From your friends at The Fordyce Letter, we would like to wish each and every one of you a very Happy Thanksgiving. We sincerely hope you enjoy your holiday with friends and loved ones as we do the same. Thank you for reading, commenting, and contributing to this community of recruiting professionals — you are what makes it great and we appreciate you!
I’ve been a fan of Tim Tebow since he was at the University of Florida. I cheered for him then, and I take great pleasure in cheering for him still — and not just because he is a Gator (like me), a Heisman trophy winner, and an all-around awesome guy. I cheer for him because while he was a winner in college, he’s a guy who isn’t “supposed” to win in the NFL — and yet he does. He’s the proverbial underdog that we all claim to want to see win. (Though popular opinion sure doesn’t seem to indicate that… but that’s a completely different article.)
So after the Denver Broncos’ record improved to 5-5 (4-1 with Tebow starting) with a win over the Jets this last Thursday, I was so pleased to read this fantastic article by my colleague, John Hollon about how Tebow is breaking the mold of what success and leadership is supposed to look like in the NFL.
Leadership, no matter what line of work you are currently in, doesn’t have to come in a certain package, a certain style, a certain look, or from a certain background. Hollon says,
“If you get locked into believing that a leader must look and act a certain way, or have a certain kind of demeanor and experience, you’ll miss out on the unconventional person (or style) who can be equally (if not more) successful for you.”
In order for this to happen, sometimes you have to change what you may not even realize is broken. Because it’s not. It’s just not as good as it could be.
The Experts Don’t Always Know Best
In Hollon’s article, he says that new leaders surprise us when they break the mold of what leadership and success are supposed to look like. And it’s often the experts who are the worst at determining what it should look like:
“The lesson of Tim Tebow is that the “experts” are frequently wrong about what works and that the unconventional often troubles us because it doesn’t square with our pre-determined notion of what leadership success looks like. If we aren’t willing to step back and challenge our preconceptions — really misconceptions about superior talent and how it manifests itself — we might miss seeing it standing right before our eyes.”
While the experts in this case have been bashing him since day 1 (and many continue to do so), Tebow continues to pursue his passion and work harder than anyone else to be successful. The truth is — expert opinion will not stop a winner from winning or a leader from pressing forth to more success.
Encouraging those on your team to pursue excellence no matter what obstacles they may face should be standard. Will your folks to win — don’t expect them to lose (and if you do, perhaps you should take a hard look at your own hiring practices). And sometimes this means having to be flexible in your organizational process in order to encourage and cultivate leaders.
If It Ain’t Broke… There’s Still Probably A Better Way
A few years ago, I wrote an article that I hoped would open some eyes to the idea that just because something isn’t ‘broken’ doesn’t mean it couldn’t use some improvements. Just because something works well now does not mean it couldn’t work even better with some changes. In that article I quoted Carmine Coyote, author of the now-discontinued blog called ‘Slow Leadership’:
“Change is more about letting go of old ideas than finding new ones. Most of the time, people are sufficiently happy with the way things are, so they see no need to change. Life may not be perfect, but it’s good enough; the effort and uncertainty change brings look too great to be worth it. That’s why the moments when you’re open to change are precious. Miss them and your life and growth goes back on indefinite hold. Seize them and you have moments of infinite preciousness, when your mind is open to new ideas and fresh perspectives.”
In your line of work, in your office, or in your business, are there things that are sort of ‘good enough,’ but not exceptional? Jim Collins wrote an excellent book called “Good To Great” that discusses this very type of situation. The Broncos saw the value in Tebow, even though his style didn’t seem to ‘fit’ into the NFL’s established system of successful quarterbacking. So in order to accommodate the leadership they knew he would bring, they willingly changed their existing system to fit his strengths, going 180 degrees in the opposite direction of decades of football strategy that had worked.
When’s the last time you made changes to the way you manage your team or your business to accommodate the strengths of a new leader on your team, instead of requiring that they change everything that has made them successful to conform to your model?
