Search Results - initial browning

Comment for: Jackie Brown: ce. Since I am in the research process and new to the industry (Active Duty Army not Reservist) I would like to be able to network and find other recruiters in this industry that I can ask a few questions to and gather some information to avoid some of the initial pit falls. Please let me know if we can email have an introducion through email and start I dialog. Thank you in advance for taking the time to even read this. …; Added by William Maitre at 12:11am on October 29, 2011

Blog Post: "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!": I couldn’t resist the opportunity to incorporate one of the season’s classics into our Movie Quote Mondays. For many “Halloween” with Jamie Lee Curtis or “Fright Night” or “Twilight” may be more…; Added by Kathleen Smith at 10:03am on November 1, 2010

Blog Post: Considering the Times Editorial on Background Checks: Last week, the New York Times ran an editorial regarding employment screening and how employment background checks are often inaccurate and cause otherwise innocent people their chances for…; Added by Gordon Basichis at 5:14pm on July 30, 2012

Blog Post: Effective Closing-from the mouths of babes...: I've been in sales since I was about 15 years old and have worked a desk since late 1999. I've had the pleasure (and…; Added by Kevin Vaughn at 12:39pm on September 2, 2010

Blog Post: Employee Engagement Is All About Recruiting

[thnks to Scott Adams for being so astute about HR issues & for the use of his intellectual property]…

Added by Steve Levy at 2:18pm on November 2, 2014

Blog Post: How to Buy HR Tech: Sales Leaders’ Advice: Buying new software for your HR tech stack is difficult. From discovering a need to vetting vendors to making a final decision, there are a lot of bumps in the road that can lead to costly…; Added by Phil Strazzulla at 11:14am on January 11, 2021

Topic: Recruiter's Delight: Meet Sheila Greco, Traditional Search Expertise with CEO of SGA: com Amsterdam, NY Featured Blog Posts by Sheila: * The Best Advice I Ever Got * Research & Recruiting - Lingo Simply Defined Today is a sourcer's delight. Sheila Greco has always practiced the "pass it forward" doctrine valued at "SixDegreesfromDave". From traditional search, competitive intelligence to research/name generation this petite, soft spoken personality is a well known brand in research product delivery and services to her clients. Sheila has established herself as an industry Thought Leader within the conference circuit as a presenter. Most recently, Sheila spoke at ONREC this past September in Chicago, “Best Practices Combining New Technology with Traditional Sourcing.” Today, Sheila walks us through the process of traditional search as a practitioner, and from the vantage point of her clients - with her recipe for successful value-ads in pursuing and utilizing research in the long term with all the ferver of an evangelist. About Sheila Greco With Sheila’s leadership responsibilities as President and Chief Executive Officer of Sheila Greco Associates, LLC and her active role in the overall growth and success of the company, she places her broad-based skills and experience at the disposal of clients, candidates, and colleagues alike. As an entrepreneur, she has gained extensive experience in human resources to include, research, recruiting, and competitive intelligence. As a strategic results oriented leader, Sheila has a proven track record of building long-term and solid relationships with clients and candidates. Prior to launching Sheila Greco Associates in 1989, Sheila spent several years with Goodrich & Sherwood, an executive search company in New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut. She began her career as a research associate and quickly climbed through the ranks and ultimately became a Director of Executive Search specializing in consumer packaged goods marketing and sales. An alumna of Hartwick College, Sheila received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Marketing. She is a member of the National Association of Executive Females, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), SCIP (Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals), Women in Technology International, and participated in many events sponsored by the New York State Olympics. Sheila is also currently Chairperson for the Amsterdam YMCA. Q & A with Sheila Greco, CEO at SGA Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world, Sheila Sheila: Family has always been #1 on my list. I have a son who I adore, a great husband and dog. Just like you Dave, I do a lot of traveling but I will share a secret with you, it is always scheduled in between my son’s games and school activities. He is 15 and I am proud to say I have only missed one baseball game. This is quite an accomplishment since he plays golf, baseball, and basketball. As I travel around the country each meeting that is set is scheduled around my son’s activities and games. Part of my mission in life is to NEVER miss my son's games and school activities. He too travels as he is part of a NIKE Basketball National AAU Team. This continues to be part of my life too. My philosophy is to work hard and play hard, something I live everyday! I am a very competitive