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Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on April 13, 2009 at 8:12pm

Many would be scarred for life

Sandra McCartt said:

For many years i have used college kids part time in my office. After they have been here a while, listening to us after we interview a candidate or review a resume they start cleaning up their act before they come to work. Start talking about why they need to stay in school after they hear us bemoan the fact that a great candidate can't be submitted because they have no degree. Get a slam dunk of reality in the feedback we discuss about what happened in an interview. It should be required that every kid over the age of 18 be required to sit in an office with a bunch of recruiters for six weeks.

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Permalink Reply by Julia Stone on April 14, 2009 at 10:16am

My 3 year old seems to have good business sense. When we were playing monopoly on my DS last month she wanted to build more houses, but I told her we didn't have enough money to build anymore houses right now. She jumped down and ran into the other room, only to bring back my wallet. Here Mommy, now you have enough money to build houses.

I think that is about all I learned in Econ 101 in college about money. I am just glad she didn't pull out a credit card, I was saving that lesson for kindergarten.

Steve Levy said:

All- have you specifically used business examples during child rearing?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on April 14, 2009 at 10:52am

"Here Mommy, now you have enough money to build houses."

Uh-oh Julia, she sounds like a bureaucrat already...

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Permalink Reply by Todd Kmiec on April 14, 2009 at 11:24am

Back to the original question of having kids or not having kids making you a better recruiter.....I'm sure that having kids makes me a better recruiter. Beside the fact that you have to feed the little knuckleheads (and pay for their schooling etc...), you learn and reinforce when you teach. We are constantly teaching good work ethic, honest dealings, strong effort without guaranteed outcome, that you can't win everytime but how you handle it has a huge impact on your overall success and the next battle. As we reinforce these things with the kids they become reinforced in us to an even greater degree.

Todd Kmiec
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Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on April 15, 2009 at 2:28am

"...strong effort without guaranteed outcome..."
I wonder how many this concept appeals to and do you think it will become more acceptable (or less?) moving forward?

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Permalink Reply by Todd Kmiec on April 15, 2009 at 6:29am

Steve brought up the same thing, basically how do people doing retained business feel about that. It's probably something for another great discussion since several people took the comment about work without guaranteed results to mean that. I wasn't referring to contingency vs retained at all. When making calls to land a retained client, you don't have a guarantee that you'll land the client. You have to do the work and have faith or confidence that your work will pay off. We're teaching our kids this all the time, that they do the work, they may or may not win but also that the more they do good work the more they experience success and the more they build confidence that they will continue to have good results. For me, that applies to retained or contingency business development as well as candidate sourcing etc....and I believe the work without guaranteed results is magnified in recruiting vs other fields because there are so many variables in putting a deal together.




Sandra McCartt said:

Thanks Maureen, i have been looking for a definition of contingency recruiting for a long time.

Maureen Sharib said:

"...strong effort without guaranteed outcome..."
I wonder how many this concept appeals to and do you think it will become more acceptable (or less?) moving forward?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on April 15, 2009 at 8:37am

Todd, in between yesterday's call and this morning (!) I saw your light - obviously I was looking at the R v. C difference from a different angle. But for many there are differences between the two - perhaps there shouldn't be - that IMO tend to focus around the depth of the relationship with the client.

How much of parenting actually focuses on the skills required to build and foster a great relationship? After all, isn't this what we do as recruiters?

(for that matter, isn't this what education should be doing too?)

Todd Kmiec said:

Steve brought up the same thing, basically how do people doing retained business feel about that. It's probably something for another great discussion since several people took the comment about work without guaranteed results to mean that. I wasn't referring to contingency vs retained at all. When making calls to land a retained client, you don't have a guarantee that you'll land the client. You have to do the work and have faith or confidence that your work will pay off. We're teaching our kids this all the time, that they do the work, they may or may not win but also that the more they do good work the more they experience success and the more they build confidence that they will continue to have good results. For me, that applies to retained or contingency business development as well as candidate sourcing etc....and I believe the work without guaranteed results is magnified in recruiting vs other fields because there are so many variables in putting a deal together.


Sandra McCartt said:

Thanks Maureen, i have been looking for a definition of contingency recruiting for a long time.

Maureen Sharib said:

"...strong effort without guaranteed outcome..."
I wonder how many this concept appeals to and do you think it will become more acceptable (or less?) moving forward?

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Permalink Reply by Todd Kmiec on April 15, 2009 at 9:15am

Steve,

Yes, Yes, Absolutely Yes. You're touching on several things that should be discussed from time to time here. Contingency vs Retained, Building Relationships with Clients - both how to and how important, and of course parenting and if that makes you better at building relationships. I wrote recently about how building a strong client base is a relationship thing. There is absolutely no doubt that it is and that goes for both contingency and retained. Getting a job order isn't building a relationship and if you don't build relationships with your clients you will at best have a weak client base and at worst, no client base. Does parenting make you better at building relationships??? Good question. Could be a Chicken and Egg thing. Maybe better relationship builders are better parents and better recruiters (another discussion topic perhaps). I guess I come down on it this way............I think parenting gives you the opportunity to learn and develop skills in building relationships. Maybe a better opportunity than any other, because the kids begin from a base of no experience and the relationships can be molded like no other and because they can't leave for the most part and you spend so much time with them and go through everything with them. So the opportunity is there to develop skills and traits like empathy, guiding, conflict and resolution, resistance, patience, etc........ However, we all know crappy parents.......and crappy recruiters, so I see it as an opportunity but not as an absolute that a parent is necessarily a better recruiter than a non parent.

Real interesting stuff on a number of levels.



Steve Levy said:

Todd, in between yesterday's call and this morning (!) I saw your light - obviously I was looking at the R v. C difference from a different angle. But for many there are differences between the two - perhaps there shouldn't be - that IMO tend to focus around the depth of the relationship with the client.

How much of parenting actually focuses on the skills required to build and foster a great relationship? After all, isn't this what we do as recruiters?

(for that matter, isn't this what education should be doing too?)

Todd Kmiec said:

Steve brought up the same thing, basically how do people doing retained business feel about that. It's probably something for another great discussion since several people took the comment about work without guaranteed results to mean that. I wasn't referring to contingency vs retained at all. When making calls to land a retained client, you don't have a guarantee that you'll land the client. You have to do the work and have faith or confidence that your work will pay off. We're teaching our kids this all the time, that they do the work, they may or may not win but also that the more they do good work the more they experience success and the more they build confidence that they will continue to have good results. For me, that applies to retained or contingency business development as well as candidate sourcing etc....and I believe the work without guaranteed results is magnified in recruiting vs other fields because there are so many variables in putting a deal together.


Sandra McCartt said:

Thanks Maureen, i have been looking for a definition of contingency recruiting for a long time.

Maureen Sharib said:

"...strong effort without guaranteed outcome..."
I wonder how many this concept appeals to and do you think it will become more acceptable (or less?) moving forward?

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