DEAR KATIE,

Rather than bury this in a serious discussion thread on Katie's Dear John post i thought it might be kind of fun to make it a response to her Dear John letter. Please understand it's for fun...sort of.

Dear Katie,

Thank you so much for your letter. It is at least nice to know that you are well and something bad had not happened to you. I respect your position and your budget constraints. Actually the reason for my call was three fold. I really wanted to discuss all this with you over lunch as i value you as a person but after receiving your nice letter it seems you are very busy and being hounded by lots of recruiters so i will respond in kind.

First, i am glad that we are on the same page. After having worked my heart out for you in the past, i want you to know how much i have appreciated your business and have been delighted that we were able to place several people with your company who are still there and in fact have been promoted. It is always rewarding for us to know that we were able to assist in helping build a company with top people. Which brings me to the second reason for my call.

As a recruiter who has worked with you in the past we of course signed an agreement not to recruit directly or indirectly any employees of your company. We have been happy to honor that agreement, however we are receiving a high level of calls from current employees of your company who with the economy improving want to make a change. Rather than engage them behind your back i wanted to discuss with you that since you no longer need our services and are doing good things with google and the SM crowd, i am sure you no longer have expectations that we not work with your employees or anyone at your company they may refer to us. Certainly we do not want to besmirch our reputation as honorable due to you finding new and cheaper ways to meet your goals. We understand budgets.

It had also become difficult to work with your internal recruiters as they did not return calls and seemed to be sitting on resumes from recruiters while trying to fill positions that you had listed with us without having to pay a fee so were not putting our resumes throught to your hiring managers. All understandable when money is tight but frustrating as you can imagine when we were trying to do our very best to provide top candidates and asked only that our candidates be considered along with those your recruiters received since you did list the position. But let bygones be bygones. The relationship had become strained from our point of view also but we are never quick to throw relationships to the wind just because things got a little difficult. Times change and we never know what the future will bring so loyalty is never under valued from our standpoint.

The third purpose of my call was to let you know that we have been approached by one of your competitors who want to retain us to do some senior level recruiting. As we have given you preferential treatment in the past and did not work with your direct competitors as we felt there might be even a small perception of conflict of interest i also wanted to be sure you were aware that since you no longer need us there should be no such perception and i know you will wish us well. In line with that new relationship this client is looking for a Sr. level person with your background. As i have worked with you in the past and found you to be an effective professional on all levels i wanted to speak with you about the position before i launced a full search.

Based on your letter it seems however that you feel cold calls are a thing of the past and social media is the total solution. Unfortunately this search is a confidential one so will only be discussed with potential candidates who will be called as you say, "out of the blue". I did want to give you the option to discuss or possibly refer someone but being unable to reach you and receiving your letter i will certainly accept it as a rejection and wish you well in finding another position within your company that will meet your desire for career progression.

By all means, let's hang out some time. Just because our past relationship was no longer of value to you does not mean there is anything wrong with either of us. As adults we both know it's never good to burn bridges or loose opportunities over something as silly as a call not being returned. Give me a call if things do not work out for you in the future. If i do not have too many candidates calling as the economy starts to boom i will certainly return your call..or at least drop you a note.

Love and kisses,

P. S. My number is oi812, if you get my voice mail please leave a message.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on April 28, 2011 at 2:40pm: @ Matt Katie's letter sounded to me like she was ending a relationship with an existing recruiter because her team no longer needed them. My response was in terms of a recruiter who had signed an agreement not to recruit from the company, was being told the relationship was over so my response was geared to "I understand and assume that now that you don't need me anymore i will assume that there will not be a problem working with any of your employees who contact me." When there is an agreement in place it is not one sided. You don't get to blow me off and expect that i will not work with any of your employees in the fervent hope that you might decide to use me again in the future. That would be like telling me you want a divorce but you don't want me to date anyone you ever knew. If the deal is over the deal is over. If we decide to remarry we'll sign another agreement.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on April 28, 2011 at 2:51pm: @Ruben, thanks. I understand Katie's position perfectly. I guess as we say in Texas, "Yer gonna miss me when i'm gone, eeehaw! My point was before you burn all those bridges be sure you never want to cross one. I had a situation years ago where a company i had placed 32 CPA's with brought in a young woman who decided she could save the world a million dollars by never using a recruiter. It was more like about 40K and every hiring manager in the company hated her within a year. When they were calling me screaming that she didn't know an accountant from Adam's off Ox (for those of you who are not agrarian, that's the one on the inside front of a four ox team), i told them to keep the faith a little longer. I would live long enough to see her on the other side of my desk. I did, she did and when she asked me to help her find another job...i asked her what she thought her reference would be as to her recruiting ability. Nuff said. They became a good client once again.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on April 28, 2011 at 3:03pm: Mat VK- of course telemarketing is effective that's why almost all companies use it. I had to giggle at Gary Franklin's comment,"You call them recruiters, they are nothing but telesales". I had to wonder how his 12 good recruiters internally are contacting candidates to sell them on going to work for his company. I guess it's only recruiting if you are calling candidates selling the company and not calling companies to sell them candidates. There is however good telemarketing and bad telemarketing we all experience both.