person, I guess I passed this along to my son. I tell him and I tell all I come in contact with; when you step on the court, baseball field, spelling bee stage, lacrosse field (I played in College), tennis court (played in college) whatever, you need to have a winning attitude and give 110% or don't play at all. I also say you win some and lose some... and you tend to learn more from the losses that you experience. But I love to win!! Six Degrees: How did you get your start into the Recruiting World? Sheila: Networking, and being in the right place at the right time! Some would say I was lucky in how the opportunity came to me Dave. I started as a research associate with the Tidewater Group in Stamford, CT and my job was to identify names for recruiters to recruit. On my first day I was handed the Standard Directory of Advertisers, “The Red Book” and told to identify 500 marketing names from consumer packaged good companies and to do it quickly! Baptism by fire….I must say! I remember my boss telling me “here’s the telephone”, and the rest is history! When I started the Internet wasn’t even thought about. As the year went on, I became a sponge for knowledge, learned all about companies and how they are structured and loved it…obviously! Six Degrees: Baptism by fire? I recall you once told me, your Initial Thought – “Is this really a job?” You peaked my interest Sheila, tell us more about your initial perceptions as a researcher and overall practitioner. Sheila: “After the handshaking and signing of papers. I was told my role as a research associate in a nutshell was to obtain names. I was handed the standard directory of advertisers and told to identify 500 brand managers in one week from P&G, General Foods, Kraft, Colgate Palmolive, General Mills, Coke, Unilever, just to name a few. Why? Because Pepsi needs 10 brand managers yesterday. Catholic Guilt began to set in….so I went to my boss and said “Why are we doing this? Why are some people hesitant to give names? This is not rocket science! I am having some difficulties here.” She said, “I used to feel the same way, not anymore… Our job is simple, our clients ask us to offer an opportunity and these folks can either take advantage of it, refer someone or not!” Next without skipping a beat she said, “How many names did you get so far?” Six Degrees: What was your progression track as a practitioner to establishing your own research firm? I began my career as a financial analyst. I joined the wonderful world of executive recruiting where my real training began. I was recruited to a prominent executive search firm in New York City as a research associate. I joined Goodrich & Sherwood working in Greenwich, CT and New York City where I worked as a research associate for approximately 14 months. Soon thereafter I was tapped on the shoulder and told that I was ready for the next step and was promoted to a principal. This was my true entrée’ into recruiting. As a side bar, my first candidate ever was George Brandt, most of you know him. His company, PrimeGenesis is a company that specializes in Executive On-Boarding! Anyway, he was always one of my biggest advocates and I do thank him for that. Actually he is now on our company’s Advisory Board! In 1989, I followed my dream and started "Sheila Greco Associates" Today, I am still passionate about what I do. I continue to work hard and play hard. May I also add, that this wonderful Recruitingblogs.com community plays nicely into my personality…I like to listen, learn, respond, help and build relationships. Six Degrees: Tell us about your company, Sheila Greco Associates: Sheila: Since I founded Sheila Greco Associates LLC in 1989, SGA’s primary mission is to dramatically shorten the amount of time it takes clients to find the RIGHT executives. Since 1989, SGA has been a True Recruiting Solutions Company, specializing as a single source provider of online data, Custom Research, Recruiting Support, and candidate name generation to executive search and HR professionals. We offer Customized Research & Competitive Intelligence, (CCI), in which we partner closely with clients, helping them identify professionals to recruit, target their best sales prospects, understand industry trends, and find valuable intelligence on their competitors. We provide research and customized competitive intelligence to corporations and search firms alike. Our clients include professionals in recruiting, business development, sales, analysts, competitive intelligence, and corporate librarians. SGA is known for its signature delivery product, ExecutiveTracker, which houses the most comprehensive list of executives currently employed at major companies – both private and public – across all industries. SGA carefully researches and sources each passive candidate – from the C-level executives to the hard-to-find, mid-level decision makers. Users can view company name, location, job title and function and other information of passive candidates based on search criteria. Once they determine contacts that best fit the current open position, the recruiter can purchase the complete contact record, which includes name, phone number, email, reporting structure and a biography, if available. Six Degrees: I think it’s fair to say you have been an evangelist on behalf