The 21 Best Reasons to Work With a Headhunter (Part 2)

If you are the Hiring Authority….

4: Client Confidentiality. There are a lot of good reasons not to broadcast that you are trying to fill a key position. The obvious one is that you have someone in the position who you need to replace, but you do not want this person to know about it. But there are other less obvious situations. For example, you are promoting or transferring someone. They know about it and are excited about the advancement opportunity. But you do not want to stir up your organization (or the competition) by going to the market with a publicized search. Another example is the organization in “transition”. I’m being polite. What I could say is that your organization has had a hard time “getting it right” and you’ve gone through a lot of management changes. There is a point at which candidates just won’t even consider responding to an ad from “that company” because they are always looking for people. If you don’t want to become “that company” consider keeping some of your searches confidential.

5: Targeted search. If you know exactly what you want there are a lot of advantages to using a search firm. Your personal network will always be option number one. But if that does not yield the right candidate, using a search firm to drill into specific competitors for specific talent is the next best option.


6: Expertise. A well-connected search firm that specializes in an industry or functional discipline will deliver more highly qualified candidates than you will get from running ads or networking.
The operative words being “highly qualified”. You can find a lot of candidates and fill jobs without using a search firm. No question, most jobs do get filled without using a search firm. And most of the time it doesn’t matter that much so why pay a bunch of money to a search firm? (Bet you never expected to hear that from a headhunter). But when it does matter and you need to see the best in order to hire the best (even if the best one ultimately does not come from the search firm), then you owe to yourself to use a search firm.


7: Bottom Line Impact. What’s the difference between an “8” and a “10”? Well, it depends on the position. How much does it matter? If it is a moderately high impact position it is easily in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. If it is a significantly high impact position, then it’s in the millions. Think about your business and the impact your best people have on the bottom line. Why would you not make every effort to hire the best people?

Next Week: Part 3

The 21 Best Reasons to Work With a Headhunter (Part 1)

1: Headhunters develop relationships with company hiring authorities. As an individual you may have a good professional network. If you don’t, then you need to start working on it. But, no matter how hard you work at “networking” you will never be as plugged into career opportunities as a well-connected headhunter who specializes in your industry or profession.

2: Headhunters develop relationships with talented candidates. No matter how good your resume looks or how many social networks you join, you are dancing in the dark when it comes to finding the best opportunities. You may find a job or a job may find you, but you have no way of knowing the jobs you are missing by not having a strong relationship with a headhunter who has strong relationships with hiring authorities.

3: Candidate Confidentiality. You may think there is an upside to your current employer finding your resume posted on a job board or noting on your Linked In profile that you are interested in “career opportunities”. In fact, there may be some upside here. You might have a boss who will reach out to you. You might get a hug, a promotion and a big raise. But I wouldn’t count on it. Most likely, nothing will happen. At least as far you know. But you may get put on the unofficial “watch list”. Back in the day (before the internet), the watch list consisted of people who were always reading the “help wanted” ads in the newspaper, or in Transport Topics or in the Journal of Commerce. Combine reading the “want ads” with comments about how much more money people got paid over at Brand X, and you really started to let the air out of your career tires. The same dynamic is in play today, it’s just gone digital.

Stay below the radar. Develop a relationship with a headhunter whom you can trust and whose clients are likely to offer the desired career opportunities. I would even say it’s ok to develop relationships with two or three headhunters where it makes sense.

Next week Part 2 of the 21 Best Reasons….

Risky Business

I have always been fascinated by the way we humans make decisions. As I look at the BP disaster in the Gulf, I see a familiar model of decision making. I call it the “Big Reward-What are the Odds” model. It works like this. When people believe there is an achievable, large reward in the near term, they tend to underestimate the downside risks. And the lower the probability of a specific downside risk, the more they tend to underestimate the consequences of even the most disastrous potential outcomes.

So what does this have to do with you and your career? A lot if you tend to be a big risk taker. Now there’s nothing wrong with taking risks. This nation was founded by folks who put it all on the line. Business involves risks. All great endeavors start out with someone who is willing to take risks. But when you accept risk, you must be honest about the potential outcomes. Our founding fathers had no illusions about the consequences of failure. Benjamin Franklin assessed their situation correctly when he said, “We must hang together gentleman, or we will most assuredly hang separately”.

Now back to your career choices. Let’s say you are a salaried sales person working for a well-established company. Your base salary is $ 85,000, you get a car (nothing fancy) and if you do well and the company does well you might get a $10,000 bonus. You are reasonably satisfied, but see no long-term future with this company and would like to make more money. You get a call from a headhunter and he tells you about this great opportunity with a growing, progressive company. The base salary is about the same as what you’re making now, they offer a large car allowance and here’s the kicker…their incentive plan pays you for your performance. Realistically, you should make $50,000-100,000 just on the incentive and if you’re a super star it could be double that.

You start doing the math and get excited. You can see yourself making over $200,000 a year. You decide to go for it and end up getting the job. “Big Reward-What are the Odds”. Once you are on board you discover that the new company does not support its product (or service) very well in your market. This is going to be tougher than you thought and it’s going to take some time. Then your boss tells you that if you are not generating a certain level of revenue within 90 days, they will have to cut your salary. I could go on with the downward spiral, but you know the story. Ultimately you get canned.

What went wrong? You got hooked on the “Big Reward” and failed to answer the “What are the Odds?” question. To go one step further you did not seriously consider the consequences of failure.