Making Changes Isn’t Always Pretty
The very nature of change means that things are going to be different. And different isn’t always beautiful — but it is necessary for progress. Whether you’re a Tebow fan or not, you cannot deny that his wins are quite often ugly. Often they are heavily accomplished by the defense, as well. But pretty or not, they are still tick marks in the “W” column.
Winning often means making unpopular choices. It often means risking hurt feelings and assignment adjustments. It may even mean taking on more work than usual for a period of time in order to refine new ways of doing things. In our business, it may mean taking more responsibility for things that were previously outside of your scope of work in order to partner with others on your team as a more cohesive unit.
Regardless of how you look at it, there is no cookie-cutter mold for leadership — sometimes it looks exactly like what we’d expect. Other times it’s ugly, yet determined to win. And sometimes, it’s just downright unconventional, against all odds, and still inspires and brings forth the best in everyone. Make sure you can be open to make changes when it shows up in your organization.
Welcome to Labor Day and the last day of summer.
Yes, I know. Astronomically, summer won’t end for another 18 days. But, I’m talking symbolically, not scientifically. And in that context, the U.S. Labor Day marks a transition from summer white to fall brown. It’s when kids go back to school, and the pace of the office quickens as workers return from vacation.
Once a day of parades and political speeches praising American workers, which still occur here and there across the country, Labor Day is now a time to head for the beach or the park, fire up the barbecue, and kick back.
In the spirit of years past, however, I present you some inspirational words on life and work in the 21st century, from two of the most widely seen commencement addresses ever delivered.
First, is the advice given to the graduating class of 2010 at Auburn University by Tim Cook, then Apple’s COO and now, its CEO:
I know of no one who has achieved something significant without also in their own lives experiencing their share of hardship, frustration, and regret. So, don’t believe that something in your past prevents you from doing great work in the future.
“Give up on the idea of developing a life plan that will bear any resemblance to what ultimately unfolds,” he tells the graduates. Instead, Paint in your mind the most grand vision where you want to go in life. Prepare. Trust in, and execute on your intuition. And don’t get distracted by life’s potholes.”
Take the 16 minutes to watch the video. Besides the advice, which is every bit as relevant for mid-career workers as for new grads, Cook’s speech provides clues to the stamp he will put on Apple in the comings months. (Start the video at the 2:20 point to skip the lengthy introduction.)
The second video is three stories, told to Stanford’s graduating class in 2005, by one of the greatest entrepreneurs in all of Silicon Valley: Apple founder, its former CEO, and current Chairman Steve Jobs.
Story one is about connecting the dots. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards,” Jobs says. “So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. ”
Story two is one the graduates may not have much experience with, but will be familiar to everyone else. It’s about love and loss. It’s moral, says Jobs, is this:
You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.
His final story is about death:
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
image source: Andreanna Moya Photography
Over on TechCrunch late last week, the co-founder and CEO of voice-application startup SayNow, Nikhyl Singhal
, wrote a very interesting post titled Phone Numbers Are Dead, They Just Don’t Know It Yet. The idea behind the post is that with the development of resources like Skype and Google Voice, telephone numbers are dying a slow death. With the growing mainstream acceptance of online communication tools, will we be facing a time in the not-so-distant future where telephone numbers will be obsolete? There is a very real possibility of this. Don’t believe it? Check out some of the main reasons Singhal cites to qualify this theory:
- No control. Anyone can dial your 10 digits, including your ex-girlfriend, a political campaign worker, or a solicitor. Unlisted numbers, Caller ID and do-not-call lists all tried to solve this problem, but these solutions still don’t prevent unwanted calls.
- Phone numbers are tied to a device, not to you. Everyone has multiple numbers, yet your home line is shared, leaving callers guessing the best way to reach you.
