The Mystery of the Shroud

Experiments conducted by scientists at the University of Padua in northern Italy have dated the Shroud of Turin to ancient times, a few centuries before and after the life of Christ. Many Catholics believe that the 14ft-long linen cloth, which bears the imprint of the face and body of a bearded man, was used to bury Christ's body when he was lifted down from the cross after being crucified 2,000 years ago.

The analysis is published in a new book, "Il Mistero della Sindone" or The Mystery of the Shroud, by Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at Padua University, and Saverio Gaeta, a journalist. The tests will revive the debate about the true origins of one of Christianity's most prized but mysterious relics and are likely to be hotly contested by sceptics. Scientists, including Prof Fanti, used infra-red light and spectroscopy – the measurement of radiation intensity through wavelengths – to analyse fibres from the shroud, which is kept in a special climate-controlled case in Turin. The tests dated the age of the shroud to between 300 BC and 400AD.

Scientists have never been able to explain how the image of a man's body, complete with nail wounds to his wrists and feet, pinpricks from thorns around his forehead and a spear wound to his chest, could have formed on the cloth. Mr Fanti said the imprint was caused by a blast of “exceptional radiation”, although he stopped short of describing it as a miracle.

(from an article written by Nick Squires, Rome Correspondent for The Telegraph Mar 28, 2013)

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"Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions,he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him,and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray,each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53: 4-6

March Madness, Swagger and Pass the Ammunition.

The best thing about Spring time in Texas is Spring Football. We’ve heard of basketball, but it appears to be mostly unknown to us, at least to the boys. The fact that not one Texas based men’s team made the NCAA Tournament says a lot about men’s basketball in the Lone Star State these days. Great high school basketball players go where great college basketball is played. And today, when it comes to the men’s game, that’s not in Texas. So the great Texas high school basketball players (and there are quite a few) end up playing elsewhere. As with most things which make us unhappy down here we choose to blame the exodus of native Texas basketball talent on Obama. (Just one more reason to secede.)

Men’s college basketball may be dead in Texas, but that doesn’t stop me from filling out a bracket. My final four consist of only one #1 seed: Louisville. Then I’ve got a #3, Marquette and two #2’s Georgetown and Ohio State. I’ve got Louisville beating Marquette for the National Championship. Marquette barely won their first round game vs Davidson, so that pick is looking pretty weak. But, I’m a Texan. What do I know about basketball?

We Texans also like guns better than basketball. Specifically we like shooting guns and as of late that joy has been somewhat restrained due to the lack of ammunition. Bullets are hard to come by. (And no surprise; folks around here blame the shortage on Obama).
I’m inclined to give the President a “pass” on this one. I know people who are in a panic; buying guns and ammo like crazy. I’m on the record supporting tighter guns controls and limits on magazine capacity. My friends and neighbors look at me suspiciously, but I just tell them that I am a good shot and don’t need all of that extra fire power. However, my patience has been tested as of late when I could not even find .22 magnum rounds. My weapons arsenal includes a .22 mag revolver and a .22 mag lever action rifle. Fun and inexpensive shooting with enough power to take down a ‘yote at short distance.
I’m not sure what’s driving a shortage of .22 magnum ammo. It’s not exactly your big boy “take-down-the-bad-guy” load. (Which I have more than covered with a .357 magnum, two 12-gauge shotguns and a couple of deer rifles, .243 and .30-06.) But someone has been buying up the .22 mag ammo and creating a shortage. So I finally found some on-line and purchased the seller’s limit per buyer which was 100 rounds. Then a few days later I get an email advising me that they could sell me 500 rounds. Sold, I’ll take them. So, I’m feeling pretty good about my volume ammo purchase when I realize that I have become the problem. I might shoot 50 rounds in a month’s time if I’m really bored and in the mood to shoot. Sometimes I don’t fire one shot for weeks. I now have over 600 rounds of .22 magnums. Anybody need some? I’ll cut you a deal.