Recommendation: When that so-called great opportunity comes your way, think first about the likelihood and consequences of failure and work from there. Do the same with your current situation. If I stay, what’s the worst that could happen and how likely is that? And don’t get caught in the “either or” trap. Your current situation may not be a good one, but don’t jump to a worse one just for the sake of change. Look for something better and be patient. Know what you’ve got, know what you want and know what it will look like when it comes along.

Purple Hearts and Roses

Last year I had the privilege of attending an event which honored wounded veterans from our community. My own father, long since passed away, was a WWII veteran who was wounded in action. So this event had special meaning for me, especially when his name was read. In honor of these heroes I wrote “Purple Hearts and Roses”.

They gathered at the Methodist Church.
To honor and read those names.
It is the Heart that brings them together
The Heart, it is all that remains.
.
They wear their wars on their faces.
Every battle, some won and some lost.
These people know the truth about fighting,
For they have paid the costs.

The greatest generation sits up front.
Old men, some waiting to die.
Fears once felt again remembered,
Yet courage still fills their eyes.

They read the names of the departed.
And place a rose for the fallen Heart.
Each drop of blood is sacred
Each rose sets them apart.

They play “Taps” at the Methodist Church.
A salute to the dead and the dying.
Purple Hearts stand together in silence
With roses these Hearts are crying.

Creativity and Being

According to a new survey of 1500 CEO’s conducted by IBM’s Institute of Business Value, creativity was identified as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future. Creativity… that’s nice. I wonder what these CEO’s really mean by creativity, especially in the context of business leadership. Creativity can mean a lot of things: innovation, new ideas, new approaches, invention, or the worn-out phrase “thinking outside of the box”. But rest assured, when a CEO talks about “creativity” they mean doing things differently or doing different things which will increase the value of the enterprise. Here’s the challenge: creativity in business always requires change and change is mostly resisted, not embraced. From my experience in the transportation industry, both as a manager and now as a headhunter, creativity can be a slippery slope for those first in line with new ideas.

So how does one go about creating and implementing new ways of providing transportation, logistics or supply chain management services? First of all, understand that in this space, it’s about execution and efficiency. Nothing says it clearer than Better, Faster, Cheaper. (Cheaper has always bothered me, so let’s say “of more value”.) Think about some of the game changing, creative innovations and business models which have revolutionized the way we move stuff: Containers, stack trains, the Interstate highway system, the Fed Ex model for moving parcels and small packages, the Wal-Mart logistics model for retail, just to name a few. The ways technology is being applied to everything from equipment operation, to inventory management, to freight network optimization. Someone sometime had the idea and the vision and the drive to make these things happen. In some cases, it was someone else’s idea and someone else’s vision and perhaps even some other one’s drive that ultimately brought about the new way of doing business. But the common thread here is that the new way is Better, Faster and “of more value”.

If you have new ideas about how to design, package, purchase, sell, handle, pick-up, transport, inventory, distribute, deliver and/or install stuff; always put that new idea to the test. Is it better, is it faster and, more importantly, is it of more value to my customer than the way we do it now? And all of that still doesn’t get it done, unless you can sell it to the decision-makers and stakeholders. New ideas take time, resources and support (financial and otherwise). Thinking creative is easy. Being creative…now that is the hard part.

Will you still need me? Will you still feed me?

A recent study noted that during this decade, in the United States, the 65-74 age group will grow by 44% and the 55-64 age group by 40%. The pool of people 45-54 will drop by 8% and the 35-44 group by 4%. Those of us who are in (or will soon be in) the older groups expect to work longer. We have for some time. Either we cannot afford to retire or we do not want to retire. Whatever the case, the reality is that our economy cannot afford for us to retire. This is not just an issue of Social Security and Medicare running out of money. It's an issue of who's going to do the work? And can the older folks do the work that needs to be done? As a work force, what skills are needed and who has those skills? We can talk about older folks working longer, but if they do not have the requisite skills, it's a moot point.
And while at a macro level younger people may understand that our economy needs these older workers, at the personal level a younger worker would just as soon see the old folks step aside. Especially if the old folks are ahead of them. My sense is that many older workers will stay in the workforce, but will be forced into low pay, low skill jobs. If you are, or are soon to be, an older worker, my advice is to figure out what you want to do and prepare to do it. If that means going back to school or learning new skills, start now. We can't all be Wal-Mart greeters.

Keeping it Negative

I am a pessimist by nature. In the darkest days of the Great Recession of '08-'09, I took consolation in the fact I had predicted (as I always predict) that hard times were coming. However, by the end of 2009 against my nature, I was somewhat optimistic.
I actually thought we would see an economic turnaround. I even made the mistake of saying so and then, as if to remind me of my rightful place under the dark cloud of negative thinking, January and February turned out to be like most Januarys and Februarys...cold and economically unspectacular. By mid-March, I was convinced that 2010 would be flat at best. We were still at least a year away from a rebound. Time to hunker down and gut it out.
Then something began to happen. Business improved. Demand for our customers' services increased...a lot. Suddenly, there is a shortage of capacity. There are opportunities to get rate increases. Our customers are actually starting to hire people. They are even willing to use search firms again. The clouds have parted, the sun is shining, happy days are here again....
But I'm not falling for it. I know that it's just temporary. Something will happen. Oil will go to $200 a barrel. Inflation will go crazy. Another "bubble" will burst. Whatever it turns out to be, Murphy's Law will prevail, things will go wrong and all will suffer. Now having lowered my expectations and returned to my natural state of pessimism, I can enjoy the economic recovery knowing that it too shall pass.