Today is the day that Pitchers and Catchers report to spring training. One of the Great Days for baseball fans. This has been an exciting day for me for most of my life. I love baseball and even with all the problems the sport has had in recent years, it's still the greatest game to me. I love the strategy of the game and see some great parallels with our business.

For one thing, baseball is situational. There's no time clock so strategy is centered around situations, circumstances that happen during a game. Recruiting is situational as well. Every search is unique and provides a different challenge. As you go through the steps of a search the situations change, can we find someone local, how hard is it for the client to fill, will they wiggle a little more on some requirements as time goes by and they don't have it filled? Just like an inning in baseball involves changing situations (number of balls and strikes, outs, runners on base, who is at bat), these situations and positioning yourself to be in a better situation are what makes the game.

Baseball strategy is centered around percentages. A man on third with one or less outs has a very high percentage chance of scoring (something like 90%). A man on 1st with no outs has a lower chance of scoring. Left-handed pitchers have a higher percentage chance of getting left-handed batters out than right-handed pitchers do and so on. Percentage chance of filling a position with a good client vary with how many interviews you have set-up and there are many other situations where we all know if we are increasing our chances of filling a position or not. During difficult times like this, the odds change on us and it takes more to produce the desired result. But it's still a system and we need to remember that the basics still hold.

Baseball is a game in which you have to play YOUR game and use YOUR strategy to score and to stop the other team from scoring, no matter who you are playing. If your game is manufacturing runs, running and bunting, and those are your team's best skills then that is what you need to do. If your game is long ball, then you need to play your game and play it well, even against difficult competition. In our business, focusing on what we do well is critical. Times are tough and we may be tempted to try new strategies and different directions. This can be a fatal mistake. When you have an established strategy that has been successful for you in normal times, you have your blueprint. Your strategy will work in more difficult times as well, but you need to execute it better and work it harder. We are focusing on what we do well and the results, while lower than in good times, are still there. We saw an interesting uptick in interest on new positions this week. They are slower to come the point we need for a good job order. Some clients are hiring but want to try and get a quick fill without a fee, which is understandable. The good news is, they are hiring and as long as we continue to see firms slowly coming back to their business and what they need to do to run it and grow it, we'll know we are on the right path.

Stay focused on what you do well out there. Good recruiters are needed, even in tough times, and your business will be much stronger for having gone through this period with strong focus.



Todd Kmiec
Todd Kmiec & Associates
todd@toddkmiec.com
919-883-7560

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