I just received an email from a staffing agency we asked to help us fill a position on a contingency basis. Our third party recruiter is a bit perturbed with us because several candidates have been submitted (some good, some not) and we haven’t interviewed any of them. Also, there have been some debates internally around paying a FT placement fee vs. contracting. I’m doing my best to keep our TPR up to date and informed but hey, sometimes things don't go according to plan. That’s…

My mother is on Facebook. I’ve been mildly amused by this until last week when that’s how I found out my mom lost her job. That’s right, my mom - who lives a mile away, who I see twice a week and talk to on the phone almost every day, told Facebook she got laid off before her recruiter daughter. My jaw dropped. My eyes watered. I immediately grabbed my phone and ran down the hall to call her. After two tries she finally picked up, in tears. My brother, 12 years younger…

Sometimes recruiting is just being in the right place at the right time. Oh, I know, it's lots of work and we have to be good with people, no fear of rejection, yada yada. But some days you just have to shake your head and thank your lucky stars that there is such a thing as pure dumb luck.

It's only Wednesday but so far I've had two insanely lucky breaks this week. Scenario #1 - after WEEKS of sourcing for a very tough to fill purchasing role I got a hit from a LinkedIn…

A completely unscientific poll indicates that amongst Zones recruiters I’m one of the more accessible. I tweet. I blog. I put my business cards in every fishbowl I can find (although I still haven’t won a free lunch). It probably comes as no surprise that somehow I ended up being the lucky internal recruiter who gets most, if not all of the agency cold calls. I wrote some time ago about why…