CLIP - The Sex Test 4 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

5 MINUTE CLIP - SEX TEST FOR RECRUITERS - LISTEN HERE