"... never ending decisions.  Even when the

In 2023, we all talk on one of these.

majority of your candidates and prospects may not think of it this way, there is always a cost to every decision.  To not pay attention is to lose vital information.  To say no is to ensure opportunity cost.  'Do you really want to just keep on keeping on as things are?'  'Can you really find the right person on your own?'  'Is this really the best job you can work right now?'  'Do you really have the right offer to attract the caliber of talent you need?

"Do you see?  All these decisions, decisions, decisions actually sum up to something.  The consulting term for that sum is Market Information.  But, in my line of work, I don't think of it in merely technical terms.  No.  I think of it philosophically.  My word for the meaning of that sum of decisions as they continuously roll out of your telephone calls is nothing other than TRUTH."

When I was analyzing this big picture world of yours, back 1995, I found something wonderfully, deeply familiar within it.  I've always thought of my own line of work as the Truth Business.  What more precious commodity is there in the world, than truth?  When you need it, and don't have it, you'd be wise to pay almost anything for it.

All the recruiters I knew, back then, thought they were in the people placement business.  I realized that this was only the tactical means of converting their knowledge into income.  The knowledge they possessed and the skills they mastered in order to win that knowledge were vastly more precious than anyone seemed to realize.

Black Gold: Decision-Tested Information

What I came to believe is that recruiters were simply sitting on the greatest well of truth in the entire business world.  Consider that.  I felt like I'd discovered oil in Texas.  But, instead of a mere physical commodity that, no matter how long it takes will one day run dry, this well of truth can only grow larger - never smaller.  I was daunted and overwhelmed, both of which are emotions I absolutely adore.  I felt that I'd found a treasure of such vast proportions that, if I spent the rest of my working life serving the industry (symbolically counted as 30 years, back then, although I intend it to be a good deal longer than that) I knew I wouldn't regret the decision.

I have to make sure you follow this, so I must try to make it as clear as possible.

When even a single person says, "No, I don't want to go interview there," you have more than just information.  You have costly information.  The person is passing up an opportunity.  My simple term for this is Decision-Tested Information.  When the typical survey is completed, what risk did the interviewee take?  What stakes are on the line?  How do we know that the truth was expressed?

Flip to your hiring managers.  When they say, "No, I won't offer this person a job," they are conveying the truth to you of what will not work for them.  What is this knowledge of yours?  At the smallest level, it is the fundamental exchange of labor for money.  You all realize that.  But what I believed you were missing, back then, was the strategic sum that all these tactical parts mount up to.  Let's widen the scope now.

When just one person says they don't want to interview at a specific company, it's a single decision.  What happens, though, when you find 3 people, 5, 10 people who won't interview there?  You're opening up a window on your client's market position in the most important market where they must do battle and win - the market for talent.  If you win the market for customers, but lose the market for talent, the winner in the market for talent will eventually take your customers away from you!  Who knows the market for talent; who knows it cold; who knows it inside out and upside down?  Why you do, as no other player on the field of business.

But there's more.  What about this hiring manager versus that one?  What about this search versus that one?  If you'd like to triangulate a client company's strategic direction, how many searches of theirs would you have to analyze?  Two, three...five?  But forget the searches themselves.  What about when you call into a company to recruit the talent away from it?  How much can you learn about the company itself?

Now, let me ask; do you have any idea how many millions upon millions of dollars are expended by the executive committees of these firms in search of low forms, mere guesses often, of the information you build each and every day?  The problem is that, just like all your customers, you simply think of yourself as a process industry, filling openings when you can.  Often, even worse, you think of yourselves as if you were the tactical information business, i.e. resumes.  Let me rant about that for a moment.

Presentation Power

Alan Schonberg: Founder and Leader for us all

If I could banish resumes from our industry, I would.  What's more, how many of you actually remember the old school?  Did you know that in the old days recruiters were trained to never send resumes at all, except for in the hands of their candidates when they went in for the interview?  Does anyone even try to train this wonderful old school lesson anymore?  The recruiter's job was defined as making the presentation of the talent to an interested party, directly, over the phone.  To send a resume was deemed to give up the show, and to abdicate the recruiter's basic obligation.

