How Do You Say No to a Recruiter?

One of my buddies (name removed…) just shot me this question:

What’s the best way of saying “thanks, but no thanks” to a recruiter who contacts you about a gig?

Here’s my answer:

Depends - if you think they’re an ass, just be polite and say “thanks, but I’m happy” (you ass)

If you like them: Let them know that either A: you’re really happy right now, and want to focus on what you’re doing, but would like to stay in touch with them every 6 months since you never know; or B: you may be open to hearing about roles, but the one they called on isn’t of interest - then, let them know what would interest you.

Choose A if you’re happy. B if you’re not.

If they seem like they’re a good recruiter (i.e., not a used car-salesperson), help them out - it can pay dividends. Offer to be a source for candidates. Ask them not to call you constantly for referrals, since your time is tight. Let them know the types of people you tend to be aware of. If they have a search that fits those parameters, ask them to shoot you a quick email and you’ll get back to them if you have anybody.

If you liked how they approached you, assume they’ll approach other candidates the same way, which is a good thing if they’re on your side. See if they want to do some work on our company’s behalf if you’re using agencies - they’ll _love_ you for that, and that will also prevent them from poaching out of your company. If they’re a corporate recruiter, let them know that you liked their approach, and turn the tables (in a nice way) - ask them if they’d ever be open to hearing about recruiting opportunities with your company if any come up. They’ll be flattered, and you may have a way to make some quick employee referral money down the road.

If you’re somebody who’s earned some favors by providing them referrals, they’re going to work extra-hard on your behalf if/ when you’re looking for your next gig. You’ll be on their radar for extra-juicy assignments.

Bottom-line: be nice to recruiters when they call. You’re going to be looking for a job again, and having a few career agents working on your behalf at the right time can make all the difference.

 

Shameless, Shameless Plug…

…for votes :)  For whatever reason, Good to Know  is up for best recruiting blog of the year.  I’m pretty sure it’s not because my employer is paying for the grand prize (seriously - what I suspect is that Jason Davis, the guy who runs RecruitingBlogs.com, the organizer of the whole contest, is just ridiculously nice and felt bad at how poorly I did at poker last time we hung out).

While I’m under zero illusion I’ll win, I wouldn’t mind not coming in dead last.  Seriously.  Soooo…. if you’re so inclined, I’d appreciate it if you clicked here and exercised your right to vote.  Primarily in categories #1& #6 - well, feel free to vote in the rest, too - in fact, I’d recommend checking out all of the nominated blogs - there’s a lot of really great guidance out there, from a gang of remarkable minds.

The Rumours of My Death…

…are just wishful thinking.  Spiteful, spiteful wishfull thinking.  And, were likely caused by my dropping off of the grid for a bit.  Sorry.   Been a little - wait, no, been really busy lately.  Fortunately, I have the flu, which gives me an excuse to lie down (this rest is mitigated by the fact that my 5 month old has started to try and be like his daddy in terms of not being very good at sleeping, but still…)

So, why the hell am I feverishly blogging?  Why did I just use that horrificially trite pun on you?  3 reasons.

The first is selfish - I’m up for an award for best corporate recruiting blog, and when I got the notice, I realized I’d been remiss about posting for, oh, say, 3 weeks.  That’s apparently a lifetime in blogdom (and, in mayflydom it’s like eons).

The second one is more altruistic.  I’ve been thinking a bit about the fact that while I’m desperate to hire great people, I constantly hear people talking about how hard it is to find a job.  Something’s broken.  I know this blog gets read by a decent number of folks, subscribers as well as casual readers.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  I’ll be putting my own up in the near future.

The third is only selfish in the sense that I’m proud of where I work - and I wanted to share this quote on one of several new things that ZoomInfo’s doing right now (in this case, a Bizographic ad platform.  I’ll serve you up a slice, and you can read the rest at Xconomy.

In the world of Web advertising, targeted audiences are gold. If you publish a website that attracts the type of people who drink green tea, then click-through rates for green-tea ads are probably going to be higher than average, and companies like Snapple and AriZona Beverages will happily pay you a higher rate. Likewise, if you know that a lot of CIOs or office managers read your site, you can probably use that information to attract ads from the likes of Dell or Staples.But how can you really know who’s visiting, in a way that you can prove to advertisers? A Waltham, MA, company called ZoomInfo says it has come up with a way. The company’s core asset is a collection of 40 million profiles of people in the business world, culled automatically from information scattered around the Web. (In fact, you might be surprised how much information ZoomInfo has on you—but more on that later.) When those people arrive at sites that use ZoomInfo’s advertising service, the company’s software can identify them, link up their names with their ZoomInfo profiles, and serve ads customized for people in their specific job categories.

Career Question on Human Resources Versus Marketing Majors - and, My Twist On the Whole Thing

Got a question from an Egyptian MBA student in Germany  (yup, that’s right - I’ve gone international thanks to Xing - love that site).