of the “Traditional Search” niche within the sourcing sphere of our staffing industry. You have been especially vocal about using ‘today’s research results’ for future search assignments. Can you elaborate? Sheila: As I became more experienced, I began to understand organization chart structures, titles, roles, responsibilities and how companies differ across industry segments. Too many recruiters solely use the Internet. I am not saying replace what may work for you, but consider adding traditional research to your recruiting strategy. By fully leveraging traditional research, the standard recruiting process evolves into a strategic resource to be used not only for the current search assignment, but for future assignments, benchmarking and competitive intelligence. Six Degrees: Walk us step by step through an effective “Traditional Search” process. Sheila: Say for example, you need to find out who the brand managers are. Here’s the telephone and the book which lists the names of the brands for each company. Think of it as a game. Set a target of 10 names per call and just keep asking till they won’t give you any more. If you can, find out who they report to and who reports to them. Six Degrees: In having reviewed your presentations in the past, I think you underscore an important criteria, “Titles can be deceiving, know the role – research it just as you would the pipeline throughout the process.” Can you elaborate for our readers? Sheila: Definitely, Titles can be deceiving, know the role. We recommend researching from the top level down. In general, Never stop asking questions and guiding the interviewee so the information needed is obtained. Don’t be afraid to ask questions regarding structure and team members. More specifically, however, consider that once traditional research and charts are completed, we recommend showing them to the client. Allow the client to provide feedback and offer comments which may include: “proceed, I know this person, don’t proceed, already interviewed, perfect.” As the candidates are presented, I’d recommend developing a summary of how they compare to one another - it assists the client with deciding when to interview and for which business group. Along with resumes, it’s ideal when you provide the client organization charts to show how each candidate compares to their own internal staff structure. By presenting the organization charts it enables you to intelligently discuss why these individuals were chosen. Again, always share your findings from start to finish! Six Degrees: Can you walk us through a case study where you employed traditional search strategies? Sheila: Our client asked us to recruit a Vice President of Merchandising. Following the steps using the tried and true traditional research methodology, a list of approximately 100 potential candidates to call was developed and five candidates were presented. The cost of research was 20 hours and recruiting approximately 35 hours. The result: we presented the client with an ultimate hire while saving the client money. We also had built a pipeline of candidates that were used for future searches. In addition we provided the client with an in-depth knowledge of the competitive landscape which could be used for future searches. Six Degrees: As a Pioneer in our industry, what advice would you like to share with those just joining or new to research and recruiting? Sheila: 1. You need to know that time is of the essence EVERY DAY. This is crucial. Every one wants everything yesterday. 2. Do not be afraid to ask questions. It is okay to say “help me”. Become aware of the tools the team uses and learn how to use them to their fullest. It is also a great idea to learn how and where to go get things yourself because you do learn more by “being in the trenches”. 3. Never stop learning! Be knowledgeable, as time goes on, be the expert and go-to person. Earn respect, do not expect it. Be thorough! Do not take shorts cuts because in the long run it will come back to haunt you! Take the time to do the upfront work. 4. Build relationships internally and externally! Two of my favorite sayings are “what you do today, will help you tomorrow” and “maybe not a candidate or client today, but maybe a candidate or client tomorrow.” I tell everyone on my team, engage, listen, and respond. Six Degrees: How do you see the staffing industry adjusting to keep costs down and broaden its value? Sheila: (1) We are seeing companies that are being strategic, proactive and methodical as it relates to hiring. The days of handing over 3-5 candidates for a specific rec and saying “here you go” are over. Many hiring managers want to be part of the process and want to be shown the research, the pipeline from the targeted companies, how the potential qualified candidates compare and contrast with to each other, their respective teams, and the available talent universe. Methodical, yes... but very smart. Companies are looking for ways to keep costs down while still recruiting top talent. By using this methodical approach the research can be used again and again thus creating value long term. 2. Building and keeping relationships: Company executives really want those long term partners who can help them. Hiring managers and recruiting professionals alike want a team approach and value the results that it produces. 