- User experience is very limited. The phone was designed as a utility—dial a number, have a conversation. It’s remained this way since its inception. It’s not optimized for other experiences, which is why voicemail and conference calls are tedious, and why checking flight status is worse than a root canal.
Everyone has been talking ad nauseam lately about “the cloud”, and the concept behind cloud computing is to allow access from virtually anywhere to one’s online tools, social networks, data, and files. In Pew Research Center’s most recent Future of the Internet survey, 71% of respondents agreed with this statement:
“By 2020, most people won’t do their work with software running on a general-purpose PC. Instead, they will work in Internet-based applications such as Google Docs, and in applications run from smartphones. Aspiring application developers will develop for smartphone vendors and companies that provide Internet-based applications, because most innovative work will be done in that domain, instead of designing applications that run on a PC operating system.”
By the way, this has been a topic of discussion for quite some time now. And it’s been going on all over the world, too. And there are already a ton of communication tools that facilitate this change. Just consider all of the current smartphone apps that allow you to make and receive calls and messages without using mobile minutes – Skype, Foo Call, Video Call, Vonage Mobile, and many other VoIP apps that work on numerous smartphones and also have desktop services.
As recruiting professionals, what is this going to possibly do to our telephone activities? Already, we’ve seen our ability to determine someone’s current location by area code decrease significantly. Case in point: me! I know I’ve confused many of you already with the fact that I have a work phone number with a NYC area code, a mobile phone number with a Cincinnati area code, and yet I now live in Washington state. Heck, it confuses ME at times!
As point #1 above states, we currently have access to pretty much anyone via a phone number. So, what happens if/when communication methods move to the cloud, and we have to get permission from a potential lead just to “call” them? This opens up a whole different discussion around sharing relevant content, appropriate and timely messaging, and relationship development.
Look – I know it is unwise to make sweeping statements. And I also know that technology advances like this certainly won’t have a 100% adoption rate. But there is no denying that these changes WILL affect the ease with which we can reach people. Ignoring that fact will put you in the same category as the guy who said, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” That guy was Ken Olson, CEO and co-founder Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), a leading vendor in the minicomputer market throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He said this in 1977.
I am not a recruiter, so I realize that I am not speaking on this topic as a practitioner. But I am quite interested in how others feel about this. So I’d really like to hear from those of you who use the telephone on a daily basis. Just consider the “what if?” aspect of this situation and tell us what you think, because a lot of us here agree that this is a very real possibility, and we need to start thinking about how this can, and will, affect our telephone activities.
In the meantime, an appropriate tune from New Edition for you – enjoy!
The Washington Post recently ran an article discussing the cautious attitude with which businesses are still approaching hiring, even though profits appear to be on the upswing. According to the article, “Corporate profits are soaring. Companies are sitting on billions of dollars of cash. And still, they’ve yet to amp up hiring or make major investments — the missing ingredients for a strong economic recovery.”
Instead, it appears that companies are busy making up for the fixed assets they had to scrimp on last year and investing in things like new furniture, equipment, and so forth.
ABC News ran a similar story at the beginning of August. The Jobs Report that came out in July also showed a slow-down in hiring: in the private sector, employers produced just 71,000 new jobs in a country where 14.6 million people are looking for work. What’s going on? According to Wall Street Journal reporter Jon Hilsenrath, what’s happening here can be boiled down to one word: uncertainty.
I believe that what is going on can be explained by simply taking a look at how the human body handles stressful situations.
Those of you who know me know that I’ve been on a health kick this year. I’ve been working out diligently and watching what I eat. At 31 years old, it’s harder for me to get back into shape than it was ten years ago, but I’m working hard. Our bodies function in a very predictible manner: calories (energy) go in, energy is spent for basic functionality and any additional activity in which we participate, and then the body looks at the balance sheet at the end of the day. Excess calories are stored away, and that’s how we gain weight. To lose weight, we need to have a negative balance – more energy used than what is taken in. It’s pretty simple.
