MY MOUSETRAP WORKS JUST FINE!

It is my observation that the recruiting industry, more so than most other industries or professions, is rife with folks who are hell bent for election day to build a better mousetrap. I think that's great. All professions evolve with time, technology and new ideas. But...only in the recruiting industry does one see the new "Mousetrap Builders" hyping their latest, greatest idea about how to turn the industry upside down by postulating that all life forms in recruiting as we know them are DEAD, DYING, UNSUSTAINABLE except of course their talent community, twitter outreach, social media revolution, niche as an expert in green widgets, analysis of social networks or whatever the hell they thought up when business sucked under like the Bermuda Triangle.

A Flash for you GURUS. My Mousetrap works. It works because i put it in places where i know there are mice. I set it everyday. I put the cheese in it. It's been catching mice for over 30 years. Yours may have more bells, sirens and whistles on it. You may twitter about it, blog about it, throw it in a talent community ( whatever the hell that is). I think that's dandy if it works for you, get after it. Niche it, twitter it, blog it, post it, rave about it. I hope you make as much money as i have over the past 30+ years, enjoy your career and grow up to be one of those pedantic thought leaders who write "how to" books. Or for god's sake, invent the "Hooker" ATS that really is fast, cheap and easy.

Would it be too much to ask that you just hype your revolutionary end all to be all answer to the recruiting world without having to make idiots out of yourselves screaming about how thousands of recruiters are going out of business," sourcing is dead"," job boards are dead"," third party recruiting is "unsustainable", "great candidates don't respond to ads", "passive candidates are better than active candidates". Blah, Blah and more blah. If it works for you...do it.

In the real world, My Mousetrap Works Just Fine. Job Boards are making money, sourcers are making money, thousands and thousands of recruiters are reporting an increase in business.

Until all business grinds to a standstill because global warming melted all the icebergs , recruiting is about a company needing a person that they can't find or don't have time to find. That would be why God made recruiters, or maybe it was the other guy.

However we do it, that would be the basic of what we do. So if you think my mousetrap is dead or dying, lean over here and have a little bite of cheese , it's snapilicious....

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Permalink Reply by Jacob S. Madsen on October 6, 2010 at 12:58pm

Compliments Sandra all the way from ol Europe, not only on initial posting but all subsequent remarks and comments, BRILLIANT and a scream to read, and have instantly copied and pasted the entire thread for all my colleagues to see as it serves to bring the by you said balance and perspective into things.
THANK YOU and please may we have more of the same straight forward Texan talkin please :) :)

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on October 6, 2010 at 2:23pm

thanks Jacob, i wonder does this make me internationally infamous? Having been a "local character" for years i am delighted to have made it across the pond. I love you Brits, so much more gracious than us mutts. Also thanks for giving me a great title for a blog or two. "Texan Talkin" AKA I just say what everybody is thinking and is too nice to say. You can not imagine how long it took my mother to convince me that Southern Ladies should really say "Bless her heart, she means well" instead of "That old hide needs to be bitch slapped".

Speaking of Texan Talkin, one of my clients is a Chartered Public Accountant who lives in London. He is financial advisor to one of the Saudi's who used to own a piece of desert where the city of Riyad now stands. During a trip to Texas my client and I were meeting with an oil and gas group. All were taken with his delightful British accent until at the close of the meeting he looked at one of the lady executives and said, "It's been delightful speaking with you, i will speak with my employer and knock you up in the morning." There was a long pause , several very blank stares and a few looks of shock. He looked confused, gave me a questioning look. I explained that he meant he would come to her office. Ushered him out the door and explained that the term "knocking someone up" in Texas meant impregnating someone. He never batted an eye and in all seriousness said, "Oh my, i would not want to happen to either of us, that nice lady is much too homely to be considered for breeding."

Such is the British logic. I love it.

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Permalink Reply by Heidi on October 6, 2010 at 2:27pm

Sandra:

I love this post and your honesty is off the chain!!!!