Here’s the Q, and then the A.  (Just in context, I’m inclined to view human resources and recruiting as pretty clearly separate - there’s overlap, of course, but more along the lines of the overlap that happens when sales lines up a contract and then hands it off to finance to set the client up in AR, etc).

> Hello M. Burns,
>
> i am an MBA student in germany. I am egyptian, and i am in the
> process of chossing the major within MBA studies.
> I would like to ask you for advice concerning the 2 fields Human
> Resources Management & Marketing. Actually i am interested in Human
> Resources Management field, but i am afraid i can not find an
> internship and job in the near future.
>
> from your experiences what would you advise me to do? and how do you
> see the H.R.M. field in the work areana?
>
> I would like to thank you in advance.
> kind regards,
> maha

Hi Maha - Thanks for the question.  I’m going to post this whole thing to my blog - http://recruiter.wordpress.com, since I think it’s a great inquiry.

Actually, I think it would be interesting if you could define your major so that it bridged marketing and HR, and geared up to become a Recruiter instead of an HR-type (they’re actually very distinct disciplines as we’re discovering on this side of the pond).   Here’s why: the best organizations (ZoomInfo, Google, etc) are very smart about how they attract and retain their talent.  This means they’ve turned traditional HR concepts on their heads, and look at it like this - view your open positions as products you’re trying to “sell”, and the overall culture of the organization as it’s “brand”.  So, you have a marketing message and a product line. You define a marketing campaign geared at driving interest in working at your organization.  You use a Web-based applicant tracking system to capture potential “clients” (job applicants0, and then assess how “hot” the lead is (i. e., how qualified the candidate is).  From there, you bring in the prospect (think of it as a sales call where the potential client comes to you), market the role the them (at the same time, they’re marketing themselves to you - it’s weird, I know).  Make an offer, negotiate terms & contracts (this is where it gets more like biz-dev, because you’re looking at bartering of services and knowledge, with some cash mixed in, and you’re setting up an exclusive partnership), and close the deal.  It’s a classic lead-gen driven sales process, from start to finish.  Frankly, it’s like an entire business cycle, and various steps along the way can be easily related to most aspects of business.  The one area that is touched on the lightest - ironically - is Operations and Finance.  You’ll get involved setting up salary and benefits, and possibly some logistics around IT & office set-up, but not much accounting beyond that.  You’ll spend more time thinking like a marketer and sales person - and yet, until things change, you’ll probably wind up being part of Operations.  Just a hold-over from the traditional habit of shoving Recruiting into HR.

Traditional HR doesn’t think like this, which is a shame - when you look closely at the most successful organizations (the top 5% in any industry), you’ll almost invariably find out that those firms look at recruiting as a sales and marketing driven role, and not a reactive, operational one.  They may not consciously define it this way - or even break it out of HR - but when you look at how they operate you’ll see the diference.  They’ll be strategic, proactive, and creatve in how they drive talent into the organization.

Quick Thoughts on Breaking Into Recruiting

This is a response to a recent comment I received - thought it was worth posting the reply I e-mailed to her:

She said: How can I break into the recruiting field? There doesn’t seem to be a path to follow. It’s my main interest, and I’m not sure how to go about it.

I started working in HR about three months ago, where I do some support work for recruiting, and I’ve started a resume-writing business and blog. I’m also working in a bookstore, which will give me a background in sales to add to the HR experience. (Recruiters seem to have sales background.) All of this comes in addition to my 10+ years of experience as a newspaper journalist. I’m hoping that in two years or so that I’ll have enough HR/sales/resume-writing experience to land a recruiting job. Am I doing enough? What do hiring managers want to see from recruiting candidates? 

And, he said:

First off, you need to determine if you want corporate or third-party recruiting (headhunting, in funner terms).  If it’s the corporate side, then you’ll need to put your time in, but make sure that they know you’re interested in recruiting - see if they’ll let you get involved with sourcing new candidates.  With a background in journalism, that type of research should be a snap for you.  It’s also one of the less sexy aspects of recruiting (to some) so you’ll likely find that your company’s recruiter is happy to let you take a swing at it.

If you’re looking to dive into recruiting, you’ll probably find it’s easier than you think to get an agency job, particularly with the journalism background: recruiting and journalism overlap a lot, actually - both require great communication skills, persistence, an investigative mind-set, and the ability to quickly build rapport with a stranger.   Several of the most successful agency recruiters I know started out as journalists.  The plus here is that you can dive right into recruiting, and the experience you’ll get working with a diverse client base and a broad swath of candidates can make the leap into corporate recruiting easier.  There’s nothing like agency experience to instill you with a sense of urgency when it comes to finding the best candidate for a role.  The down side is that most agency recruiting roles are full commission-type sales roles, and you’ll live or die by your success.

I’d recommend trying the agency side our for a bit, but make sure you have some way of living for the first few months until your commission checks start rolling in.  Even with a draw, the first two or three months can get tight financially - the upside is that you can do very, very well for yourself once you ramp up.