In the past, I’ve tried all kinds of weird diets – cabbage soup, grapefruit, meal replacement shakes – you name it, I’ve tried it! Without having a better understanding of calories and fuel, I thought to lose weight I simply had to restrict my caloric intake. I tried to limit my intake of calories so severely that my body often believed it was being starved. As a result, when I finally did feed it, it treated that fuel as a precious treasure and stored almost all of it as fat, because it was not sure when it would receive an adequate amount of energy again. There was uncertainty in its ability to maintain basic functionality.
For those who need a refresher course on human physiology, fat is the body’s preferred method of storage for excess fuel because it doesn’t require much to maintain. In most people, the body will break down muscle first (the best source of energy) in order to keep vital organs, like the brain, heart, and lungs, functioning. When it feels it is being starved, it will store whatever energy is being taken in as fat first, because muscle requires much more work to maintain. This is why, when you see someone who is severely restricting their caloric intake, they are often lethargic and unable to maintain a moderate level of activity for long. Their body is conserving its energy because it is unsure when it will be fueled again.
Think of the muscles as the workforce. It’s a great analogy, actually – muscles keep our bodies active and moving. They are an expensive investment, however, because they require work to build up and maintain and atrophy relatively quickly when not used. They burn more energy than fat but are vital to our mobility. Not feeding the body properly will result in the body breaking down muscle in order to provide necessary energy to the vital organs in order to survive.
Now, think about the last 24 months. The economy has been starving businesses. Recently, we’ve seen a little burst of energy from the economy – but it’s not feeding businesses with any consistency yet. When it comes to hiring, businesses are being cautious because they’re not sure if we’re really out of the woods yet. They have felt starved for so long and, while pleased to be fed, they are unsure when the next meal is coming. So rather than investing heavily in hiring, i.e. feeding the muscles, they are conserving the energy being reintroduced into the system and storing it, i.e. investing in fixed assets and other safer investments to keep the business’s vital “organs” functioning. Until businesses no longer feel starved, they will continue to store and be extremely cautious about investing in the “muscle” again.
I wish there were a good prediction for when things will turn around completely, but at least now it’s easier to understand why hiring is still slow to pick up even with things looking brighter this year than they did last year.
It’s basic nature!
William Tincup was featured recently in John Sumser’s Top 100 Influencers, which is a running series that Sumser is doing on recruiting and HR professionals who have made an impact in our industry. While Tincup isn’t a recruiting agency guy, he is a self-employed professional services guy, just like many of you. Tincup, along with Bret Starr, co-founded their company Starr Tincup in November of 2000. Starr Tincup is a marketing consultancy that serves the recruiting and HR community. He has been responsible for building the company brand, including the website, book (Try Not To F&ck This Up), direct marketing, email marketing, event strategy, social media strategy, and so forth. Tincup has been known (affectionately? notoriously?) throughout the recruiting and HR community for his low-brow sense of humor, colorful language, and yet his approachability and willingness to have conversations about his work and his thoughts on business and marketing strategy.
Recently, he fell out of love with his work and decided to move on.
At this point, you may be wondering “What does this have to do with me? This guy’s a marketer; I’m a recruiting professional!” I promise – there is a good point to all of this.
Falling out of love with one’s work is common. We’ve all had days where we’ve sworn that if we get on the phone with one more rude person or if one more client tries to cheap out on paying a fee, we’re through. Of course, few are the time when we actually follow through on those threats. But that thought is still lingering in the back of our minds – “Is this all really worth it?”
William Tincup’s story struck me because he detailed the reasons he decided to throw in the towel. He stopped believing in the outsourced marketing services business model. He was frustrated with the double standards applied to his efforts vs. in-house marketers’ efforts. He became annoyed that, as an external service provider, his status was constantly being threatened by these ridiculous standards. And the final straw for him, as he states:
“…the realization that over the course of 10 years in the game I might of [sic] been told “thank you” seven or eight times. I (read: my firm) changed lives, changed destinies, built lasting brands, created market share, created real value, got people promoted, etc, etc. Yeah, I know – payment for services rendered was my thanks. Yeah, well, that wasn’t enough.”