Bad clients oh god yes, the horror stories abound. Katie is fortunate to work for a company who hires and trains good internal recruiters, has a high profile brand name and must have hiring managers who work with HR and internal recruiters effectively. It is apples and oranges but unfortunately the fruit is all in the same basket.

Comment by Peter Gold on April 28, 2011 at 3:40pm: Sandra

This debate could go on forever :-)

I am no longer a recruiter (altho I was for many years) but I still sell to/work with HR/Recruitment so have to face the same issues that recruiters have to face. Not that I offer the same kind of service I hasten to add. Problem is, the Rec Mgr level is bombarded with calls all day long so I guess they must get pretty frustrated with it all but that's life.

I understood Katie's letter to be generic and whilst I don't know her personally do have a grasp of her sense of humour. The letter was of course from her perspective and appears to have been quite well received by people who read the post. But the issue here is one of competition IMHO. In-house cannot justify their teams if they are still >50% agency reliant so the there is bound to be conflict. It is too late for me to consider an answer to the problem but don't expect it to change that soon.

Enjoyed your post either way.

Peter

Comment by Sandra McCartt on April 28, 2011 at 4:04pm: @Peter, i thought Katie's letter was funny myself. I am more than sympathic to my internal counterparts i hate cold calls myself and don't think i have ever made a cold call to an HR department or internal recruiter. I have certainly contacted hiring managers about a candidate who has come on the market, been referred to HR or recruiting and have worked very effectively with them for years. Then when they decide to hire more internal recruiters the outsource of service to TPR's of course decreases as it should. If it gets to the point of competition between internal and external, color me gone. Competing with partners never works and it is the most destructive thing that can happen to both the company and the candidates.

There are always clients who want, need and appreciate what a good TPR can do and have found that in the long run it saves them some money to use a TPR rather than build an empire of internal recruiters who cost a lot of money in terms of salary and benefits. That's great during times of strong hiring needs but not so wonderful when hiring slows and they either have to find something for them to do or lay them off. It's good business to build internal if hiring needs are consistantly strong. But in my humble opinon it's bad business to reject a top candidate because the recruiter who brings them to the table is not on the approved list. That's a power trip to assume that any company is so totally wonderful that they will eventually get every good candidate who ever drew a breath.

Comment by Peter Gold on April 28, 2011 at 5:36pm: Sandra

I disagree with you re competing. Even internal managers are competing for the best people. People compete within a team for position so I do not see why a TPR competing with in-house is a bad thing. It's real world surely or did I miss your point?

I do however agree that using a TPR is a wise thing. Employers should retain an element of flexibility in all areas and recruitment is no different. I have a view on this so will write a post about it to see what people think.

Thanks for the discussion; I'm in Austin, Texas next month so maybe I'll find out more about the US world of recruiting!

Peter

Comment by Sandra McCartt on April 28, 2011 at 6:16pm: I didn't mean competing for the best people. That's the name of the game. I meant competing as in when an internal recruiter sits on a TPR resume and does not foward it to the hiring manager but they do forward the ones they find. I love competition of all kinds. If the internal recruiter finds a better candidate they win that round.

If the little bitch sits on my resumes while she sends the ones she comes up to try and justify her existence, not pay a fee and my perhaps better candidate is never seen by the hiring manager that is the kind of crap that makes TPR's hate internal recruiters. And it's sure not a partnership where i can provide quality service. Thank you very much!

I had that situation come up when i checked with a hiring manger to see if he had seen the candidate i had submitted 10 days previously. He hadn't. I called the HR director and said, "Hey ladybug, you listed this position with us and asked us to work through your recruiter, we are happy to do so but we have a little problem." "She is sitting on our resumes and not submitting them to the hiring manager but is sending hers through." "If you want her to fill it please don't ask us to recruit for you and then sandbag our candidates."

The response:

"Oh i know she does it, if it will make you feel any better she does that to all the external recruiters."

"She's very immature, but she is what i've got, i don't know why these girls don't understand that they get paid no matter who finds the candidate."

My Response:

"Really, well here's the deal, if you can't change that situation i certainly can." "I don't work with immature silly little bitches who play those kind of games". "I am happy to send candidates directly to you if you can assure me that the resumes will not end up in her hands." "If that is the process you have to use then my situation is this, I won't stand in the middle of New York City and bitch because there are too many people in New York City." "I am smart enough at this stage of the game to figure out there is only one too many people in New York City and that would be me." "So, color me gone, adios and bye bye." That would be the ultimate respect for the "recruiting process" as we know it in this group. I will provide quality candidates and quality service to my clients who appreciate both. There is never the last train from Gun Hill in this business.

Comment by Peter Gold on April 28, 2011 at 6:40pm: OK, I did miss your point so we agree. I think now I'd be scared not to agree lol

Comment by Sandra McCartt on April 28, 2011 at 6:49pm: LOL, can you tell i have had it with the bimbo power brokers.

And for the record, i am not talking about Katie, i think she's funny and i would bet that her team does not work that way with the TPR's that she uses.

Comment by Peter Gold on April 28, 2011 at 6:54pm: Oh I bet she does...... joking of course. I hadn't heard of such stupidity but when you see it there's an easy answer!

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