Old school recruiting believed that a person could NOT be reduced to a piece of paper and that the conversation itself, in which the person's abilities and qualifications were debated, was one of the ultimate places of value creation that literally defined the recruiting mission.  Where have these beliefs gone, I wonder?

After I finished writing my rant in the two paragraphs above, it dawned upon me that I'd better check with the greatest source of knowledge and clarity about our past as an industry.  We are blessed, as most of you know, to have amongst us the true founder of our profession, Alan Schonberg.  Here's what I asked him,

"In a word, Alan, my question is: is this true or false; or perhaps some other shade than I've characterized it as?"

With his typical generosity and panache, Alan has kindly authorized me to share his powerful response.  Alan wrote back to me, saying,

"TRUE !!

"And not another shade.

"And for all the obvious reasons you know so well.

"And some you might not recognize in the modern era in which you yourself have evolved.  In the early days the only means of transmittal of a resume was the U.S. Mail-- obviously slow, a delaying and put off tactic on the part of an employer.

"Then came the fax machine-- inefficient and early on poorly accepted on the parts of both the recruiter and the employer.

"Today the transmittal of a resume is possible in seconds-- but it is still the recruiter's bane of existence as the exclusion device of the employer.

"If the recruiter's verbal or emailed presentation of the candidate (sans resume) hasn't convinced the employer to see the candidate, it is incomprehensible to me that the emailing of the resume would do so."

Summing Up

To return to the problem, all these tiny bits of data swirling around in your minds and hearts, all this knowledge about the truth of companies, people, their various directions and dreams...all this knowledge remains bottled up, disorganized, unmined, unprocessed, unrefined, undeveloped, unpackaged, undelivered and unavailable for anything other than the tactical purpose of your next placement.

No, none of that meant very much to my clients back in 1995 when I first attempt to present my thinking to you.  There was one fellow, though, who must be thanked, and that's Mike Gionta.  I'll tell that story another time, and it is a story worth sharing, indeed.  In the years that followed, my vision did not remain solely my own.  Paul and Craig Millard signed on for it back in the late '90s and in the early 2000's Jon Bartos found fundamental transformation by means of my vision as well.  But, those few and perhaps a handful of others helped me keep my dream alive by proving its power to help recruiters in the here and now.

In our next lesson, we'll explore how this vision can actually help you make tactical placements, build strategic key account relationships and protect and increase your fees and your ability to comfortably navigate the dangerous waters of the exchange of value for money. Then, in our final lesson of this series, I'll take the blinders off and shoot for the stars of the distant future, so you can begin to judge my dream more fully for yourselves.

Exercises
 

(Note: thanks to Brian Gavie for recommending the inclusion of exercises.)

In closing today, I want to leave you with three exercises.  We'll go fast. 

First, look at these letters: A...; N...; D...  Your mind likely pushing them together, crunches them down from being three separate letters into the single, simple word "and," regardless of the dots and semicolon weakly attempting to separate them, right?  Parts, when we know them well, merge into wholes automatically on their own.

Second, take a look at any search you've recently worked and look at the outcomes of the candidate conversations.  It might help to take a small number of them, though any number over one is sufficient.  What did you learn about your client company's market position in the war for talent?  My bet is that you actually know a great deal more about their market position than you're likely to have realized.

Third, go back to your client, whether you closed a placement or not, and just experiment by sharing a little bit of your bigger picture thinking.  Tell your client that you've been thinking about their reputation and feel like you've been able to isolate a few strengths and weaknesses.  Tell your client you're really just hoping to see if he or she agrees with your conclusions or perhaps might have a different way of understanding the information you're looking at.  Do NOT try to close a deal.  Do NOT try to get a job order.  Do NOT try to get ANYTHING from your client other than a meaningful conversation.

What you'll find is that your client instantly begins to shift in his or her understanding of your value...positively.