If you have plans to be a great recruiter, please, remember this and never forget it.

Filling a job does not start with finding good candidates for a particular job order. It starts with the quality with which you take the job order in the first place. It does not matter if you take the brief face to face (and you should, if at all possible), or over the phone. Filling the order starts with how well you qualify that order.

You have to make sure, at the very…

What do you say to a friend who wants your ‘real’ opinion on a matter of some sensitivity? You know, “Do you think I should marry him?” or showing off a new pair of jeans, “Does my butt look big in this?”

It’s a tricky dilemma. You don’t want to rock the boat. You certainly don’t want to hurt your friends’ feelings.  But on the other hand, being honest, while painful, is almost certainly in their best interests.

To answer these questions well, it takes courage. It takes…

I have written before on the farcical chaos that results when recruiting clients engage multiple recruiters to work on the same job order. And I have offered advice on how a recruiter should sell exclusivity to…

They call it ‘social media’ or ‘social networking’, and some might quibble at the word ‘social’ because a lot of it can be done alone, from the confines of a darkened room.

And most recruiters don’t have the faintest clue how to get the best out of the…