I would be very surprised if just about every person reading this article hasn’t struggled with at least one of these issues at some point during your professional recruiting career. Who hasn’t felt like the red-headed stepchild at least once when working with a difficult client? Who hasn’t been held to some crazy standards as an external recruiter that an internal employee would never be held to? And who hasn’t wished that once, just once, someone would thank them for all of the amazing talent they’ve helped shepherd in to an organization?
When you really fall out of love with your work, how do you know when it’s time to say “Enough!” and leave before you become bitter? Is it just a bad case of the Mondays, or is this a recurring gut feeling that just will not go away? How do you get past the rut and fall back in love with what you do? Weigh in with your thoughts in the comments below. Sharing your experience might just save someone from calling it quits!
I know many of you enjoy occasionally sidling up to the poker table to play a little Texas Hold’Em. There’s something about bluffing your opponents with a crappy hand and still managing to win the pot that is thrilling to anyone. The best poker players in the world know how to mask their ‘tells’ and read other people like a book. It’s this in-person interaction that makes the game enjoyable, challenging, and rewarding.
The World Series of Poker began in 1970, but poker has been around for much longer. Some trace its roots back to a 15th century German game called Pochspiel. Others liken it to a Persian game called Nas, recorded around the turn of the 20th century. One of the more commonly accepted stories is that the game of poker originated in the mid-1700s and was played widely throughout the Mississippi River region by 1800. Games were played by groups of men sitting around small tables, trying to convince each other that they had the best hand through bluffing and betting. Social skills were an important aspect of playing the game successfully – one had to know how to read his opponents in order to, as Kenny Rogers puts so eloquently, “know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em.”
In 1998, the game changed with the launch of Planet Poker, the first internet poker room. People no longer had to play face-to-face and could challenge virtual opponents. The ‘tell’ factor was all but eliminated since players no longer had to worry about wearing a poker face when playing online. In 2004, a man named Chris Moneymaker (yes, that is his real name!) turned the world of poker upside down when he won the World Series of Poker. Moneymaker was the first person to become a world champion by qualifying at an online poker site. This ignited the world of online poker and produced what the industry called “the Moneymaker Effect”.
However, traditional poker players say that those who play mostly online never get very far in live tournaments because playing live poker allows players to interact with each other, whereas online poker has very little social interaction. You’re limited to faceless chatting with those who choose to engage you. Not exactly the nice social experience that many players enjoy in live casinos. 42-year poker veteran and award-winning author Ashley Adams writes:
“There’s often a negative impact on one’s bottom line because of this loss of personal interaction. Getting to know people is one effective way of learning about and manipulating their behavior. If you make friends with the player to your left, I’ve found, he’s less likely to play aggressively against me. This in turn is very useful when it comes to getting a read on them when they are playing – as you try to figure out the hands they have and how you can play against them. Since this information is not available to you when you play on line, if you are good at building relationships with players in the card room, you’ll be depriving yourself of this profitable and, for many, pleasurable activity.”
Online poker has brought a lot to the game. But it cannot replace the live experience. It has involved more and more people by making it easily accessible, but the true test of skill is when one is placed face to face with other players staring across the table, trying to read tells and predict moves.
This same thought process is true with the boom of online recruiting. Sure, information on people is readily available on a multitude of websites. Sure, it’s easy to reach out to someone on Twitter, through Facebook, or via a LinkedIn Inmail. Sure, you can make ‘friends’ easily by making social network connections. Sure, you can take someone virtually through almost the entire hiring process. But how fleeting are those ‘relationships’ really? Do your new online connections really know you? Or more importantly, do you really know them?