Lastly, my Texas Tech Red Raiders start Spring Football Practice today and if you pay any attention at all to college football, you know that our new coach is “hotter than your coach”, or at least that’s what the pink t-shirts say. Kliff Kingsbury is 33 years old, single and not a bad looking guy. He is a Tech alum and was Mike Leach’s first uber-passer in Lubbock. He’s got swagger. (I for one think swagger is so 2012 and may not survive 2013…can’t wait to see what replaces that word. I wish we would go back to using “uber”. That’s it…uber-swagger. He’s got uber-swagger.). Our Coach K wears rolled up jeans, skinny ties, and Oakley sunglasses while sporting a two or three day old growth of facial hair that always looks perfect. He tweets and uses phrases like “street cred”. Last year, as an offensive coordinator, he coached Johnny Manziel, the Heisman Trophy winner over at the Texas pig farmers and sheep lovers agricultural and mechanical institute. We are glad that our Coach K did not lose his swagger by staying there too long and has returned to the cool school where kids drink and fornicate in the shadow of Buddy Holly’s statue. In a few months we’ll see if he really can coach football. And if wins 10 or more games, I may even wear one of those pink t-shirts.

Next time, I promise to organize my thoughts and produce something more worthwhile and relevant to our journey in this life … or maybe even headhunting.

You Go Business Pro…You Go.

I no longer travel well. I used to be a good at it. Always had my travel stuff ready to go and knew how to navigate “the system”. But these days I don’t travel much. So I no longer need a lot of travel stuff. When I do travel, it’s a major process of packing and preparing with lists of “stuff” I need to take on the trip. It takes me twice as long to pack and I end up taking twice as much stuff as I would have when I traveled regularly.

And the travel itself is tedious. I do not have a lot of points nor any priority status, so I don’t get to board with the “big boys” anymore. I even have to pay extra to get a less claustrophobic seating assignment. It takes longer to get through security. The planes are more crowded. Everything costs more money. Most of the people you deal with barely speak English or if they do it’s mumbling, fast-talk, no-eye contact kid speak. I just hand them my credit card and ID. Otherwise, I do not respond until they speak intelligibly.

This week I attended the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) Convention in Las Vegas and it was painful. Convention business travel is near the top of my worst list. Las Vegas convention travel is second worst only to any place in Florida. And if one is an exhibitor, it only adds to the pain. And the pain started before I even left DFW. Since I live in the boondocks, I have a 75 mile trip to the airport. But it is Saturday morning… no traffic, no problem. I’m pounding down coffee and stop to take a whiz before entering the no-man’s land of off-site parking/shuttle bus service. After relieving myself and purchasing a pack of gum (just hate to pee and run), I return to my Dodge Ram (yes I drive a pick-up with a big V-8 hemi engine…so sue me). I look down and see what I think is a large piece of gravel in the treads of my left rear tire. Being ever vigilant, I check it out and see that it’s actually the head of a large screw that is embedded into the tire. Shit. So I go ahead and park the car and begin the process of making arrangements to get the tire changed while I am gone. Of course, the locks on the wheel require special keys and the highest level national security clearance to unlock. All of which makes arranging for a simple tire change just slightly less complicated than putting a man on the moon. The old guy driving the shuttle van takes note of my dilemma and offers all sorts of useless advice such as avoiding construction areas in the future which would pretty much restrict all travel to my driveway. Ultimately I just give up and like any good husband decide to let my wife take care of the tire problem.

Fortunately there are no long lines at the airport and I have a relatively hassle free flight to Las Vegas. From there things go downhill. The convention is at The Wynn. The Wynn is nice enough, the rooms affordable at the convention rate. But they kill you on food and beverage. It’s just crazy. My room is not ready, so I decide to check out the exhibit area. Turns out that the exhibit is so far removed from the meeting rooms and more importantly the casino, that the only people likely to show up are those who are lost or looking for free water. This is not going to be good.

