The Good Ole Days- What I Learned

"Stand up when you talk! Talk loudly into the phone! Act excited when you are talking to a candidate! I could care less what you did last night! It is 7:00 a.m. and it is go time! We have reqs to fill!"

Can anybody relate? Can anyone remember? Voice mail- forget about it. "WILL- PICK UP ON 55, JASON- CALL ON 57, SCOTT- Jim Lewis is on 58."

E-mail- what the hell is that? I remember breaking Aerotek's record for 2,300 unread e-mails. Pens, Paper, G2's, Hot Books. That is what we had. ATS- c'mon. Social Media- no such thing. Cell phones- yea not so much. Pagers, my friend. We actually wore them with pride. Get a page and pull over to make a call on a pay phone. I thought I looked so cool with the pager on my hip. I was somebody!

Chop and block. Anybody know that term? You would cut off the top of the candidate's resume which had the phone number, name, and address of the candidate and replace it with your agency logo. This was a process . You had to cut it straight and make sure it looked good on the raised company logo paper so you could hand deliver the resume.

Resume database? Uh.. yea- well that was our file cabinet. Resumes filed in manilla folders. Yellow and white pages- yep. We did it. We actually had to call for referrals.

Most of America didn't have cell phones, so the only time you could get in touch with the candidates was before work or after five, so you were almost guaranteed to put in eighty hours a week. Working until 8-9 p.m. was not uncommon.

Casual clothes. Hell no! Your white shirt is ironed. Your tie looks sharp and you have just polished your black shoes. You act as if you are successful. Truth- I was making $23,400 a year. No bonus. No stock. Yet we wore this ridiculous outfit every day.

Cubes. No way! Think of high school lunch tables lined up. One person sat to your right, one to your left and one in front of you. They packed you in tightly.

"Carefrontations". You suck as a recruiter because you don't talk loudly enough! You don't stand up enough. You don't make 100 calls a day.

"Let me see your call sheet! Why have you only called 25 people today? You have been in the office all day! What have you been doing? Do you think you will ever get promoted?"

"Do you believe in micromanagement? We do! I need to know what you are doing every minute of every day. Why did you go for a two hour lunch? Why are you leaving at 4:00 p.m.?"

"We need you at the happy hour tonight. You have to show that you can hang with your coworkers. Can you pass the test?"

1995. That was the agency world. I can honestly say that was what I endured for three years. Some people did this for a decade or longer. No business is run quite like this anymore. I can say that if I can endure that experience, I can endure just about anything!

We all talk about social media, e-mailing candidates, Linkedin, work life balance today. I am telling you, we have it good. No, I changed my mind- we have it great! It feels incredible to be a recruiter in 2013.

Now, with all of the latest trends, let me say this. It still works. You can still pick up the phone and call people and having a bit of enthusiasm only helps you be a better recruiter.

Enjoy your week recruiters, and realize how great we have it!

If you enjoted this, please check out Bulls Eye Recruiting at www.wthomsonjr.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter.

Comment by Ryan Harding on March 8, 2013 at 12:10am: Great post Will!! I never had to go though that, bu have heard plenty of stories. What's a pager? Haha :-)

Comment by Will Thomson on March 8, 2013 at 10:16am: Thanks Ryan. Recruiting has come a long way. Some may remember this, others may not. Recruiting continues to evolve. I'm sure others on this site can relate or have a story similar to this one.

Comment by Amber on March 8, 2013 at 11:28am: Didn't do this as a recruiter, but did as an outside salesperson and then in the mortgage biz. We had to stop calls whenever someone had to print because the huge dot matrix was too loud to hear over. And you weren't going home until you had 25 contacts made ( which could be anywhere from 25 to 150 dials), and 5 applications.

But my office today - still have folders as my ATS, paper and electronic.I occasionally get high tech and use a spread sheet, well at least start one. We have whiteboards for when we are working on multiple positions or group projects. We also have all the newer tools and resources which make some things a little easier. Still spend lots of time on the phone.

I'm looking forward to your appearance on Animal's show!

Comment by Malia Jorgensen on March 8, 2013 at 12:02pm: Great post, Will! Brings back memories! We used to run reports of people we weren't able to reach during the day and we'd have "call nights" where we'd stay late, eat dinner at our desk, and call, call, call because that was the only way to reach people. We didn't have personal computers or lap tops - we had terminals with a black screen and green typeface.

Comment by Will Thomson on March 8, 2013 at 12:24pm: @amber- What you are doing is some tough recruiting. :) Technology sure helps!

I liked your tweet. It feels like we did walk 10 feet in the snow backwards. I am looking forward to being on the Animal show. Hopefully I won't dissapoint.

@Malia- Oh yea! Call nights- plenty of them. Pizza and Coca-Cola. It was expected. Exhausting. We didn't have the IBM green terminals though.

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on March 8, 2013 at 12:26pm: Ha - we also had HOP - a funny little acronym for Hour Of Power - otherwise known as the hour when we banged out as many cold calls as possible trying to drum up new job orders.... Lame... :)

Comment by Will Thomson on March 8, 2013 at 12:32pm: @amy- HOP- I never heard that one. Kris Kross made you "Jump, Jump!" or "Hop, Hop" :)

Comment by Malia Jorgensen on March 8, 2013 at 12:37pm: Amy - Funny!! We had the Hour of Power too. I'm very competitive - so secretly I liked it - but looking back... I agree... "lame" (-:

Comment by Tiffany Branch on March 14, 2013 at 11:14am: Great post!

Comment by Will Thomson on March 14, 2013 at 11:31am: Thanks Tiffany! Every bit of it is true. I wonder how many others on this site have experienced something similar. ??

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