Let’s face it – in the grand scheme of things, we never achieve anything of significance without other people being involved. And arguably, true relationships, both business and in person, become solidified when offline interaction is established. Even if this interaction is only over the phone – it humanizes us to our clients, candidates, and colleagues. How many times have you won business because of an existing relationship you had with someone, even though your competitor may have charged a lower fee? By sitting at the table with our hand and learning the tells of our colleagues and clients, we develop personal relationships with them. We understand their personalities and learn to predict their moves. When ‘relationships’ are strictly virtual, it’s much harder, if not impossible, to determine these things.
No matter how many ‘poker sites’, i.e. social networks, job boards, and other online resources, continue to pop up, there is nothing that will replace the time-tested phone call or handshake. These online social technologies are merely communication portals, not to be mistaken for replacements of basic human interaction skills. Those who will win and be prosperous at the game of recruiting are those who acknowledge the usefulness of these tools as time progresses, but who will never forget the importance of sitting down at the table and getting dealt in.
There are several recruiting lessons to be learned from the bomb that LeBron James dropped on Cleveland late last night about his departure to the Miami Heat. Before we get into those lessons, let’s take a quick look at some of the highlights of LeBron’s NBA career with the Cavs:
- 2003: selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers as the first overall pick in the NBA Draft; signed a three-year, $12.9 million contract
- 2004: named 2003–04 NBA Rookie of the Year
- 2004-2005: selected to his first NBA All-Star Game
- 2005-2006: named as one of the candidates for the NBA Most Valuable Player Award
- 2006: negotiated a three-year, $60 million contract extension, with a player option for a fourth year, to begin in the 2007-2008 season
- 2007-2008: won the 2008 All-Star Game MVP
- 2008-2009: wins NBA Most Valuable Player award
- 2009-2010: wins 2nd NBA Most Valuable Player award
- July 2010: contract with Cleveland expires; becomes a free agent, meets formally with the New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, and New Jersey Nets
Make no mistake about it; this guy is Talented. With a capital “T”. But it takes more than one guy to make a team, as Cleveland has surely learned. Just a couple of lessons to glean from this entire situation:
Don’t build your kingdom around one person. Whether you are hiring people for your office or assisting clients in their hiring needs, it’s important not to rely solely on one individual. For example: if you have a superstar candidate lined up to interview with a client, make sure you have others to present as well who are also excellent players. Remember – clients’ needs will vary and someone who might not seem to be the best candidate could turn out to be exactly what they’re looking for. Think of it this way – ever heard of a guy named Shaquille O’Neal? Yeah – he was also a Cleveland Cavalier last season (this is bound to change).
The best players aren’t always the right players. Think of the quote from Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle: “I’m not looking for the best players, Craig. I’m looking for the right ones.” In the seven years that James has been with the Cavs, he still has yet to win an NBA Championship. Sure, they’ve made it to the Playoffs five times, but as any winner will tell you, the ultimate prize is winning it all. When placing or hiring “A” players, it is important to take this into consideration. They may be a superstar, but is their working style going to mesh with your client’s company? When you’re hiring for yourself, these are also things to consider. For the Cavs, perhaps losing LeBron will be the best thing for the team as a whole. Only time will tell.
Money isn’t the only motivator. There is a billboard near Quicken Loans Arena that says, “Born Here. Raised Here. Plays Here. Stays Here.” Cleveland has been reminding James of his roots for quite some time now to encourage him to stay. He makes a lot of money, but as with most people who play at his level, sometimes the biggest motivators don’t have a dollar sign attached to them. In a Bloomberg Businessweek article written in June, Arizona State University president Michael M. Crow is quoted saying, “A world-class athlete is fundamentally no different than a world-class scientist…They are interested in finding a way to express everything that they have without limit so that they can gain recognition.” Recognition, proximity to family/friends, recreation, creative freedom, and so forth are all motivators that don’t necessarily have pricetags attached to them but can be huge deciding factors when working with candidates.
