Why Self-Proclaimed "Recruiting Thought Leaders" are Full of ****

PROBLEM:

There are a number of recruiters and former recruiters out there who can properly be called "Recruiting Subject Matter Experts". However, when someone calls her/himself a "Recruiting Thought Leader" (DEFINITION: “Someone who neither recruits, thinks, nor leads”) and

1) Isn't a recruiter/hasn't been one for a very long time, if ever.

2) Doesn't routinely talk/interact with ordinary, day-to-day recruiters who know far more about how to improve their own jobs than s/he EVER will, and in fact DISCOUNTS and disparages ordinary recruiters, preferring the company and opinions of those high-level staffing heads s/he panders to, creating and overseeing the problems WE have to deal with.

3) Often cites her/his opinions as facts, very rarely cites sources for facts, doesn't respond to questions, and usually has extremely unrealistic and impractical proposals that the vast majority of companies couldn't and shouldn't do.

4) Has been frequently very wrong (praising obviously dysfunctional hiring procedures), and hasn't admitted her/his fallibility, so

ISTM that we should probably discount the great majority of what s/he has to say, and feel very sorry for the pathetic"suckers" who actually pay this person for her/his advice, consultation, etc. and those other misguided folks who cite her/his as a reliable source of valuable recruiting knowledge. (It's good we don't have people remotely like this on RBC or other recruiting forums, just within the foul abysses of the Deep Internet, or so I'm told....)

SOLUTION:

I think that instead of seeking out and listening to the arrogant and ignorant, WE SHOULD RELY MORE ON EACH OTHER/THE WISDOM OF CROWDS, like you, and you, and well: maybe not YOU. As mentioned: we know a lot more how to solve our own problems than these high-level pontificaters ever will.

Cheers,

Keith "Low-Level Pontificater" Halperin

Comment by Mark Tortorici on June 25, 2014 at 2:01am: Keith!! I'm sorry! I promise to never mention the words "thought" and "leader" in the same sentence again! :)

All kidding aside, I agree with you. A true expert provides valuable information based on constantly changing experiences. Why constantly changing? Because the world, the job, and our industry is constantly changing. Anyone who thinks they are "the One" (a la the Matrix) is mistaken and has lost credibility.

True leaders will constantly get down in the trenches and fight alongside the people that they are helping. They will come up with solutions through their own experiences and other people's. They will listen to others and improve their craft. They realize that a wise man never stops learning. And as Bon Jovi said; "No man is an island". ;)

Mark

Comment by Keith Halperin on June 25, 2014 at 8:18pm: Thanks, Mark. "Anyone who thinks they are "the One" (a la the Matrix) is mistaken and has lost credibility."

You know that, I know that, and our Gentle Readers know that, but somehow the gullible fools that keeping give the SPRTLs money never seem to....

Cheers,

Keith "Not 'the One' but "the Other One'" Halperin

Comment by Nicholas Meyler on June 26, 2014 at 11:59pm: @Steve Levy You are quite correct. I checked on this information myself, just after posting it... This is an example of the hideous miseducation I suffered at Princeton University, taking Victor Brombert's class in "The Romantic Prison" (an examination of prison novels from Stendahl's "Charterhouse of Parma" and Dostoyevsky's "House of the Dead" to "Ivan Denisovich" by Solzhenitsyn, "Falconer" by John Cheever, and "I'm not Stiller" by Max Frisch. Thank you for pointing that out. I think that Brombert's interpretation really is a bit too broad, myself. "All the trouble in the World derives from not staying alone in one's room." -- Blaise Pascal.