Lessons learned from Ice-T.

So I had dinner last night with Ice-T and his wife Coco (don't ask). I have to tell you, his candor and his story is remarkable and transferable to the recruitment space.

Ice-T was born in Newark, NJ and moved to the affluent suburb of Summit when he was a child. By the age of 7 both parents had died and he was an orphan. He went to live with his aunt in LA and was set up in a mostly white, affluent school system. He hated taking the bus so he went to a local gang infested high school. There began the "gansta life". He soon grew tired and launched his music career which then transferred to a successful acting career; 10 years on Law and Order.

As a former recruiter, what I heard was the story of someone who had everything going against him and overcame. But he didn't and couldn't do it alone. He [needed] others to believe in him and see two steps ahead. From gangster, to rapper, to highly successful television personality and entrepreneur.

The transferable lesson: the best recruiters are the ones who see beyond the piece of paper and ferret out the current value and future potential of candidates instead of relying on vanilla backgrounds. Placing those folks is not called recruiting, that's called facilitating. To take your game to the next level you need to not only be a visionary but to effectively convey that vision to your clients. Do this and watch your numbers skyrocket!

Comment by Tim Spagnola on September 30, 2011 at 10:11am: Christopher- thanks for sharing this story. I have a lot of questions to ask about Coco, but will save those for another day. I agree with your summary 100%. I feel too often recruiters fall into that trap of simply 'facilitating'.

"I've never been competitive with anybody but myself." Ice T

Comment by Justin Williams on September 30, 2011 at 10:56am: Excellent message! I agree that in every profession, people can get suck into the "vanilla" prospecting and not enouigh "diamond in the rough" prospecting

Comment by Bill Schultz on September 30, 2011 at 11:53am: Good lesson. I may change my recruiter name to
Le Mon Ade

Comment by Darryl Dioso on September 30, 2011 at 2:07pm: "I'm Your Pusher" - great song and often my mantra when I'm going after a top calibre candidate. "You should consider working for our client cause 'The dope I'm sellin', you don't smoke, you feel'" Yeah!

Comment by Tami Brittain on October 5, 2011 at 10:56am: Chris - no words other than awesomeness. Thanks for sharing!!! (And I couldn't agree more on a good recruiter staying two steps ahead... that was the best advice I received when I got into this line of work several years ago. Almost every candidate I receive, I review their resume looking for transferable skills, etc... and again, that was the best advice I've ever received during the "greenhorn" years.)