One valuable lesson I've learned with respect to recruiting is the importance of establishing trust. I am all in for social but, at the end of the day people build relationships not machines-

From personal experience...calling people and reaching out to them to make a connection is the quickest way to fill job orders not the next best shiny gadget. Personally I am not into this"database-keyword-dial-for-dollars-push-resume-as-fast-as-you-can-to-client-model"

Furthermore, if you think about it... if a person is not looking for work and you are spending your day blasting tweets about jobs- wishfully thinking you will reach the right person- is this really a good use of time? Probably not...you have to network or headhut to find the right person. HELLO???? Now I do not take away from tweeting some people might find it effective- the more power to you.. I found that blasting to be blasting is a waste of time- strategy is imperative. I do believe in maintaining good comprehensive strategies. At this point however, Tweetie Bird has not worked for me yet and my time is valuable so I have to do what is most effective and proven to work for me- I pick up the phone and call people or I network through others.

Obviously, when recruiting, you have to consider the role as you are building your strategy and while some methods may work with some positions -they may not in other cases. I've found that it's one thing to talk about recruitment strategy but when you are in the trenches actually doing the work it is a different ball game.

Good stuff Sandra...good stuff!!!

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on October 6, 2010 at 2:35pm

Heidi, my super smart friend. If all recruiters could use their superior brains as you do, there really might not be so many of us. I know one thing for sure if i had to compete with you to fill a job i would come early and stay late to try and stay up with you. Not only do you "get it", you can "say it". Anybody who thinks they can throw some big words and esoteric phrases at this lady..get ready. She will take the meat off your sandwich and sell it back to you. Thanks for the "atta girl". Coming from you it means a lot.

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Permalink Reply by Dick Smith on October 6, 2010 at 4:09pm

Kudos to you... Twitter may be good for Brittany, Justin and the E network community, but it doesn't fare well when you're looking for Oracle Projects Accounting specialists or other deep skilled teckie types.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on October 6, 2010 at 4:18pm

I hear you Dick. Not many cancer research scientists sitting around twittering instead of killing rats either. Is an Oracle Projects Accounting Specialist anything like a Wizard of Oz who counts beans?

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on October 7, 2010 at 8:09am

Sandra,
I don't have much to add other than to let you know how much I enjoy your posts, and sat here nodding my way through this one and all the comments. Great stuff!
~Pam

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Permalink Reply by Jacob S. Madsen on October 7, 2010 at 8:25am

Sandra
When I said 'ol Europe' that entails not only this Island, but as much the 25 chums and colleagues I have across the European continent, so indeed your words of straight talkin have now been dispersed across 10 countries, why I think you can well assume that one more apart from Mr. B. from Texas that is now infamous.
I can only imagine what you must be like to be around with stories likes the ones you have (you may be local but you seem to have been around)
As for compliments, thank you for those, although I am originally Danish but UK resident for many years.
Thank you for having given me the laugh out loud of today, I shall treasure your words and wait in anticipation for the next 'Texan talkin' as it truly is beyond words enjoyable
Until then, Cheerio

Sandra McCartt said:

thanks Jacob, i wonder does this make me internationally infamous? Having been a "local character" for years i am delighted to have made it across the pond. I love you Brits, so much more gracious than us mutts. Also thanks for giving me a great title for a blog or two. "Texan Talkin" AKA I just say what everybody is thinking and is too nice to say. You can not imagine how long it took my mother to convince me that Southern Ladies should really say "Bless her heart, she means well" instead of "That old hide needs to be bitch slapped".

Speaking of Texan Talkin, one of my clients is a Chartered Public Accountant who lives in London. He is financial advisor to one of the Saudi's who used to own a piece of desert where the city of Riyad now stands. During a trip to Texas my client and I were meeting with an oil and gas group. All were taken with his delightful British accent until at the close of the meeting he looked at one of the lady executives and said, "It's been delightful speaking with you, i will speak with my employer and knock you up in the morning." There was a long pause , several very blank stares and a few looks of shock. He looked confused, gave me a questioning look. I explained that he meant he would come to her office. Ushered him out the door and explained that the term "knocking someone up" in Texas meant impregnating someone. He never batted an eye and in all seriousness said, "Oh my, i would not want to happen to either of us, that nice lady is much too homely to be considered for breeding."

Such is the British logic. I love it.

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Permalink Reply by James F. Jeter on October 7, 2010 at 9:53am

Love it...KISS principle! Keep It Simple Stupid.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on October 7, 2010 at 12:13pm

Pammer (I only nickname people when i really like them) Thanks for the pat on the head. I know in another life you were the nice character in "Steel Magnolias". I'll play "Weezer" to your Sally Fields any time.

