My hope in getting you to look at this web site is to get you to realize that I am not the typical recruiter, and I hope that you will give me the chance to prove it. If you haven't already, please read my story, and what the "other guys" are like.
If you are a client of mine, or a prospective client, it boils down to this: I've been in your shoes. I've been the hiring manager for many years. I know what it's like to get hundreds of resumes for a staff position and discover that most of them have no where near the qualifications desired. I know the time it takes and the frustration that's caused when you have to sift through those huge stacks of resumes, and when you schedule interviews with people who turn out to be terrible disappointments. And worst of all, I know what it's like to work with a recruiter who does little more than a keyword search and email over dozens of resumes, leaving you to go through the same frustrating process all over, and then pay a fee for it!
My pledge to my clients is this: I will never do to you what I hated to have done to me when I was in your shoes. I will never send a resume of a person who isn't qualified for the position. I will never send a resume without a detailed summary to help you get to know the person at a glance without having to read an entire resume. I will never call you multiple times a day just to harass you and try to pressure you into making a decision. I will never drown you in resumes--I will send you the top 2 or 3 people I can find, and only send more if you ask for it. But the greatest level of comfort should come from this: you can rest assured that my candidates are fully vetted and cleared before you see them.
I specialize in accounting and financial staffing. It's all I do. If you've reviewed my profile on Linkedin, you know that as a former Controller, VP of Finance, and CFO, I understand what to look for in a candidate for any particular accounting position. I know the questions to ask them and understand your business. Furthermore, my certifications and qualifications as a CPA, CMA, CFM, MBA, and Six Sigma Master Black Belt should give you confidence that I have a full understanding of the greatest challenges facing businesses today, and can identify those candidates most likely to be up to those challenges.
For my candidates, my pledge is this: I will never send your resume to any company without clearing it with you first. I will never waste your time with opportunities that I know you won't be interested in. I will do my very best to communicate clearly and frequently in any situation where you are involved in competing for a position. Sometimes something may slip through the cracks, but my #1 priority is to make sure that is a very rare event. I will never sell you a bill of goods--I want you to love the new position as much as I want the company to be fully satisfied in having hired you.
Ultimately, my objective is to make partnerships for life. I want my candidates to call me and only me when they need to find a new position and I want my client companies to have confidence to call me and only me when they need professional help to find the right candidate for their company. I will not stop until I have earned this trust.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
My story
I'm not the typical recruiter. Most recruiters I've run across are young adults, usually recent college grads, with little experience with corporate responsibility. Others have been in the industry for some time, but still have little background in corporate settings, and have been indoctrinated with all the wrong ideas about recruiting. My background is different. (See my profile here.)
I started my career in public accounting doing audit work as an assistant auditor, then a staff auditor, and eventually as a senior auditor with one of the largest firms in the country. I achieved CPA status while at the CPA firm, and ultimately made the decision to go into private work.
I took a position as Assistant Controller with a national small business lender and over the course of the next 5 years worked my way up from Assistant Controller to Controller, VP of Finance, and eventually CFO. As is common in the financial services industry, my company was bought out by a larger competitor and as the purchaser already had all they needed by way of accounting personnel, I accepted a position as Director of Quality Improvement with the new organization.
I spent the next 4 years building a Lean Six Sigma group, hiring and developing Green Belts and Black Belts while serving as Master Black Belt and Director for the group. I was involved in every aspect of the organization and served as an integral member of the executive team.
After 4 years of hard traveling, I made a decision to find a position that would allow me to be home with my wife and 4 children instead of traveling so extensively. Of course, one of my first steps was to contact Darrel Joyner at AccountSource to seek advice on a job search. Darrell immediately asked me to consider a role as a financial recruiter...and the rest as they say is history.
If you've read this far, you are probably about to say "So what?", and I'm glad to answer that thought for you. Read my thoughts about typical recruiters here, and why I'm a different kind of recruiter.
I started my career in public accounting doing audit work as an assistant auditor, then a staff auditor, and eventually as a senior auditor with one of the largest firms in the country. I achieved CPA status while at the CPA firm, and ultimately made the decision to go into private work.
I took a position as Assistant Controller with a national small business lender and over the course of the next 5 years worked my way up from Assistant Controller to Controller, VP of Finance, and eventually CFO. As is common in the financial services industry, my company was bought out by a larger competitor and as the purchaser already had all they needed by way of accounting personnel, I accepted a position as Director of Quality Improvement with the new organization.
I spent the next 4 years building a Lean Six Sigma group, hiring and developing Green Belts and Black Belts while serving as Master Black Belt and Director for the group. I was involved in every aspect of the organization and served as an integral member of the executive team.