I get a text advising me that my room is ready. After tipping the bellman (I think this is the third tip and I’ve been here less than two hours), he shows me how to turn on the lights, cool the room and open the drapes via the high tech control panels conveniently located near my king-sized bed. The bellman/ room operations instructor reminds me that the water and goodies in the mini-bar/pantry are charged automatically if I pick them up for more than 60 seconds. Seriously?

I then decide to lay down for a quick nap and the doorbell rings (yes, I have a doorbell on my Wynn room.) It’s housekeeping wanting to know if everything is ok. When I say it would be very much ok if they would just leave me alone and let me sleep, she ask if no one showed me how to use the “privacy please” button on the room control panel. I confessed that I was so enamored with the automated drape and light control buttons that I blew right past the privacy please option.

After wandering around the casino and donating $20 to Steve Wynn via a slot machine, I try to find a reasonably priced placed to eat. Such an establishment does not exist on this property, so I end up paying $40 for a bowl of pasta and $7 for domestic beer. I can’t afford to stay awake; literally I cannot financially afford to stay awake at this place, so I go back to the room. I watch some TV (the free channels) and then it’s lights out, or so I thought. Turns out that the gadget control panels (there are two of them) have incredibly powerful backlighting. The room is only slightly less bright than the Strip outside my window. In addition to the bright lights I hear explosions as the Treasure Island pirate ship gets blown up one more time. Shit.

So I get up and put a towel over one of the control panels. The other takes more ingenuity. Luckily, and for no good reason, I have an almost used up roll of athletic tape in my shaving kit. Guess I was prepared to tape up my ankles or something. At any rate, I put it to good use taping over the wall mounted control panel. Now it is reasonably dark in the room other than the drapes which don’t quite close all of the way. So I get up again, manage to pull and tug, tape up and stack furniture against the drapes until at last the room is dark. I cram and twist my earplugs in and finally go to sleep.?

On Sunday, I get the booth set up quickly and then have nothing to do until late afternoon when the exhibit opens. I decide to kill time by walking up and down the strip watching people, which is far and away the most entertaining and least expensive way to spend time in Vegas. I also stroll through the “Shoppes” at the Wynn, Palazzo and Venetian. “Shoppes” must somehow translate to 1000% mark-up. Either that or it means a place where sugar daddies spend all of their money on women half their age. A Sunday spent watching this nonsense can do more for ones perspective than a hundred sermons.

The next morning I go to the free breakfast sponsored by CAT Scale which was interesting given the way people were piling food on their plates. Everyone was bitching about the cost of food at the Wynn, so they were loading up. Guys were stuffing bagels and Danish in their bags, grabbing extra bottles of water and pop. After eating about six eggs and nine pieces of bacon, I was ready to face the day along with the significantly increased probability of having a stroke or heart-attack.

The Exhibit was poorly attended. For the first time I can recall, there were no big trucks at the exhibit. How do you have a trucking convention and no trucks? Mostly, it was vendors talking to vendors while the trucking executives were off playing golf with truck manufacturers who have figured out that there are better ways to spend money than hauling a truck into an exhibit and having a bunch of guys stand around handing out pens and caps.

Tuesday’s free breakfast was sponsored by Great Dane Trailers…way to go Great Dane. Once again it was a feeding frenzy. Other than those lucky enough to have been entertained by the big truck manufacturers, everyone else acted like this was the first food they had seen since Monday’s free breakfast. The final day of the exhibit included lunch which turned out to be sliders, biscuit wrapped sausages, lemonade and cookies. Glad that my annual check-up is still several months away. Even on this day with free food, the exhibit attendance was so spotty that vendors were taking down their booths an hour before closing time and trying to catch earlier flights. (Hello TCA…can you hear me?)

