Blog

• I am starting a new venture in the Oil & Gas industry.....check it out.

  I think everybody knows how much I love recruiting, but now I get to do it with some skin in the game. This is a very exciting time for me. A business contact of mine has asked that I come onboard with his new company in a recruiting and management capacity. As many know, I have been in sales all of my life. Management is a new twist, but I have always considered it and enjoy working with people. I am mostly concerned with hiring sales people and finding capable agents who have contacts for selling Drilling Rigs, Pipe, Pipeline, Blow Out Preventers, Drill Bits and associated oilfield equipment. LongForza's CEO has over 20 years of relationships in the Oil & Gas industry of China. You may hear of quality issues from China, but these issues reside with unscrupulous brokers or manufacturers who are smaller, and likely buy the basic structure from one of our manufacturers and retrofit them with cheap equipment....which breaks. Some manufacture their own structures, but from lower grade steel. Truly, every hour in the oilfield is money, and drilling contractors can't afford these failures. The manufacturers with whom we have relationships are all API and ISO certified. We are confident in their quality, as are the International Standards organizations (API, ISO, etc....) who have certified them. We are sending crews in with each "rig-up" to make sure our customers are happy with the quality. Also, there are some nuances between USA made and Chinese made rigs. The "rig-up" crew will make sure that the American drillers don't damage anything by using it incorrectly. We are committed to showing customers our quality. An interesting twist is that we are also able to do rig leasing....with crews. This is an attractive option if companies don't want to buy rigs. Check out our website. www.LongForza.com If you, or anyone you know, can buy or has connections who can buy Drilling Rigs, then give me a shout. I would love to hear from you. See you in the field! - David

  July 22nd, 2008 · No comments
• Why you might consider using an individual recruiter or very small firm vs. medium or large firms.

  A friend of mine in the recruiting business brought up this fact to me in a convesation the other day. Her reasoning on why it may be a better thing to use an individual recruiter (or VERY small firm) over a medium to large firm was this: Firms are all about the dollar....the dollar follows volume. Churn and burn, baby! What is one of the biggest complaints you hear about corporate America? They only care about the dollar....vis a vie the massive outsourcing we see to other countries. I am not saying that ALL outsourcing is bad, but in my opinion it is definitely overused by many companies who just want an easy fix to their cash flow problems. This is my experience in corporate IT recruiting. 1. Go find tons of requisitions/job orders to fill. 2. Bring them back to the office to be sorted by (in descending order of importance): - Fee Percentage (highest get the most attention). - Ease of skillset to locate. - How well the customer communicates and reacts to resumes. Ok, all of this is fair and we ALL use this to some extent. HOWEVER, when a truly productive customer (or hiring manager with whom you have placed many candidates over the years) comes to you with a "purple squirrel", OR due to market conditions their fee structure is not as high as newly signed contracts.....he/she is SOL. The "machine" does not take into account loyalty. Ok, we all are guilty of this to some degree, but the larger the firm, the more ingrained the processes and the less that cusomer loyalty is taken into consideration. You can pretty much say that is intensified with size. I guess my point is that back in 2005 when I got into the business, we had fewer active clients and fewer employees. When we had a job that was imperfect with a customer who was giving us job orders when nobody else was, we found candidates that fit the description. Period. It was all we had. Sure we grumbled and complained to ourselves, but we did it. Now that things are going well, the the less than desireable ( but not bad) jobs are hardly even given a cursory glance.....even for customers who got you through hard times. If given a spare moment a recruiter may give a quick glance through a job board. Anybody can do that. The main point of this is to say that individual recruiters are far more likely to give every job order a thorough, hear-felt search, and you can be confident that they used all of their available resources. You cannot be sure of that with a firm....and they will ALWAYS tell you that they searched and 1.) found some candidates they were tracking down OR 2) found some candidates, tracked them down but were unavailable or not right for some reason. Very, very few will tell you that it is just not worth their time, because they know you expect their loyalty. If they don't give you their loyalty, then the customer is not likely to return the favor when the better jobs come along. Unfortunately, the customer really can't ask for the resumes of folks the firm is tracking down. Many firms will just throw a bunch of garbage together and say this is who they are tracking. There is no way to be sure. If you want relationships, loyalty, and teamwork - try an individual recruiter. You might like the results!

