Hiring a Monkey Recruiter

On Wednesday, March 21st I did it. I went on The Recruiting Animal Show. If you listened to it, then you know both Animal and I had some pretty rough reviews and our scores had us both failing. Let me say this, listening back to it, I thought it was better than the reviews. But hey- it is what it is. Right? I went way out of my comfort zone to do something I had never done before. Animal just did his job.

One of the topics that was discussed was that anybody can recruit. I made the comment that I could hire a monkey to recruit. That is when the floodgates began to open. "A monkey" said Animal? Jerry Albright backed me up pretty good and said "A Sales Monkey". Then the whole age thing came into play. "A 50 year old lady" at Kroger could do this job? "A College Graduate?" That is a bag of worms I didn't even care to get into, but Animal led us down that track. Oh boy, then the twitter comments came flowing and the show and listeners had had it.

First and foremost, age doesn't mean anything to me. Anyone who is capable of doing a job should be hired regardless of age. Secondly, here is the point I was trying to make. Recruiting is just not that hard. I do believe most people could be trained to recruit.

Yes, you have to have sales skills. Yes, you have to be somewhat computer savvy. Those were things we talked about on the show.

For a discussion, I would like to re-open this can of worms. What does it take to be a recruiter? What skills do you have to have? Could you teach an educated, sales savvy person with no experience to recruit and recruit well quickly. My vote is yes, but I want to hear from you.

Let's get the comments going here. I would love to see this be the top trending article for the month. I know a lot of you are opinionated, so yes- even Tom Bolt, Animal, Maureen Sharib, Let's hear from you. Tweet about it. Share it. I'm looking for 24 pages here like the Sourcing is Dead topic.

Thanks for having me Animal.

If you enjoted this, please check out Bulls Eye Recruiting at www.wthomsonjr.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter.

Comment by Ron on March 27, 2013 at 12:22pm: This has been a very informative and entertaining post. I am attempting to employ the few skills I learned during my diverse career (35 years) with a Fortune 100 then Fortune 500 company. My 8 year role in HR was the most enjoyable and therefore am attempting to be an independent Recruiter in my "golden years".

Oh, what I would give to spend an afternoon listening to whatever Sandra was willing to share! Thank you all for your contributions.

Comment by Will Thomson on March 28, 2013 at 9:55am: @Ron- I would love to hear some of your stories as well. What has been your experience with hiring an educated/ non experienced individual in your specific field in the Fortune 500 and 100 companies? Were you able to train them? Were you in a sales type role?

Comment by Ron on April 1, 2013 at 10:56am: We had a great environment for non-experienced educated candidates. 90+% of the time they were interns during a semester of school so we had an opportunity to get get to know their abilities and work ethic before extending an offer. Most of these positions for for Engineers and Chemists.

The company also had career programs in other fields such as Accounting and HR. We would hire new graduates into their respective program and assign them a corporate mentor. The mentor may or may not have been at the same location as the rookie but was always available for discussions in addition to regularly scheduled conferences between the two. The Site manager and direct report was also involved with ensuring the development of the new employee for the betterment of the corporation as a whole. Many of these employees were transferred to new locations every 2 years to accelerate their development.

Comment by Danny Powell on April 1, 2013 at 12:11pm: @Ron is correct about interns. I have done the same and have had excellent success.

Just to make sure we are all on the same page.... are we interchanging the word educated with intelligent? I highly value a person that has earned a degree. However, some of my best recruiters have had college but did not have degrees. What they did have was a high level of intelligence, drive and the willingness to learn a discipline.

Comment by Will Thomson on April 1, 2013 at 1:16pm: Thanks Danny & Ron for your responses. I don't think you need a degree to be successful in recruiting. Some of the best recruiters (and the ones I most admire) I know never graduated from college. I would venture to say that a degree certainly helps you in life though, right? Good call out Danny.

Danny- How do you measure an intelligent person and know they will be successful? What has been the success rates of hiring a degreed vs intelligent non-degreed individuals? Would you say that hiring a degreed individual has a higher level of success? I really don't know the answer, but would love the opinion of people on this site.

Comment