I had an uneventful flight back to DFW (uneventful is always good). My wife had taken care of the tire issue, but in the process swapped out vehicles leaving her car in another space which totally confounded the shuttle driver. I finally convinced him to just let me off the frickin’ bus and I would get to my car. Getting out of the lot was an adventure as well. I explained to the attendant what had transpired with the tire and everything. But she was not buying it. I had to fill out three forms, show her my flight itinerary, registration and driver’s license. So don’t try to pull a fast one on Park ‘N Fly…they run a tight ship.

Finally with my hands on the wheel, I drive off into the night. Half way home I am far enough away from the city lights to see the stars in the clear Texas night sky. It’s a cool 38 degrees, but still I lower the window an inch or two to get some fresh air. I’m listening to George Strait sing about the things I would sing about if I could sing like George Strait. As I settle in for the rest of the ride home, I realize that in my frustration and haste to get off of the Park N' Fly bus, I left one of my bags behind. Shit. It really is true. I am no longer a good traveler. As for the bag I left behind…I think I’ll let my wife take care of it tomorrow.

“Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.” John Ed Pearce

The Changing World of Headhunting (Part III…continued). How it is impacting the Employer-Recruiter Relationship.

“The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken was involved; the pig was committed.”



I think the case has been made that technology has radically changed “headhunting”. The way candidates look for jobs has changed and the way employers look for candidates has changed. Headhunting just ain’t what it used to be. But there is still a place for third-party recruiters. To succeed they must be experts in their industry, develop long-term relationships with both candidates and clients and use their time wisely.

For me, the two critical keys in the Employer-Headhunter relationship are Commitment and Communication. If the client is truly committed to filling the position, committed to using my services AND is willing to communicate; we have a winner. If any of those are lacking, then it gets dicey. In the last blog entry I said that I would wrap up this series with a look at the different types of Employer-Headhunter relationships. For me there are four basic relationship types:

Low Commitment-Low Communication
Low Commitment-High Communication
High Commitment-Low Communication
High Commitment-High Communication

I do my best work in the High Commitment-High Communication quadrant. The other three are shaky at best. I would almost prefer dealing with a Low-Low where my expectations are also low and my investment of time and energy is equally low. The Low-High is the worst. The Low-High is big boots, big hat…no cattle. They tell you how great this opportunity is and how much they need an exceptional recruiter like you to find them just the right candidate and there will be more searches like this one in the future and on and on. You submit candidates and everyone gets excited. They interview, these are great candidates, you are doing a wonderful job, where have you been all of my life, hopefully we will make a final decision before the end of the month….and then it dies. You find out the hard way that they were not all that committed to filling the position in the first place, or at least not from the outside or certainly not if it includes paying a fee to a headhunter. Low-Highs are killers. On the other and, I can work with a High-Low. Not as good as a High-High, but if the commitment is there, I am willing to tolerate less than the best communication.

Writing this series on the Changing World of Headhunting has been an interesting exercise for me. A reader might conclude that I am pessimistic about Headhunting’s future. Actually, it’s just the opposite. I am optimistic. For the most part I think the changes have simply exposed more of the low hanging fruit in the job search-recruiting orchard. There will always be headhunters and candidates and employers looking to make things happen faster and cheaper. If one sees people as just another commodity to be traded in the marketplace, then perhaps faster-cheaper is the logical approach. But when it comes to making long-term investments in people, faster-cheaper is not necessarily better. I believe that candidates and employers who are investors, not just traders, will continue to partner with those headhunters who know how to find good investments.

The Changing World of Headhunting (Part III)…How it is impacting the Employer-Recruiter Relationship.

Dialogue from the movie "Dumb and Dumber"

Lloyd: What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me... ending up together?
Mary: Well, Lloyd, that's difficult to say. I mean, we don't really...
Lloyd: Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came a long way just to see you, Mary. The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?
Mary: I'd say more like one out of a million.
[pause]
Lloyd: So you're telling me there's a chance...YEAH !