Jacob, the minute i hit add reply i thought , (Now that was an assumption, Jacob may be an Israli living in Tuscany.)
Then thought Naw, i would recognize that phraseology anywhere. I don't know any Danes except the one that went after my Great Pyr and my Standard Poodle at the dog park. Now about Dubya. Oh Gaawd!! In Texas what happens to the sons of the wealthy who are a few tacos short of a combination plate is that they are either sent to the ranch or they run for office. The ranch foreman runs the ranch and nobody with any sense in this state will touch politics with a ten foot pole. Nuff said about that except i have a friend who maintains that Mr. B found Jesus in her living room in Midland, Texas. Not surprising since a lot of the population swears that there is a miracle picture of the Virgin Mary under a water leak at a potato shed in Hereford, Texas. I may be a believer but the pictures of the miracle of the potato shed drip looked like green mold under a water drip to me. If you think i make this shit up just google " Virgin Mary, Hereford, Texas" Not only does this stuff happen in Texas the papers print the story. We had some nut who wanted his 15 minutes of fame so he piggybacked burning a Koran (on a Bar-B-Que grill no less) on top of the story of the nut in Florida. The problem here was solved when some kid on a skateboard flew by the grill, grabbed the Koran and skateboarded off into the sunset. Our local nut didn't think to bring more than one Koran so the burning was over pretty quickly.

10 countries..damn, somebody is going come after you for global pollution. I can't imagine anybody being a recruiter for over a week and not having the start of a book of stories. Now you've done it , given me a new nom de plume that i will exploit to the fullest.

James, i started to mention the KISS principle but i have been told that i better be more sensitive to potential sexual harrassment. I once had a not so bright college kid answering the phones. I told her that we operated by the KISS principle. Her mother called me and wanted to know who i expected her to Kiss. (Inbreeding deters from intellect) I splained that my derriere on her way out the door would be just fine. Mama said, "Do you mean she's fired". I said, "of couse not, i moved the office and have left no forwarding address". The kid showed up a week later to pick up her paycheck. The first words out of her mouth were, "I had a hard time finding you i thought you moved". Sometimes things get almost too simple and stupid. And i am sure both mama and the kid vote. How else could we have Sarah Palin sill babbling and rolling her eyes like a barn owl on acid.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on October 25, 2010 at 4:40pm

Ya liked that one did ya? Ain't she a piece of work? If i ever get asked to recruit for POTUS that one will not make the short list.

Thanks for the compliment. It's my take that if all of us would engage in a little more plain talk we might all be considered just a bit more brilliant.

the beat indeed goes on. Another day another job order and another search. Despite what the interns postulate, the gurus and book writing "experts" pontificate. Not all clients want the top half of the top half - they wouldn't know what to do with them. I have never been confused about who signs the front of the check and who signs the back of it. Listening and following hiring guidelines has always proved more fruitful in my bubble than arguing with my clients about what they "need to hire" or trying to put a square peg in a round hole just to prove i have some value.

Don't know about anyone else but i am so sick of this "passive/active candidate crap" i am about ready to start interviewing by asking, "Are you a passive candidate?", "you are, then you must be one lazy SOB to have stayed there this long without even making an attempt to better yourself, go back to sleep."

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Permalink Reply by Brian Keith on October 26, 2010 at 12:23am

Good post Sandra. I was once asked by a corporate trainer, "Brian what are you going to do this year to be successful?" Candidly, I was a little annoyed. I knew this person's background. She'd been in temp/staffing 20 years before but didn't survive. So, I simply answered, "I'm going to S.O.D. (Spin Of the Dial), Search, and POEJO (present candidate to job orders). Dumbfounded, she stood there, mouth agape. "Is that it?", she demanded. "Yep. What else is there?", I replied.

I've seen hundreds of would-be recruiters come and go. Some failed due to poor effort. Others simply lacked the capacity. By and large the majority died a painful and slow death because they were hardheaded and didn't follow the path to success. They chose to ignore the road signs and became oblivious to the warning signs.

Recruiting is a deceptively simple process. (Notice I didn't say easy) Follow the plan and you'll make it. Don't and you'll perish. It's been my observation and experience that any person who followed the plan religiously survived to gain experience. Those recruiters learned, evolved, and thrived.

Neither the changes to our business, nor the economy, or even the latest trends in technology have rendered recruiters obsolete. Yes, environmental conditions have changed, but that's all. Not the process, it remains the same. S.O.D., search, and POEJO...improvise, adapt, and overcome...add in a heavy dose of will and you've got a recruiter with staying power.