The Sex Test for Recruiters

I had two guests today. First, a short visit by Charles Krugel, the employment lawyer from Chicago.

My contention is that hiring for culture and hiring for diversity are diametrically opposed. It seems to me that HR people think that race and ethnicity determine your culture. They also think that hiring people from different cultures enhances a business.

When people hire for cultural fit, however, they want to hire people who share their culture.

So I asked Charles to come on and tell me if I am right and if people who hire for culture are going to end up breaking diversity laws. He said I was wrong because race and ethnicity don't determine culture. You can have a different skin colour or ethnic background from the majority and still share the same values.

My other guest, Marty Snyder, agreed. He said that class is the key factor. He said people feel more comfortable with other people from their own background but that middle class people will relate to eachother as members of the same group no matter what their race or ethnic background.

Marty Snyder is the CEO of PCRecruiter. Marty is a frustrated academic but I forced him to tone down the professorial routine and we had a good conversation.

I thought that his most interesting ideas were about sales. He claims that recruiting is sales and that a good sales person does not merely pass on information.

She creates a feeling of certainty in the candidate that this move this is a good thing. And this is a feeling that is not based solely on rational calculation. It's intuitive.

How does the sales person do it? Courage to make the approach seemed to be one factor. Another key element was empathy. But here's the interesting thing. Empathy is understanding the candidate's situation and a sales person can demonstrate empathy to some extent simply by appearing to be an authority in her field because this tells the candidate that she understands her situation.

Marty even offered to tell us how we can identify a good recruiter. It's the person who got laid a lot in college (LISTEN TO THE CLIPS HERE).

Mike Astringer agreed. He said that someone who isn't especially good looking can have much better luck with girls than other guys if he has the guts to make the approach.

Amy Ala objected to Marty's vulgarity so he said, okay, if you are hiring a sales rep in a group of Jehovah's Witnesses, you're going to go after the one who brings the most people to a meeting. Same thing.

It would have been nice to drill down a bit more and see what exactly gives the buyer the feeling of certainty but the general ideas of empathy and assertiveness were as far as we went.

Marty also had some other ideas that I dispute. He said that recruiters create jobs by marketing candidates. I don't think so. Not really. Amy said she had created a job that way but only because she knew the company was going to need someone like her candidate fairly soon.

Marty also says that recruiters know how to downplay or dismiss the stigma of unemployment better than other people. Again, not really; in fact, they have the same prejudices as everyone else.

One more: Marty says that recruiters have a greater ability to see potential in people. I guess he only knows recruiters I haven't run into. We didn't get to discuss all of the claims of this recruiter-booster so maybe I'll have him on again soon to blow them up.

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5 MINUTE CLIP - SEX TEST FOR RECRUITERS

@darrylrmsg @animal Only a complete idiot would associate the discipline of recruiting w/"getting laid" as a qualifier of a good recruiter.
— Valentino Martinez (@valentinoBenito) April 10, 2013

Do I make placements? Yes. Did I have fun in university? Yes again. Do I think one was a predictor of the other? Hell no. @animal
— Darryl Dioso (@DarrylRMSG) April 10, 2013

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5 MINUTE CLIP - SEX TEST FOR RECRUITERS - LISTEN HERE

Comment by Recruiting Animal on April 11, 2013 at 8:52am: Why politicians get laid more

Comment by Recruiting Animal on April 11, 2013 at 12:31pm: I can't see the problem. I assume that most good sales people are good at persuading people who want to have sex to have sex with them. So, the amount of sex someone has is probably a decent indicator of sales ability.

It doesn't mean that the sales person is a good person. It just means that he's probably a good sales person.

Marty was proceeding from the assumption that most men want sex whenever they are free to have it and that these days most women are free to have sex to if they want it.

But he also used the Jehovah's Witnesses as an example. They are obliged to be missionaries so Marty said that the person who brought in the most conversions would probably be the person you wanted to hire.

Persuasion is the key not sex or religion.

If you think that a young man who manages to score with a lot of young women is not persuasive to what would you attribute his success? Amy suggested that these girls were drunk which might be the case but it might not be as well and, even so, all things being equal why would one person be more successful than others?

Comment by Valentino Martinez on April 11, 2013 at 12:32pm: At the expense of sounding like Goody two-shoes, my quip on twitter had to be a condensed observation. I’ll expand here. Only a complete idiot, pimp or predator minded individual would associate the discipline of recruiting w/"getting laid" as a qualifier for a “good recruiter” accolade. Introducing serial sex acts (the more the merrier) as the clincher (pun intended) as defining the foundation for what makes, or contributes to the making of a “good recruiter” suggests that recruiters, by and large, are promiscuous and/or have the ethics and morals of a “lot lizard”.