3. Today, more so then in than in the past, successful recruiters are looked at as experts and partners. The respect has been earned and we are now invited to have a seat at the conference table! Hiring managers have learned to respect what it takes to find the candidates and we have conditioned them to listen to what we have to say. A great example is the fact that we have them understanding the value of tools that are now available, ATS, research and recruiting tools, and online communities. The executives are more on board with us! Great job guys and gals. 4. Lastly we are seeing many top companies across several industries going through the exercise of making sure their internal teams are staffed with the best in the industry. It is not surprising to have leaders take a peek at their competitors, their staff and compare it to their own. If necessary we are seeing them pluck the good ones from others. Six Degrees: What are the value-ads in pursuing and utilizing research in the long term? Sheila: Dave, time and again, it’s whether the client has the vision and tenaciousness to view the information as a resource that can also be shared with other business groups in the organization. Once they review how best to leverage the yield of valuable information they see how it applies not simply to just talent management, but also issues of diversity, future restructuring efforts, long term strategic hiring as well as other human resources strategies. I’m in the business of being a long-term partner, not a transactional partner – and I’ll do my best to work with my clients in finding multiple venues to pursue their objectives with all the value-adds that are implicit in the research process. Six Degrees: We always see you smiling, cheerful and happy. When you are not working, what are you doing? Sheila: I am always on the go ... I don't really know another way of life. I guess I am just like my mom and dad! They always told me if I am passionate about what I do for a living, then it won't be a job! So I guess that is true....after all these years, I remain passionate about what I do. I am a workaholic and a proud mother too. Six Degrees: Tell us something about you few know outside of the industry: Sheila: In the summer I spend my off time on the Lake (Lake George in upstate NY) with lots of family and friends. The more the merrier! I enjoy fast cars and boats, as well as fishing when I need some quiet time. I also love to volunteer and some day when I strike it rich, I want to be a philanthropist. Nothing makes me happier than to put a smile on someone’s face. RECOMMENDATIONS “Sheila is highly professional and persistent is obtaining the information she needs. At FIND/SVP, we hired Sheila to unearth information that we could not find through traditional channels, and she never disappointed us.” August 6, 2007 Ann Middleman, Director of Research Services, FIND/SVP “Sheila is whip-smart, focused on the needs of her clients, and a natural relationship builder who always delivers on her commitments.” July 23, 2007 Glenda Brown, Consultant/Director, Partnerships and Alliances, Association of Executive Seach Consultants “Sheila is extremely responsive, diligent and a great listener. Her focus is sharp and she's able to direct her team/resources at the right point. Her team will be an asset to any HR building effort, be it recruiting for a new operation or augmenting an existing staff.” June 26, 2006 Anindya Dixit, Exec. Vice President, MMatrix, Client” “I have known Sheila Greco for close to 10 years and have worked directly with her and her associates on several projects to include; traditional search, competitive intelligence and research/name generation. Her firm sets the standards for excellence in all of these catagories.I am delighted to be able to endorse her work.” May 27, 2005 J. James O'Malley, Sheila's client “I have engaged Sheila on a number of occasions, going all the way back to 1990. The work she has done across a broad array of subjects has always been of very high quality, on time and beyond expectations. She is a pleasure to work with.” February 19, 2007 Top qualities: Great Results, High Integrity, Creative Don Rosenkoetter, client “I've worked closely with Sheila for several years. She’s a successful entrepreneur who has built an outstanding organization and assembled a great team that provides the highest quality work to clients. The significant value she provides to clients is to quickly and accurately evaluate their needs, then very effectively partner with them to provide solutions that make their businesses better. Sheila's energy level is inspirational, and she’s one of the funniest people I've had the pleasure to meet. I highly endorse working with Sheila.” January 11, 2008 Peter Malamas, Sr. VP (Current), SGA ExecutiveTracker Researcher's Delight …; Added by Dave Mendoza at 2:03am on December 15, 2008