After 4 years of hard traveling, I made a decision to find a position that would allow me to be home with my wife and 4 children instead of traveling so extensively. Of course, one of my first steps was to contact Darrel Joyner at AccountSource to seek advice on a job search. Darrell immediately asked me to consider a role as a financial recruiter...and the rest as they say is history.
If you've read this far, you are probably about to say "So what?", and I'm glad to answer that thought for you. Read my thoughts about typical recruiters here, and why I'm a different kind of recruiter.
Friday, February 15, 2008
What's the typical recruiter like?
Because I've spent over a decade in management and executive roles, I have a wealth of experience from "the other side of the desk." I've interviewed and hired dozens of people. I'd had to fire people. I've had to layoff people. I've promoted people. I've coached people. I've managed people. Through all of these experiences, I've worked with many recruiters across the country, and almost without exception, they all work more or less the same way:
* They bombard their clients with worthless resumes without any apparent effort to screen candidates.
* They submit those resumes without any input--they attach the resume to an email and leave all the work to the HR manager or the hiring manager.
* They send as many resumes as they possibly can--whether the candidate is a good fit for the job or not.
* They give no thought to personality fit--they just send every resume they have and hope that one of them sticks.
* They harass the hiring manager and the HR manager constantly for updates on the status of the job.
I've also been through the job search from "the other side of the desk." I've worked with recruiters when my company was going through uncertain times, and asked recruiters to help me find something new when I needed a new challenge. In these situations I experienced first-hand the frustrations that most candidates voice about the recruiters they are working with, because I was one of them:
* Contacting candidates about terrible jobs that you'd have to be begging for food in order to consider.
* Contacting candidates about jobs that would require relocation or a commute that the candidate has clearly stated they will not consider.
* Making candidates come in to the recruiter's office when there are no jobs to discuss, basically wasting the candidate's time.
* Taking no interest in what the person really wants, just trying to find what keywords they can put on the candidate's profile.
* Sending the candidate's resume to every company in town, especially without the permission of the candidate.
* Telling the candidate about an opening and sending in the resume, and then never communicating with the candidate about the status of the job. Usually when the candidate finally calls, they find out the job has been filled.
All of these frustrations and more, from both the client (company) side and the candidate side are perpetuated by the majority of the recruiters and recruiting firms out there every day. Consequently, recruiters share real estate near the bottom of the ladder with used car salesmen when it comes to how much people like to deal with them, and this is especially true in the case of most HR managers in companies everywhere.
The unfortunate truth is that these recruiters, despite their poor communication skills and lack of perspective, still do a terrific amount of business, because companies and candidates have either come to expect it, or are unaware of what is really going on. I want you to know that I am very different from those "other guys."
* They bombard their clients with worthless resumes without any apparent effort to screen candidates.
* They submit those resumes without any input--they attach the resume to an email and leave all the work to the HR manager or the hiring manager.
* They send as many resumes as they possibly can--whether the candidate is a good fit for the job or not.
* They give no thought to personality fit--they just send every resume they have and hope that one of them sticks.
* They harass the hiring manager and the HR manager constantly for updates on the status of the job.
I've also been through the job search from "the other side of the desk." I've worked with recruiters when my company was going through uncertain times, and asked recruiters to help me find something new when I needed a new challenge. In these situations I experienced first-hand the frustrations that most candidates voice about the recruiters they are working with, because I was one of them:
* Contacting candidates about terrible jobs that you'd have to be begging for food in order to consider.
* Contacting candidates about jobs that would require relocation or a commute that the candidate has clearly stated they will not consider.
* Making candidates come in to the recruiter's office when there are no jobs to discuss, basically wasting the candidate's time.
* Taking no interest in what the person really wants, just trying to find what keywords they can put on the candidate's profile.
* Sending the candidate's resume to every company in town, especially without the permission of the candidate.
* Telling the candidate about an opening and sending in the resume, and then never communicating with the candidate about the status of the job. Usually when the candidate finally calls, they find out the job has been filled.
All of these frustrations and more, from both the client (company) side and the candidate side are perpetuated by the majority of the recruiters and recruiting firms out there every day. Consequently, recruiters share real estate near the bottom of the ladder with used car salesmen when it comes to how much people like to deal with them, and this is especially true in the case of most HR managers in companies everywhere.
The unfortunate truth is that these recruiters, despite their poor communication skills and lack of perspective, still do a terrific amount of business, because companies and candidates have either come to expect it, or are unaware of what is really going on. I want you to know that I am very different from those "other guys."
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