In this issue of the Recruiting Tactics & Strategy Report I'd like to share with you the first part of a new series I'm writing called, "The Revolutionary Fundamentals of Recruiting". 

In this new series, we'll romp through history, rediscover the very founding and creation of our industry, discuss economics and the actual value of recruiting (why are some companies so smart to work with you and some so dumb to reject the use of independent, 3rd party recruiters?), we'll travel into the future and boldly envision the day when recruiting becomes the largest service industry in the world, making the world the most efficient economic entity it can possibly become, and paving the path for freeing humanity of its worst evils (or something like that).

The series will be published in its entirety at my blog, which you can access completely free of charge and without any sign-up whatsoever at http://www.TheRecruitingManifesto.com. I alternate every day between this new series and the other series I'm currently writing called, "The Cornerstones of Business Excellence". I publish one post every morning, Monday through Thursday.

***What bold vision of your recruiting future can we build, together? I promise, the fundamentals will be the foundation we require. And, when we get them right, they will be revolutionary.***

"The Revolutionary Fundamentals of Recruiting", Part 1 of a Continuing Series

In coming days, I'll post a fairly random set of thoughts (at first) exploring what I like to call "The Revolutionary Fundamentals of Recruiting," every other day, alternating with the Cornerstones series. Today's thoughts will give a bit of background and some recognition to a very important teacher.

We start our journey into the fundamentals with a couple of old, alphabet soup terms, dating for me back to 1993 when I first started serving recruiters. They are MPC and SOD. Those two terms triggered immediate and very negative reactions in me. The first term, MPC, stood for Most Placeable Candidate. I had an immediate negative reaction to the thought of being called up by a recruiter I'd never heard of before, and having some candidate presented to me, without knowing anything about any of these people, first. It struck me as archaic and almost laughable. SOD stood for Spin Of the Dial (referring to the old days when we had rotary dials for our phones), and was almost always presented in the command, "SOD till you puke." Anyone who has learned the NLP term "anchoring" can imagine part of my negative reaction to the term. I've also been to England, where they use the term in a very different context and I found the term offensive for that reason, too.

Why share this ancient history? Well, let me skip forward to 1999 and perhaps the significance will begin to be clear. It was actually January of 1999, and I will never forget the practice-changing information that Tim Lawler gave me. Tim and I had been working together for a couple of years at this point, and he shared with me an analysis he did of his teams' placements for 1998. He told me that the breakdown was just about 50/50 between MPC Placements and filled Searches.Tim can be quite the jokester. And, when he decides to deliver a line, he can do so with the straightest face and unflinching tone. Often, you just don't even know he's kidding around. Well, that was my reaction to his information. I laughed and told him he was pulling my leg.

Tim Lawler

You see, in the six years I'd been serving recruiters, all of them had spoken to me about MPCs, but no one, not one person, had ever said anything about actually placing an MPC.Rather, everyone told me they never placed them.

As time had passed, that had become my greatest argument against the MPC method. It felt like an contradiction, to call someone your most placeable candidate, but then to never, under any circumstances actually place them. So, when Tim gave me his data, I simply didn't believe him. At first, he didn't quite follow me, and just kept going with his analysis, but then when I still refused to believe him he got mad. Yes, Tim does have a temper!

The bottom line is that his data was absolutely real, and extremely significant. The other parameter Tim had measured was time investment. Where 50% of their placements had come in each category, only 20% of their time was invested into MPC Placement, and 80% of their time was invested into Search.That was what had so stunned Tim.

I'll pick up on the story here, in the next part of the series. But, before I close out today, allow me to ask:

1. Where do you stand on the MPC Method?
2. If you use it, have you ever placed an MPC?
3. If you've placed an MPC, was it ever as a direct result of your marketing presentation, or was it just that you ended up placing your MPC into a Search obtained by other means?

I'd truly love to hear your answers! And, as we explore these revolutionary fundamentals (I know, I haven't given you any revolutionary stuff yet, but it's coming, I promise), I am quite confident that the MPC is very much the right place to begin. Let's just frame it one additional way. If you found the most competent talent in your area, but had no Job Orders at the time, how might you go about building an approach to help this most valuable candidate find his next job?

You will not be disserved by meditating on this question...I promise!

Want Part 2 of the series? I published it this morning at my blog, The Recruiting Manifesto.  Don't miss your daily dose of thought-provoking insight, analysis, and guidance published every Monday through Thursday morning. Click below!