Topic: Meet Kristen Durkin, Applying Her Passion for Salsa to People: IIPE Website: Facebook: Meet my friend, Kristen Durkin, Director of Business Development at International Executive Research (IIPE), a firm which specializes in multilingual talent research, Name Generation, Prescreening/ Qualifying of candidates, and direct contact; i.e. cold-calling and email Campaigns. Kristen is a member of my networking group, "Six Degrees from Dave", however it wasn't until last October during Shally's "Talent Researching in Latin America" session at the ERE Conference that we met. She sat across the aisle with avid interest and providing her own perspectives on staffing challenges and opportunities in Mexico. After the session, shaking hands I realized the familiar name was indeed an RBC regular and conistent networker within SixDegrees. I smiled, knowing that this was yet one more example of many that our group members come face to face within the industry - not a coincidence that its members are most active within it. The handshake began a day to evening to day after conference buddy-thon with Kristen supplying the wry wit and us delivering the laughter. One thing was certain, I would know Kristen for years to come - she is a walking best practices manual on Latin America and a good friend to have, not least of which is the quality of her friendship offered, but likewise knowledge gained. This is one smart, talented industry player with much to offer. I trust all of our community can embrace her with networking holiday wishes! Q&A with Kristen Durkin Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. KRISTEN: I currently live between Mexico, but I travel a lot back to NYC where my family is and throughout the U.S.A for conferences. Basically, my “home” life is usually packed in my brown and pink luggage. I am not married, nor do I have kids (My father hasn’t been able to buy enough cattle for barter to get me married, but I promise once that happens I will request a follow-up Q&A to release the big news). I do have a greatly close immediate family; I am the middle child with an older brother, Jason who was recently featured on the History Channel; followed and documented as a NYC “Sandhog” and a younger sister, Maureen. My sister is a bilingual (Spanish/English) Speech pathologist. I have happily married parents named Mom and Dad, although some call them Andrea and Eddie, both of whom work in the medical field. Before I moved to Mexico I participated in Big Brother Big Sisters of NYC for many years www.bigsnyc.org. For those who are not familiar it is a mentoring program for inner-city youth. I perform Spoken Word Poetry throughout New York; including the NuYoRican Poetry Café. I try to perform at least once with every return to NYC from Mexico. The most important fact to know about me is that I am a “salsaholic” I dance salsa whenever I have time to get out there. It’s in my blood, if there is salsa music playing, I’m dancing! Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? KRISTEN: I have been in the industry for quite a few years, I first started when I was a freshman in High school. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? KRISTEN: I began interning while in H.S at an HR Recruiting firm based in Connecticut, K. Russo Associates, Inc. I started by filing paperwork (which I hated) and uploading resumes into Vurve. Slowly, they allowed me to answer the telephones. The position continued to gradually evolve. Karen (the president of K. Russo Associates) began to invite me into the interviews, where I was strictly instructed to take notes and shut-up. Following the interviews I would compare my notes with the notes of Karen or the other recruiter’s. Eventually, I began screening resumes, searching the database for internal candidates, researching passive leads on the internet, and interviewing new, junior leveled candidates. After graduating High School I wanted to ensure I liked recruiting and not just K. Russo Associates. I took a position with a boutique consulting firm who places CPA’s. I had a mini office on 5th Ave. in NYC and thought I was going to move up quickly. After my first commission check, I swiftly discovered- I had much to learn; like negotiating! I learned a great deal from my “5th Ave” boss, but I decided to focus on school, graduate college and later I went back to work with K. Russo Associates again. Whew, that was a mouth full! Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? KRISTEN: ONE single event? I remember answering the telephone while still interning and asking the candidate while I went to put him on hold: “Can I hold you for one moment?” The bullpen erupted in laughter and I was positive I would thereafter be banned from phone answering and sent back to the filing cabinets. Instead, I went on lunch, and returned to the whole office having added screensavers quoting my mistake; Karen thought it was hysterical and apologized for the “silly intern” who answered the phone. I know it’s a funny story, but as a newbie in the business it taught me everyone is human, when you make a mistake on the phone, laugh it off and keep on keepin’ on. For each mistake I’ve made on the phone I improved my future calls. Mistakes like this have impacted my career; when training other researchers I always emphasize that people like humans, not machines reading 100% off of a script, if you make a mistake learn and move on. If it was an innocently entertaining mistake, then laugh. