Friday, July 08, 2005
One Eyed Fiona
As partial as I am to good recruiters, I have to point out a major shortcoming. They don’t know what they’re doing, and many don’t seem interested in learning…
During our midyear reviews one of our recruiters told me she is ready for responsibility at a regional level. She is a solid contributor - productivity is good, but she’s not ready to manage a region. The gap analysis applies to most of the recruiters I know.
The problem? While she’s a good individual contributor, she's oblivious to the business of recruiting. When asked about her own recruiting “business”. She knows how many people she’s hired, has relationships with hiring managers, and can tell which sources she prefers. She has many entertaining stories, opinions about the ATS, and ideas about how to get more out of our technology. But, she can’t tell me how much she spends on ads each month. She tells me about half her ads work.
“Which ads? For which positions? In what cities?” I ask.
“Don’t know. Haven’t checked. Good question.” Says she.
Aargh. She has this information. Everyone with the discretion to run ads gets the report. Yet she doesn’t grasp why. We feel this stuff is so important that we work around the ATS in order to know it. We measure what works and what doesn’t in order to spend effectively. It’s a business thing.
Running a regional unit does entail supervising contributors and dividing the workload, but it’s imperative to keep one eye on the operational costs. She seems to have this eye closed. I need to trust the regional manager to make good business decisions. Despite her recruiting skills, she is oblivious to the business operation.
For you to lead a recruiting outfit I need to know:
• Can you put bodies in chairs?
• Can you be trusted to make business decisions?
Open the other eye.
During our midyear reviews one of our recruiters told me she is ready for responsibility at a regional level. She is a solid contributor - productivity is good, but she’s not ready to manage a region. The gap analysis applies to most of the recruiters I know.
The problem? While she’s a good individual contributor, she's oblivious to the business of recruiting. When asked about her own recruiting “business”. She knows how many people she’s hired, has relationships with hiring managers, and can tell which sources she prefers. She has many entertaining stories, opinions about the ATS, and ideas about how to get more out of our technology. But, she can’t tell me how much she spends on ads each month. She tells me about half her ads work.
“Which ads? For which positions? In what cities?” I ask.
“Don’t know. Haven’t checked. Good question.” Says she.
Aargh. She has this information. Everyone with the discretion to run ads gets the report. Yet she doesn’t grasp why. We feel this stuff is so important that we work around the ATS in order to know it. We measure what works and what doesn’t in order to spend effectively. It’s a business thing.
Running a regional unit does entail supervising contributors and dividing the workload, but it’s imperative to keep one eye on the operational costs. She seems to have this eye closed. I need to trust the regional manager to make good business decisions. Despite her recruiting skills, she is oblivious to the business operation.
For you to lead a recruiting outfit I need to know:
• Can you put bodies in chairs?
• Can you be trusted to make business decisions?
Open the other eye.
