Mr Cellophane?

Internal Recruiters are the Mr (or Ms or Miss or Mrs) Cellophane's of the corporate world, the poor cousin of the HR team. Like the old adage internal recruiters should be seen and not heard. (I disagree by the way, I've just seen this ideal a bit)

Your part of the company, but not really. You don't build or sell the widgets, you don't set policy, you don't deliver the business solutions to clients. You don't actually make money for the company, you find the people that do. Smart companies understand, but are there lots of smart companies out there?

I'm all about adding value, and i'm all about being heard, I hate being dismissed or ignored.
Do you make yourself heard? Or do you just wait for things to happen? Have you been too nervous about your job security to stir the pot and instigate change? Or are you just happy how things are going? Or do you just bitch and moan and write songs about how bad things are for you?

You are one to the key externally facing people of the company.. STAND UP!

Dialog from video, is this you?

I'm the father, papa, dad dad. Did you hear me? no you didn't hear me. That's the story of my life, nobody notice I'm around, nobody Not even my parents noticed me. One day I went to school, and when I came home, they moved!

Amos.

If someone stood up in a crowd
And raised his voice up way out loud
And waved his arm
And shook his leg
You'd notice him

If someone in the movie show
Yelled "fired in the second row,
This whole place is a powder keg!"
You'd notice him

And even without clucking like a hen
Everyone gets noticed, now and then,
Unless, of course, that personage should
be
Invisible, inconsequential me!

Cellophane
Mister cellophane
Should have been my name
Mister cellophane

'cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there!

I tell ya
Cellophane
Mister cellophane
Should have been my name
Mister cellophane

'cause you can look right through me
walk right by me
And never know I'm there. . .

Suppose you was a little cat
Residin' in a person's flat
Who fed you fish and scratched your
ears?

You'd notice him

Suppose you was a woman wed
And sleepin' in a double bed beside one man for seven years
You'd notice him

A human being's made of more that air
With all that bulk , you're bound to see
him there

Unless that human bein' next to you
Is unimpressive, undistinguished
You know who. . .

Should have been my name
Mister cellophane
'cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there

etc etc etc

Comment by Bill Ward on December 1, 2009 at 2:26pm: Dan,

There are some really great internal recruiters who really understand what it means to be a partner with the hiring authority. They understand the business from a to z and know how to filter out whatr is really important in terms of a role and what is just window dressing. Furthermore, they know their organization's value proposition to potential candidates and tailor the message accordingly. What's important to a college grad is not necessarily what's important to an executive with 20 years of experience. Internal recruiters such as this are rare and should toot their own horn whenever appropriate. They absolutely provide value.

The flip side is the internal recruiter who transferred from an HR and looks at recruiting as an administrative task. Sourcing to them is posting on job boards and sending unsolicited job descriptions to their Linkedin connections asking for referrals (who they don't know from a flat rock in most cases). These individuals need to be either trained appropriately or kept as far away from critical search projects as possible. There is nothing worse than having these kinds of droids interacting with talent currently employed at competitor firms.

Comment by Becky Metcalf on December 1, 2009 at 2:41pm: You pose a question that reminded me of a comment made by my manager when I first made my move into corporate recruiting. I had some ideas about improving the efficiency of the role I was asked to perform and I had some questions for upper-level management in order to make it happen. He called me a "bull in a china shop" and told me I needed to reel it in a bit so as not to stir things up too much. But I was heard, and in the end we put together some processes that resulted in a much more partner-oriented recruiting function, a win-win for everyone.

As a corporate recruiter, if I wasn't adding value by speaking up and delivering on my partnership with my hiring managers, I just don't think I could do the job... I've got a friend who refers to me playfully as "post and pray", makes me want to go pound the phones some more every time she says it!