I recently had a birthday. I won’t say which birthday that was. But it was indeed, a celebration of yet another year under my belt. So, like any thoughtful person, I paused for some reflective thought:

1. Will this be the year I stop eating spoonfuls of Cream Cheese frosting right out of the Betty Crocker tub?
2. Is this where I thought I would be ten years ago?
3. Is it weird that Simon is way sexier to me than Ryan Seacrest?

(see answers below)

I propose that we should all be reflective of our jobs as recruiters. Whether you’re third-party, HR, Hiring manger, etc., we all have the same goal—to find great people. And the question is how to we do that? Are we stuck in old methods that no longer work in this digital age? Are we cooking over a firepit when we could be nuking?

I think of my children, now 6 and 4, who are music freaks. We took them to see They Might be Giants last week and they were totally in their element as was I. I know my kids will like plenty of music I abhor, but I just can’t bring myself to sit through a Hannah Montana show. I know that one day they might want to listen to total crap and I must allow it. But the Beatles and Queen will stick with them. Of that, I’m sure.

We too, must be open minded enough to allow new methods enter our skill set. It doesn’t mean the tried and true methods no longer work, but some new tools in the tool belt can be a good thing.

There have been a lot of blogs pushing social networking to source candidates. I have no doubt that great candidates have MySpace pages. But I’m not convinced that the time and energy it takes to locate the good ones off Facebook and Twitter could not be better spent sourcing more plentiful gardens.

Any great recruiter will spend the majority of his or her time finding candidates in the most basic ways—referrals, direct sourcing, and networking. Social Networks have their place for some jobs. Job Boards are great for some searches. But there’s no substitute for what we already know. From what I can see, my Birthday Goal really should be reviewing and mastering those basic skills. Just like last year. I will spend some time poking around the ole interweb and learning how to properly Google prospective candidates. But nothing beats calling up my candidate pal and saying, “Hey there…I need a Media Supervisor Rock Star. Tell me who I need to call,” and getting five names of people who aren’t on Monster.

Answers:

1. no

2. sort of

3. 120 lb men with blonde highlights don’t really do it for me. Rude assholes with accents, sure. The hair part down the middle is concerning, but you can’t have it all.