My Recruiting Bucket List

By Carmen Lapham, Director of Recruiting and Operations, Q4B

A colleague of mine recently had a birthday. He is an avid reader and a beer guy who borders on being a beer snob. His wife gave him a book for the occasion entitled 300 Beers To Try Before You Die by Roger Protz. He calls it his beer bucket list (although he would refuse to drink any of his beers from a bucket) and after paging through the book he discovered a few things.

Over the years he thought he had sampled his fair share of good beers, microbrewed, handcrafted and tasty. It turns out that of the 300 beers listed in the book he had only had 12 of them. Twelve! But rather than being disappointed, he now feels that since most of the beers that he has never had are from outside the US and most are not exported to the US it may take him a good thirty to forty years before he completes the list. He feels that he will live to a ripe old age. He just turned sixty-eight!

When he was telling me this story recently I was thinking that I should probably get a copy of the 300 beers book since I too am somewhat of a beer snob (Dales Pale Ale over Bud Lite any day) and that I should also put together my own bucket list for recruiting. What would I like to accomplish as a recruiter before I die or before I retire and hang up my password to my ATS?

Here is my bucket list.

Make at least one placement at each of the top 25 companies in our targeted markets (Technology, Oil & Gas, Energy/Utilities and Healthcare IT) - Since the Top 25 companies change yearly this could take a while.
Have a Million Dollar year in individual production from permanent placement fees - You do the math,
Make a placement in all fifty states as well as Guam and Puerto Rico - So far my count is at 13, long way to go.
Conduct all my candidate interviews on Skype or Google+ Hangouts unless there is a local Starbucks in the area - This may be the easiest one to check off since there is ALWAYS a local Starbucks in the area.
Source, Screen, Select and Place the elusive Purple Squirrel - If you don't know what this is then that means less competition for me.
Finally, have my blog post appear as the Subject line in RecruitingBlogs.com's daily update emails - This is what dreams are made of and it should be on every recruiters bucket list.

So, there is my recruiting bucket list. I know that I have left some important things off and I also know that I will add to this list over the years. That is the nice thing about creating bucket lists. The more things you add that you want to accomplish the longer you will live. It is, like my colleague told me, a self-fulfilling prophecy. You won’t die (or in this case retire) until you have checked all of them off your list.

Now, where can I find a place that sells Bridge of Allan Glencoe Wild Oat Stout?

If you know of a place please let me know.

Comment by Bob Sharpe on August 24, 2012 at 8:33am: What a great idea, Carmen! Thank you for sharing.

Comment by Laura Vandenbossche on August 24, 2012 at 8:46am: Well at least you can scratch one of the list! :)

Comment by Carmen Lapham on August 24, 2012 at 9:26am: 1 down and so many more to go!

Comment by Ben McGrath on August 24, 2012 at 2:22pm: Carmen,

I e-mailed the brewery to see if they would ship to California. I have a store up the street that would act as agent if they do not ship to individuals. I will let you know what they say.

Here's hoping we get a positive response.

Cheers,

Ben

Comment by Bill Schultz on August 24, 2012 at 2:32pm: Starbucks are noisy and they give me dirty looks when I ask them to refrain from using the espresso machine till I complete the interview. Customer excellence, indeed. ;(

Good list, Carmen!

Comment by Carmen Lapham on August 24, 2012 at 3:37pm: Ben: That's wonderful! I wonder why I didn't think of that before?

Bill: Funny! I do enjoy going to Starbucks even though they won't bend to my every wish. ;) And I'm finding that my locally owned coffee shops are getting slightly bigger shops so that they can provide little nooks for folks like us to have those meetings.

Thanks for all the great feedback, folks!

Comment by Ben McGrath on August 24, 2012 at 5:00pm: Carmen,

Happy to think of it......

You said..........I wonder why I didn't think of that before?........It's because not everyone can think of everything. This is why discussion and collaboration are so important and such a marvelous thing.

All the best,

Ben

Comment by Bill Schultz on August 24, 2012 at 6:59pm: @carmen- I find hotel lobbies a comfortable alternative to the coffee shop. They usually have quiet areas set up for one/one meetings. it adds a little formality to the meeting. And there are normally no toddlers spitting up hot chocolate.