should focus on finding the things that matter in our business and doing each of them better and better instead of doing them crappily over and over and over.

Since this theme may go on for a while, I’ll stop here for today with a statement I believe is a bit more empirically true.

“If you are more successful than I am it is because you are better than I am.”

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 now (BTW, all these comments except for the ‘anonymasses’ are on last Friday’s blog for reference).

I want to thank Jason for calling me and hooking me into www.splits.org . For people who can do and want to do splits , I can see that Twitter could be very useful for that and Splits is extremely easy to use. Unfortunately, for me it just makes it easier to reinforce that splits are hard to do in the cleared defense tech market. 

Harry Joiner’s link  http://www.marketingheadhunter.com/2009/04/twitter-and-b2b-marketing.html    is an excellent training tool on how to use Twitter and for a marketing guy and brand-builder I can see it’ll be a great thing for him and others who have the ability to do what he suggests.

Dave Graziano posted this Link to Animal’s radio show http://cli.gs/DBSPy9 This has more very useful technical information on things you can do with Twitter that are not obvious to new users.

Jim Durbin had a couple useful ideas in the list of things he posted. There’s also a link that I have not yet followed that Jim says has more info on how to use Twitter. There’s a fee for that one. 

I can now see that it is at the very least, a valid tool with value for certain types of recruiters. It’s like the opposite of Jott for me. When I discovered Jott I was SOOO excited and used it maybe 10 times. I think the idea of Twitter will grow on me after seeming totally over-hyped.

For now, for people who do what TFL readers traditionally do, I’d recommend that people use Twitter when they can show it is better than the other communication tools they already have.

Harry has done that…And I am still here writing blog entries for an audience I’ll never sell anything to. Don Ramer has me thinking about THAT a LOT.

To paraphrase Tom Keoughan ,who pretty much nailed it for me. Just LET Twitter prove its usefulness, don’t try to MAKE it do so.

Reminder to the Anonymasses, comments that can’t be tracked back to real people will only be up until I have time to wipe them off.

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 like, “This guy tweeted my job posting and this candidate called me.” I did hear that, and it is not even an example of something WE could do.

I’ll challenge Harry Joiner here to back up his comment from last week. I have talked with Harry. He’s a good, smart guy who knows what he is doing and doesn’t seem like a time-waster, but his comment last week was just totally empty.

And another guy meeting a split partner there? Ok, fine. No explanation of how it was different than meeting someone on this network or a bar or a grocery store. And that guy said he hates it as much as he loves it.

I didn’t single out that guy because I also want to say the part of his comment questioning the value of being HERE on TFL is just totally wrong. That does not even need to be debated.

So think of the old song “War” when you sing “Twitter, HUH, Wha-at is it good for? Absolutely Nuthin’ , Say it Again…”

I would love to print and eat this post on a video as soon as two known trainers add how to use Twitter to their repertoire.

Note added Sat. 25th. I am deleting comments from ‘fake’ people when I see them. That could make some comments from real people seem strange at times.  And, yes the times are a’changin’.  Now people can do and say things without consequences sometimes. Makes them very ‘brave’.

I plan to respond to the comments here in the next blog entry…or whatever the brave/fake critics would have me properly call it.

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 use for Twitter himself…

DAVE: drank too much tea…he is now going to have to… HEY! Now I get it!

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 that even the majority that start out ‘free’ and remain ‘free’ cost ME about $225 an hour to evaluate, test, and use.

The last one that has made a difference and MIGHT have paid for itself was LinkedIn. That was several years ago. I say might have paid for itself because I can’t trace actual business to it but I think some of the info I got have been helpful. It’s kind of like taking aspirin… I am never sure if the aspirin or the time made my headache go away.

If you remain in the mood to provide more and very specific information…here’s my problem:

• I am interested in finding and getting to know very talented technical people with very high security clearances who, by definition, believe they have no need to know me…because most top talent feels this way and the ones with clearances really feel this way.
  
• In my headhunting niche, people who are LOOKING for opportunities are almost always people I cannot introduce to my clients.
• The VERY FEW other recruiters who have ‘ended up’ in my niche (only a nut would do this on purpose) understand this and we consequently end up doing very little split business.
• The considerable number of others who flirt with this niche or think they are in it have wasted tons of time trying to make this job easier than it is. I have allowed myself to waste tons of time trying to evaluate these people to see if we could do some business together.

Given all this, I still didn’t want to simply trash your offer. What, if anything, can you tell me that will have me fight through the apprehension of lots of emails of futile explanations to people who want ‘just a little more information’ after I sign up for your offering?

Thanks, Dave

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, some even from colleagues, asking me if I want to “supplement my income” by offering my clients something other than what they are already paying me to do. This is SO counter-productive in SO many ways. We all need to be BETTER recruiters right now. We do not need to try to sell something we do not know. It makes us look stupid to our clients and it keeps us from doing what we know best. If you want to leave the business then DO…but go do ALL of whatever else you do.

This “noise” all reminds me of times in the summer when I am working under the garden tractor…it is very hot outside…sweat running in my eyes…one arm way under there where the blades are…trying to get a nut threaded onto a bolt (a surgeon would call me a butcher and a butcher would laugh at me…not very dextrous to begin with) and right when I need the MOST concentration I can feel a mosquito landing on my forehead and a fly buzzing in my ear.

C’mon people…As Dr. Phil might say… Go take on the headset…

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 I have seen here or in the magazine in a while (except Pinnacle Perspectives, of course ) is his 7 laws post below.  Huge thanks for the content,for the reminders and for saving me time here. I have such an odd market that we’re actually buried in work. (That it is taking forever to get start dates due to the political transition is for another post).

JUST to keep my contrarian streak alive I’ll say that ONLY the 7th rule does not apply to us. It is probably valid in most niches and I have no argument with the concept. Finding and talking to our purple squirrels is THE challenge in this niche. I think it is why we can probably get contingency business (that we don’t do sourcing for at all) without even making phone calls. So to turn even my quibble into agreement with Neil. We know what OUR hard part is and we work at improving it.

Neil, Thanks again…this post is mostly to help the 3 or 4 people who have my RSS feed find Neil’s post if they have not already.

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.

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.