April 20, 2019
Welcome to Best of the Week, kicked off the day after moving house with all the chaos, spilt olive oil, stair-hating removalists, traumatised cats and cardboard box hell that implies.
Today’s writing soundtrack - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, live at the Capitol Theatre, 1978. (The greatest tour of all time?)
Today: The problem with recruiters, and Clemenger Group’s look to the future.
You are their product
So are there good recruiters out there in our industry? The Mumbrella comment thread offered a perspective on that this week:
“There are literally none – they don’t know what you want, where you have come from or what’s best for you. They pretend to understand the industry, but they are merely intruders on the fringe. They have monthly targets just like you and you are their product. Approach companies you want to work for directly, find the most appropriate contact on LinkedIn and start a dialogue via email / LinkedIn messaging”
I mostly agree. And “intruders on the fringe” is a pretty good description.
On the ledger, I don’t think the recruitment industry is a net positive. Perhaps, like being in real estate, the business of being a middleman creates too many incentives towards bad behaviour.
Build a business model where self-interest bumps against client interest, and the former often wins.
While it’s unfair to form a view on an entire industry based on the behaviour of individuals, sometimes it’s hard not to.
I can think of some credible recruiters at the top end of the market. Genuine headhunters can help find a candidate who otherwise would not have emerged.
But some of the biggest bullshitters I’ve crossed paths with in this industry have also been recruiters.
The one thing that puzzles me is their predilection for unnecessary bullshit.
I can think of one who over the years seems to have gone out of his way to unneccesarily lie to me.
On one occasion, unpromoted, he offered me an exclusive about the placement of a senior marketing executive. It would be very helpful if we could just drop into the article details of who ran the recruitment process, he suggested.
On the day of the big(gish) announcement, his press release popped up on a rival site. Moments later, he was on the phone, still claiming he was about to give me the exclusive. He’d tried to ride two horses.
The same man would always make a point of seeking me out at industry events to tell me that he intended to advertise with Mumbrella, and could I please link him with my advertising team.
I’d do so, he’d waste their time and never actually spend any money. A year or two later he’d repeat the process.
I struggled to understand his motivations.
I suspect the repeat part came because he may be in the habit of dangling the same thing to other trade press editors too, and he’s forgotten who he’s already said it to.
Then there’s another recruiter, who’s in the habit of every year or two dropping me a line telling me she is thinking of sponsoring one of our events in the future. Alas, she doesn’t have the budget right now, but if I could only give her a free ticket, she’d be much better informed to sponsor us next time around.
Like that other recruiter, I think she forgets that she’s repeating herself.
And I can think of another - a few years back now - who pitched us a guest post. It was really good. But it was so good that I was suspicious, and did a bit of Googling prior to publication. He’d lifted the entire thing from an overseas website.
It amounts to a pattern that suggests a sector that doesn’t prioritise honourable behaviour.
(And yes, I know there are exceptions to the rule. Shoutout to the well respected Nick Williams.)
Which is a roundabout way of saying I’m not surprised to read the observations about recruiters in Alice Almeida’s guest post for Mumbrella this week.