  March 27th, 2008 · No comments
• I know why intelligent people make poor decisions....

  Do you have a very intelligent friend who makes poor decisions? Talented, smart, good looking - but - they are always in emergency mode.

  I finally sat down and actually took time to analyze this and have some parallels to recruiting and career moves.

  I now realize it aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall started with ONE, usually deliberate/quasi unethical, bad decision. The rest falls from there. Ok, note, I am not UNguilty of ever making a bad decision, nor am I proud of every decision I have made in my life. I do think that I try to learn from bad decisions and usually have the discipline to not repeat them.

  Here I am talking to a friend and helping him think through some decisions he has to make. It seems that there are no good options but some just less painful than others. Why? I will tell you why. Either his moral compass is so skewed that the decision he made 3 years ago seemed legitimate to him, or he thought he could get away with making a bad decision. He, as many criminals do (not that he is a criminal), all think they are smarter than the system. Rules aren't for them....especially if they are not written in stone...a.k.a. ethics. For millenia, companies and organizations have tried to write down what ethics are but so much of ethics falls in a gray area, for one person as opposed to another, that there is always a "work around".

  The problem for my friend is that he gets away with many things but even if he gets caught in one out of 10, it is still quite painful. What he doesn't get is that even if it is painful, it is best to do the right thing to the best of your knowledge. ONE bad decision usually (ok, without fail) leads to the necessity to make another bad decision, which breeds 2 more bad decisions, which breeds 5 more bad decisions, etc..... The issue is that my friend fails to see the long term consequences of his actions. He wants instant problem fixes and gratification TODAY.

  He is now so consumed with poor options that it has totally changed the quality if his life. That quality of life called PEACE. By the way, most of his bad decisions (90%) have to do with money.

  I guess the moral of the story is always try to do the right things. This sounds so simple but more people are trying to short circuit life.....instead of living it.

  As for recruiting, so many of my candidates chip away at their reputations so that 10 years later, all of those chips are felt in the foundation of their career. They left contracts unfinished, because they were only looking out for Numero Uno. They left jobs without proper notice and left their managers in a bind. They played politics and back stabbed their fellow workers up the corporate ladder.

  Guess what? Now they are interviewing for their dream job. Interviews have gone GREAT. It is in the bag, pending reference checks. - GULP! - Yeah. The trail of bad feelings you left behind for the last 10 years just bit you in the ass.

  Go back to your cubicle and get to work.

  - David

  October 23rd, 2007 · No comments
• Should you work with an independent or a large recruiting firm?

  Hmmm....I always forget to ask but I often get the question from HR as to whether or not I am an independent....or with a firm.

  I think there are two reasons for this:

  1. They are looking to beat me down on my fees if my perceived overhead is less.
  2. They don't believe that an independent can find people for them like a firm with many people can.

  As to the first point, a company hires a recruiter to use his expertise to find good people. This expertise can be technical knowledge of the industry but it can also be the network or connections and individual has. In my opinion, this is far more valuable than technical knowledge. Your best employees are those you find on the passive market who were introduced by a good friend, or a friend of a friend. These relationships many times take years to culminate into a useful business enterprise.

  THAT is the real value in a recruiter and really what companies are paying for.

  As to the second point, there is a lot to be said here.

  First of all many "firms" are quite small and really do not have that much man power.

  Secondly, any recruiter good enough to go out on their own is probably one of the best, if not THE best, recruiter/account manager a firm has, or else they would not have the confidence to leave the security of a firm and venture out on their own. How many independents do you really think are "On Their Own"? Probably none.

  Nobody leaves a firm without tons of connections and backup. Who are these connections? Well, other top notch recruiters who have gone out on their own. So in reality, if an independent recruiter has 10 other independents they are working with, then in reality that recruiter has a far higher ratio of job order/recruiter than any company in existence. The large firms are keeping everything internal and will not utilize the vast knowledge base of independent recruiters in the market. "Share" is not necessarily a word in their company codex.

