I am as passionate about my three daughters as I am about my clients. Love to push and play with them, helping them learn to walk. But that doesn’t make me passionate about school mornings…
So you’re passionate about recruitment?
With no particular education or knowledge required everyone can become a recruiter. But recruitment is a tough job. You won’t make it if you’re primarily passionate – passionate about people, about their talents, their careers, passionate about helping them grow professionally.
You forgot there is this other party. An important one cause it’s the one we get paid from. The one we can send invoices. We call ‘m clients. And the thing is: despite they are often professional companies, SMEs, even listed multinationals sometimes… the person we are in business with, often is an amateur.
As a recruiter you mainly work with amateurs
And believe me. Nothing can be as difficult and annoying or frustrating than trying to be in a professional relationship with amateurs. I’ve been in it for almost 6 years now.
Before you guys get pissed off, let me explain. First of all: amateurs, we love you. There’s nothing wrong with being an amateur. It doesn’t make you a lesser person. I am an amateur myself, every Sunday morning on the soccer field. Acceptance is key. I’m not Messi (more like Ronaldo I think). But, dear client, also you need to accept that – despite you own the place, maybe even build it yourself, you don’t know as much about hiring as we do. Accept that – despite you are an experienced manager and you know – probably better than us – what skills you need in your team, we’re the ones who know where to find these people and how to get them to the table (website in Dutch).
Accept that you are a professional, but not when it comes to hiring other professionals.
Sorry hiring managers, this might get a little embarrassing
Some examples.
(1) You’re now asking me to attract an account manager who perfectly fits in your sales driven company, but you forbid me to talk money in my job ad. That’s amateurish thinking.
(2) You’re telling me that this position in no way can be a parttime job because there’s simply too much work that needs to be done. What if I told you it takes twice the amount of time to fill this position with a candidate who wants to work 40 hours a week than when you’d allow someone to join for 32 or 36 hours a week. If you hold on to that, you’ll have your new employee by the end of this year while the current ones resigned because of the increasing workload. Still think that will get the work done?
(3) You’ve once told me that there was no way you are going to increase salary range because the annual profit of this particular business unit would suffer… You think that’s a professional argument? Did you ever tell a customer that you couldn’t offer the product or service he was willing to buy for a lower price simply because then you were not on target anymore?
(4) You also told me – examples keep coming all of a sudden – you needed 1 or even 2 qualified applicants as soon as possible. When I asked on what date and time you were able to meet ‘em, you asked your secretary to look at the options at the end of next month. The candidates were hired in the end, but not by you.
(5) Remember that time you made very clear to me that the maximum age of your new team member should not exceed 50 because ‘they lack energy’. In addition to the great piece of discrimination, made me wonder how you keep running your business as an 63 year old man…
(6) Another one – suddenly remember. Once you told me that a minimum of 5 years of professional experience was an absolute must. 3 years was a no-go. When I introduced 2 candidates – person A, who had always worked 24 hours a week in the past 5 years and person B, who had always worked 40 hours a week in the past 3 years – you hired person A. Amateurish. Or simply dyscalculia?
(7) Last one, this is starting to get too embarrassing by now. Remember that time you were in great need of a new employee. When I brought this excellent marketer from your biggest competitor to the table, you were thinking that it would be a good idea – probably from the nostaglic image of yourself as an employer and from some kind of alleged superiority as a hiring manager – to held her feet to the fire. Great job, amateur! You didn’t only lose a possible new top performer, you also damaged your employer brand as well as that of my agency. How are you going to make up for that?
I guess I made my point here. Like I said earlier: denial is wrong, acceptance is key. And that applies to almost every hiring manager, but also to those who say they are passionate about recruitment.
I love my kids, but that doesn’t make me passionate about school mornings
So hey recruiter, accept you’re doing business with amateurs. Like being a dad trying to make agreements with his three toddlers – like I try to, every day. You might not believe me, but I am as passionate about my daughters as I am about my clients. Love to push and play with them, helping them learn to walk, to grow up. That’s what I do – day in, day out. That’s what you do as well. So get real, this wrestling is the biggest part of our job. And it isn’t something you can say you’re ‘passionate’ about. It’s like I as a dad would say I am passionate about the the daily fights during school mornings. Getting them out of bed, changing diapers, brushing their teeth, combing hair (f*ck, still can’t braid), making sandwiches, peeling apples, packing bags, bringing them to school… I love being a parent, but this is not where I am passionate about.
So recruiter, if you still think you’re passionate about your job, I think it’s time for you to start wrestling a little more. Good luck! Don’t forget I am here to help you.
Cheers,
Jurriaan
jurriaan@jp-recruitment.nl | www.jp-recruitment.nl | passionate about recruitment