There will always be new (and better?) talent coming up. When your superstar candidate decides to take an offer elsewhere, it is disappointing for sure. But keep in mind the old cliche that there are always other fish in the sea. James is not the only talented player in the NBA. He’s also not the last of the talent available out there – just look at the guys coming up from this year’s draft. Superstars come into their own all the time, which is why it’s always a good idea to track careers of promising individuals and take an interest in them early on. They will remember your interest as they become successful which could mean placements, referrals, and/or new clients for you.
What other recruiting lessons do you think can be learned from LeBron’s departure? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
At the Fordyce Forum in Las Vegas earlier this month, it was announced that I would be taking over the duties of Editor for The Fordyce Letter from Elaine Rigoli, who will remain tied to ERE Media and Fordyce as a business writer. It dawned on me that after returning from the Forum, the news was never shared here. My apologies — I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to the readers of The Fordyce Letter and tell you how honored I am to be part of the history and tradition of this publication.
I am a graduate of the University of Florida, and I recently moved across the country and live in northwestern Washington state. I started my career as an Internet researcher in Jon Bartos‘ office, JSI, in West Chester (Cincinnati), Ohio. I spent four years working for Jon, and I remember some of the first resources I was provided with to learn about the recruiting business were old copies of The Fordyce Letter. I learned all of the basics of recruiting while I worked for Jon.
After leaving JSI, I joined Tom Johnston and SearchPath International, a recruiting franchisor. I was the manager of Internet research with Tom’s company, and I helped to train the new SearchPath recruitment franchise business owners. Topics I trained on included database usage, Internet research, and business/personal marketing through social media channels. I learned great lessons on working independently while at SearchPath, since I telecommuted during the time I was employed there, as well as client relations since I worked with up to 50 franchise owners at one point.
After SearchPath, I joined Waggener Edstrom, a global public relations agency based in Seattle, as a sourcing strategist. While there I helped to build Waggener’s digital employment brand by extending its reach through multiple social media channels. I also had opportunities to work on several international projects which helped me to understand many of the differences in recruiting practices around the world.
Most recently, I worked as a talent attraction manager with AT&T. I sourced for high volume retail, call center, and network openings and also worked on many social media strategies to further develop AT&T’s digital employment brand. I was one of the voices behind the @attJOBS Twitter account as well as the College Connection Facebook fan page. At AT&T, I learned how to function within a very large corporation (over 300k employees) as well as how to execute digital strategies for an already well-established brand.
In 2006, I started a blog, originally called SPI Research, now called Research Goddess. I write about Internet research, sourcing, and social media and how recruiting benefits from the use of each of these resources. I’ve been quoted and/or published in some well-known print and online publications, including AdAge, Mashable, and of course The Fordyce Letter’s print publication. I was even recently featured in a regional publication, the Northwest Business Monthly Magazine, as a ‘Rising Star’ in the Pacific Northwest.
Each of my professional experiences over the last eight years l has helped to prepare me for this role as editor for The Fordyce Letter. I have worked in both agency and corporate recruiting organizations for small, mid-sized, and large businesses alike. I’ve developed good relationships with many of you and look forward to getting to know those of you who I haven’t yet met. And, of course, I am thrilled to be part of the grand tradition that has surrounded The Fordyce Letter for the past three decades.
Having ‘cut my teeth’ on recruiting with The Fordyce Letter as one of my favorite training resources, I respect its history and the importance it has had in the search and placement world. The Fordyce Letter is the only publication of its kind that caters specifically to your industry; other publications certainly cover external recruiting to some extent, but Fordyce is the only publication designed specifically for you. I am excited to be part of continuing this tradition in addition to adding more value to it with the website and the Fordyce Forum. I welcome any ideas you would like to share about continuing to make Fordyce a valuable resource to search professionals. Thank you for your continued support of Fordyce and I am looking forward to working with you!
