I realized today that there is a great deal of similarities between courting a mate and courting our candidates.
when your courting your significant other, in the beginning you are possibly dating others and so you look to be the best, the best at talking, laughing and joking, hanging out, showing off all of you great assets, being YOU. BUT you dont show off the fact that you like to leave dirty socks on the floor or you like eating cold pizza... everyday.
This can also be related to sourcing and courting our candidates.

Our jobs are the best, we are the best listeners, we can get them the highest comp, we can make their careers better if they would just make us their exclusive recruiter and only seek out what we can offer. We often get comfortable after we have "won" them, and maybe we dont call them as often as we should, or we neglect responding to their email as quickly as we used to. We are showing them our smelly socks.

So much like our relationships, most of us would take our partner aside, talk about our smelly sock issues and correct it, pick up the socks. We should approach our candidates in the same way, call them up, it's never too late, recognize the communication can be better and than SHOW them that you still are the rock star recruiter they trust you to be. Present the opportunities and be responsive.
It is so important that with our life partners that we are with that we always pick up the socks, communicate clearly and remember why we are with them. The same is true for our candidates- remind them why they are with you.