  Another thing that many companies fail to recognize is the priority list of job requisitions. What job orders to firms try to fill, regardless of size?...the easiest, most lucrative ones. I know, I know. They all say, "we want to be your partner", but the unsaid caveat is...."if it makes business sense for us."

  Nobody wants to get into a bad business relationship...or implies that you should, but when a firm gives their word that they will do everything in their power to find a candidate, a company should be able to expect full effort...regardless of degree of difficulty.

  Do we all know what a "split" is? Basically, it is the percentage of fee that is earned. If you have an account manager and a recruiter, then each would get 50%. The more levels of people, the more the pie is split.

  In reality, firms (especially large ones) work on a split, of a split, of a split....and maybe of another split, and that is AFTER the company takes their 50% for overhead etc... They have so many levels of people in the organization who must be compensated. This is not a great motivator, so the business becomes quite mercenary....forget what the account manager or VP says about partnerships, the folks behind them are driving the business and finding candidates. They do not have the face the customer and will work where the money is.

  An independent working with other independents will at minimum get 50% of the deal. How is that for motivation? He/she may have fewer job orders, but they are highly motivated to find the right candidate.

  I think when extremely high volume of low to mid level talent is needed, then the larger firms might be more of a possibility, but don't overlook the folks who really need and truly value the relationship they have with you. It could be a beautiful thing for the next 20 years.

  - David

  October 22nd, 2007 · No comments
• I guess everybody thinks they will need help finding a job, sooner or later.

  I am not sure of the benefit of this post other than just to put an observation on record.

  The one light bulb moment that put recruiting in perspective for me (although I did not associate it with recruiting at the time) was over a lunch meeting with an IT executive.

  I used to sell professional IT services before recruiting. I used to have a team member called a "Managing Consultant" who would go with me on appointments to discuss with prospective customers what resources we had and our capabilities. I soon came to find out that my Managing Consultant (MC) was an absolutely horrible individual who was ubiquitously despised by anyone at her level or below.

  As the MC, she was responsible for finding resources within the company to utilize on projects....and recommending hiring of a resource....if the resource could not be found in the company. Of course, she had no hiring authority, just recommendations...IF the need was there. In other words, she had little control over who the company hired.

  Almost miraculously, she got a meeting with a high level IT executive in a large company. I was elated and amazed. Apparently, she had been in the business for quite awhile so she met this person at least once, but that he would agree to meet with her was quite another issue.

  We met over lunch and as the meeting progressed, I realized why people agreed to meet with her. She would coo, oooh, and aaah about how wonderful they were...and cute (yes, believe it or not...cute) they were. Finally, it came....the clincher.

  We all know how volatile IT is, and has been. No matter the level of executive, nobody has job security. Everybody knows this.

  Are you ready? Here it is...."Oh, Bob. (generic name) You are wonderful. I WOULD HIRE YOU IN A HEARTBEAT IF YOU EVER BECAME AVAILABLE ON THE JOB MARKET." Bob would then proceed to hem and haw and blush, then offer his resume in case she came across anything good.....or explain how his job was in jeopardy and to please look out for him.

  That's it!!!! In today's market, everybody wants to think that someone is watching their back. Her silver bullet....fear.

  That is one reason I like recruiting. I can genuinely help just about every level in an organization. Whether it be to find them a career move, find a new job to replace a job that was lost, or to find productive employees who do good work and will make their lives easier. I can be relevant to people on just about every level. That's fun.

  I guess there is some advice in this for folks. Align yourself with one or two very good recruiters who are reputable in the industry. Even if you are not looking, you never know what awesome, dream job a recruiter may come across. Be nice. Be nice to everyone...even if you don't need them now.

  You know? The stuff you learned in Kindergarten.

  - David

  October 17th, 2007 · No comments
• SendOutCards...a great way to touch customers!!!

  Have you sent out cards to customers and wondered if they throw your correspondence? Well, worry no more!

  Contact me for a free example.

  October 1st, 2007 · No comments