Lot Lizard – definition - Car salesman (the manipulative kind) - AKA sleezeball (used in a sentence) “I ain't gonna buy shit from you, lot lizard”. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lot+lizard&page=3

@animal – your Psychology Today reference, “Why politicians get laid”… is simply because they “take the low road to the high life” http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/addiction-in-society/200803/why...

Making the case for what a good sales person , or good recruiter is for that matter, more appropriately comes down to the issue of what “good” – “great” -- “awesome” is considered to be in the recruiting community. BTW - I don’t think it’s a “goody two shoes” position to say it’s not about getting laid as a precursor or defining act for what a good recruiter is and does to earn the accolade. There are such qualities as: integrity, common decency and ethical behavior – that underscore recruiting results performance that truly matter in our discipline.

If it has to be – as a bona fide recruiter I welcome the AKA - Goody Two-Shoes over Lot Lizzzzzaard.

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on April 11, 2013 at 12:45pm: If by "good recruiter" Marty means one who is able to close a deal, no matter how low brow, morally ambiguous, or regardless of the means in which the deal is closed, then OK. I mean ANYBODY can "get laid". It's not like it's hard. If these so-called "good recruiters" managed to score with drunk college chicks 20 years ago before these things we video taped on iPhones and boys started getting arrested for their "scores", I fail to see how that's helpful in defusing the myth that recruiters are bottom feeders. Marty's colorful illustration only feeds into that idea. Lot lizards indeed.

And I brought up Mormon missionaries as an argument against - certainly persuasive sales skills are employed, but doubtful many would be "good" according to Marty's ridiculous measuring stick.

Comment by Valentino Martinez on April 11, 2013 at 1:16pm: If Animal kept digging I'm sure Marty was up for more explicit lock room conversation. Good ol' boys have a tendency to forget they're in the presence of some people with a code of conduct who have the good common sense to not share a salacious story or two just for laughs, particularly in an open forum.

Amy wasn’t having it and now Animal can’t seem to separate the value of a positive metaphor over a nonsensical one -- but then, that’s entertainment and the Recruiting Animal Show is up for that.

Comment by Gerry Crispin on April 11, 2013 at 2:44pm: The only problem with this conversation is the attempt to find some redeeming value with respect to recruiting.

As a piece of entertainment it is great distraction and I enjoyed it immensely.

As a metaphor for what differentiates recruiter performance, it says a great deal about Marty and Animal's worldview and especially how they define individual success in sales not to mention what they consider to be professional sales as a 3rd party recruiter...but nothing else.

As a metaphor for how the function of recruiting delivers value to a business, this would not work...not at all. No question a recruiter needs to master sales skills but a salesperson is not and never will be much of a recruiter if that is the extent of their competency.

Just sayin'

Comment by Martin H.Snyder on April 11, 2013 at 2:48pm: Oh please Valentino, you don't even know me.

If you did know me, you would know that I'm a dead serious feminist and about as far from a good ole boy as you are likely to find.   More of a good ole nebbish if anything.....

I told the Animal on the same show that I don't like the use of the term 'sissy' because it implies that females are weak and so being like a female is a negative attribute.

As to the substantive issue of the comment: only someone with an ideological agenda would interpret it to mean the sole or practical evaluation factor for the role of recruiter.  A person with a bit of imagination would understand that the comment is a shorthand way of saying that the KSA's for scoring well with the opposite sex might bear some relation to the KSA's demonstrated by top recruiters.

Likewise only a real blue nose would think a) getting a lot of sex is somehow prima facie unethical or b) possessing those KSA's as a recruiter would mean that a person would recruit in an unethical way. If "getting laid a lot" is too salacious for you, perhaps it's not me who may be a little out of place in the real world.

"Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.”     ~Oscar Wilde

Comment by Valentino Martinez on April 11, 2013 at 3:28pm: Marty, you’re right – I don’t know you, but I’m getting to know you better -- now thatyou’re trying to foist you’re cool, casual and freewheeling self through your sexual escapades as some sort of conquering hero.

Dude you got real imaginative now you don't like it when you're called on it. Does your business card include "Stud Service" in the title?. Now that would be imaginative.

Comment by Martin H.Snyder on April 11, 2013 at 4:07pm: So you now think that I'm implying that *I* scored a lot? Do you know what a nebbish is?

Comment by Valentino Martinez on April 11, 2013 at 7:22pm: Marty,

What you implied and endorsed on the subject of getting laid, scoring and recruiting effectiveness & recruiter potential, or lack thereof, is clear on the tape of the Recruiting Animal Show for anyone to review and come to their own conclusion.

For a person who hires and values the skill-set that can bring about getting laid as a result makes me wonder how you go about ferreting out that information during your selection process. Do you ask people point blank if they get laid a lot or does your gut feeling tell you you’re in the presence of a Don Juan or Mata Hari?

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