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? KRISTEN: Here is where I look like a big schmoozer and all of my coworkers will make fun of me, but hands down my mentor in this industry has been my boss, Karen Russo. There is no “fluff” with Karen when you do something wrong, but when you do something right she will be the first to let you know. I remember at one point we were an office of only women and after one of the recruiters closed a deal, Karen would do a summersault or cartwheel (In a pant suit, of course!) to show her support and enthusiasm. She’s pretty hardcore. Six Degrees: Detail your position, responsibilities, size of your staffing organization: KRISTEN: I am the Director of Business Development for IIPE- we are an executive research firm based in Mexico. HYPERLINK "http://www.iipe.net" www.iipe.net I am usually found at Recruiting Conferences, either as a vendor selling the business, or as an attendee learning and bringing back new information taught in the sessions to our team in Mexico. I can still be found doing research and applying the new techniques learned in a conference session on a research assignment. We are continuing to build our team, right now we have a team of 5, but this is not including our back office support. I suppose I am different from the average bear interviewed by Dave, because I am on the research side of the business. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? KRISTEN: As a researcher, I admire the great sourcers; Shally Steckerl and Glenn Gutmacher for all of their help in teaching some of the most effective ways to use Boolean search strings. In addition to them a shameless plug goes out to Dave Mendoza as well, he’s helped build my network on LinkedIn and long before I had the delight of meeting him I always forwarded his weekly e-mails of the “top 10” and found him to be a great link to power-networking! (B) In what aspects are they superior? KRISTEN: A brief example: In October of 2008 I attended the ERE, fall meeting in Hollywood Beach, Florida. For anyone who knows me, they know I flew in from Mexico for the conference, I am an internet/phone sourcer and I happen to come from a Latin background. With that said attending Shally Steckerls “Sourcing for Latin America” was going to be exciting for me. I am not sure if I expected greatness from it, because I am so familiar with the topic , but I did in fact get greatness. Most of what was discussed is part of my everyday life, but Shally gave an excellent presentation, he was incredibly on point with his guidance as to how to approach a sourcing/cold-call and how it is culturally a different approach in Latin America. In addition I left the session and I was introduced to a few new websites, but for me- most important was that the topic of recruiting/sourcing in Latin America was brought to the table and was up for open discussion. It is, after all, an important part of the world! As for Dave Mendoza, I always admired the magic he’s worked on my LinkedIn network with his weekly top10 and have you seen his amount of connections lately? Funny enough the first time I met Dave was in Shally’s session for sourcing in Latin America. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? KRISTEN: Outsourcing research has become a huge topic of conversation amongst recruiters. As a provider of outsourced research, this impacts my work and IIPE greatly. As a growing commodity we’re forced to stay ahead of the curve with cutting edge technology and new training. The education for our group never ends. Six Degrees: Have you represented your company in the broader conference circuit? KRISTEN: I have represented IIPE at NEAPS, The Fordyce Forum, ERE, CAPS. For 2009 I am looking into the Kennedy Conference, NAPS and ASA in addition to the aforementioned, but we will see. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? KRISTEN: One goal is to contribute in breaking the stereotypes of outsourced research. Not every internationally based research firm is strictly tactical (although trust me that I know, a lot of them are!). Our researchers have been trained by recruiters; they have been in the office with recruiters and understand the corporate infrastructure of the U.S. I can only help break this stereotype by proving out-of-house research can produce great results too! Six Degrees: What talent niche groups do you target and are these particular talent areas specialized under your review? KRISTEN: We have worked within specialized areas of talent such as IT, HR, PR, Biotech, Manufacturing, Security Cleared Professionals. This is just to name a few examples. Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? KRISTEN: Because we are located in Mexico, most of our training comes from webinars. Second to webinars comes in-house training from Karen and myself and our training never ends. Six Degrees: What recruitment software tools do you use in your day to day recruitment activities & do they translate effectively within all of the different countries where you recruit? KRISTEN: If I listed every recruitment tool we use I would bore any reader from enjoying Dave’s Q&A’s ever again. We use SugarCRM everyday and Broadlook Technologies, our fingers for typing the necessary search strings and our mouths for getting past the gatekeepers. Six Degrees: What tools (technology or old school file folder, for example) did you first encounter early in your recruitment career? KRISTEN: I did do a lot of old school filing with a “Sort-All” (This tool is a yard-stick long list of the alphabet with slots so for placing the resumes in the correct order to thereafter be filed alphabetically). As for technology I used RecruitMax (Vurve), then of course excel, the internet and the telephone. Six Degrees: How did your expectations of being a recruiter compare to the actual, first time you got on the phone or in the cubicle? In your opinion, how do people's assumptions about our vocation differ from reality? KRISTEN: I am not sure I ever had expectations of being a recruiter, in fact I was going through the process of for law school when I moved to Mexico and decided to stay focused within the industry. However, I did expect to be intimidated on my first cold-call, but it turned out to be an absolute high. Everyone always talks about the initial fear, it rarely bothered me. With that said, when I began as the Director of Business Development, I remember walking into my first conference alone and being MORTIFIED. I was worried I was going to spend every meal, of every day, at a table by myself (which as most of you know, is impossible at a conference full of outgoing recruiters). In my opinion I would say the biggest assumption about my job is that people think because I live in Mexico – life’s a beach. Not so much! I try to get to the beach a few times a month. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t…and how that was a learning experience? KRISTEN: Oh! Really, just one? Well… When I first started to attend business meetings and conferences – I thought it was important to get as many business cards as you can and just network, network, network. Truth be told- that’s a LOUSY practice to have. At the end of an event you have 500 business cards and about 30 seconds of conversation from each person, there’s no relationship develop. Even if you take notes on the back of your cards there is no way you can remember enough detail to make a non-generic e-mail for each of the business cards you snagged. My learning experience has been, develop relationships not just “contacts” in the Outlook address book. When you come back from a forum and you don’t have 3 good leads or candidate or contacts (whatever your goal is) it’s because you weren’t focused on developing the relationship! Six Degrees: “Best practice” you are most proud of developing (now or in the past) in your recruiting career? KRISTEN: I don’t think this is the miracle “best practice” you’re all looking to read about, but what about good ol’ fashioned honesty being a best practice? I maintain honesty with my boss, our researchers and our clients. Honesty is my saving grace! Six Degrees: What are some of the frustrating aspects/obstacles to your day to day as a staffing professional and in general? KRISTEN: Certainly, being asked how many names IIPE will generate per hour is frustrating. We do have such numbers because of metrics measures our in-house hours worked and naturally we can approximate the amount of leads developed in an hour. Nevertheless, it really depends on the research assignment. I have asked many researchers how many leads they will generate per hour and received a flat number in response, I’ve also I’ve asked others who are on my level and won’t lower standards to meet a lead per hour quota. It should be about quality vs. quantity. Six Degrees: Considering all of the frustrations you have experienced in your career as a recruiter, -- what inspires you as you continue in your career? KRISTEN: I am thrilled when research has a result. On our side of the business the result is not always glorified or as immediate as a recruiter, but when a placement occurs off a list we produce it’s exciting news! Six Degrees: What one thing do you ideally hope to accomplish in 2008? KRISTEN: Professionally, I would like to increase IIPE business by 60% (or more) with at least half of our clients on retainer. A personal goal is to start a successful and sometimes read blog. For those who know me… know I like to talk. It would be a great outlet and prevent me from bothering everyone in my office with info they’ve heard from me100 times before. Look out for my blog… Coming To Audiences Soon! Six Degrees: Anything you want to plug? KRISTEN: Both of the below blogs are usually very funny, entertaining blogs which are most of the time geared toward our industry or sales. Try reading these: http://www.krussoassociates.blogspot.com/ http://www.feedyourdatabase.com/ http://www.fordyceletter.com/author/hdhuntrgmailcom/ If you’re interested in Behavioral Assessment Tools contact: Cynthia Rogers on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiarogers Six Degrees: How Are You Going To Change The Recruitment Industry? KRISTEN: There is a core group of people who always attend the recruiting conferences. On the last day of the ERE conference this past October one of the vendors asked me “How are you always so smiley, even in the morning?” When I am at a conference, learning how to improve our industry it’s motivating. I hope to change the industry by staying passionate about what I do and getting plenty of rest to stay alert! (see photo)…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 9:35pm on November 30, 2008

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