Over the past few weeks I have written about how much the job search process has changed. It is now much easier for candidates to find jobs and it is much easier for employers to find candidates. This very fundamental component of recruiting…the finding or sourcing of candidates is no longer all that difficult. As a result, the Employer-Recruiter Relationship is changing.

For purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that we are talking about contingency fee based recruiting. In other words the headhunter only gets paid if he places one of his or her candidates with the employer. For a contingency search firm the most attractive search assignments are those which are confidential, the employer is not trying to fill it themselves and no other search firms are working on it. The reality is that for many years, search firms would accept searches that were not confidential or the company was trying to fill it on their own or there were other search firms working on it. We always asked qualifying questions and if the position had been too widely publicized and/or multiple firms had been working it for some time, then it probably wasn’t worth the effort. Most search firms took that approach and most companies understood that’s how it worked. If the employer had just run an ad or two for a couple of weeks and perhaps did some “networking” within the industry, search firms were more confident that they did have a reasonable shot at filling the position and would take it.

Today it’s different. When we ask the question: “What have you done to fill that position?” and they reply “Well, not much. We have not advertised it. It is on our website and we have only done a little networking,”… what does that really mean? Often times it means that their website posting is drawing hundreds of responses. Their “networking” may have included a message on LinkedIn or Facebook to a few thousand of their closest friends regarding their need to fill this position. Therefore, the additional questions headhunters must ask today include: “How many responses have you had thus far?” “How many candidates are you considering?” “How many have you interviewed?” “Have you extended offers to anyone?” And depending on the answers to those questions one then has to ask, “Why haven’t you been able to fill the position?” “What’s the problem?”

The reality is that increasingly, employers are just “kicking tires” when they decide to use a contingency search firm. It is a no-cost, low-risk option that simply adds to the thoroughness of their recruiting process. When their boss ask the question, “Are you sure that we have found the best person for the job?” they can respond with a long list of activities and resources which have been utilized in the process. Clearly, employers still have a very good reason for using contingency search firms… as long as they don’t have to pay them.

The other reality is that in many industries there is a shortage of talent. This is certainly the case in our specialty, Transportation & Logistics. Along with this talent shortage, there is a considerable gap between what employers expect to pay for talent and what that talent expects to be paid. If relocation is involved, the pool of qualified, “affordable” talent dries up very quickly. As a result, many employers are putting forth a lot of effort trying to fill positions and may even use multiple search firms. Over the past year, we have had more calls than ever from employers who are unable to fill positions, even after multiple job board postings, direct recruiting on their own or using other search firms.

Do we take on the search and if so, how much effort do we make on it? If we don’t take the search or take it and make a poor showing, what message does that send to the company? Especially given the number of eager beaver headhunters who are willing to waste their time working on dead-end searches just to get their foot in the door. The answer is that if the position is in the core of our practice and it is likely that we have candidates or can quickly find candidates who are a match, we’ll give it a shot. Worst case, we strengthen our relationship with the company. Better yet, we find a candidate or two who will fit future searches. Best case, and frankly a long-shot, is that we actually fill the position. YEAH !

So what does the Employer-Headhunter Relationship look like going forward? Well, obviously it depends on the employer and the headhunter. And I think circumstances and the history of the relationship will define the future relationship. Next week, we’ll wrap up the Changing World of Headhunting series by looking at the different types of Employer-Headhunter Relationships we see in today’s market.

The Changing World of Headhunting (Part II … continued). How it is impacting the Candidate-Recruiter Relationship.

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

Last time I described how much things have changed when it comes to the availability of information about candidates and job opportunities. So what does this mean for Candidates and how does it impact the Candidate-Recruiter relationship?

For the most part, the changes are positive for candidates. If you so choose, you can be found by a lot of employers and search firms. If you so choose, you can receive vast amounts of information regarding job opportunities that meet your specific criteria. But, there is a downside to all of this transparency. Everyone has the information. Many do not know how to use the information. And some will use the information against you.

So we see job postings generating hundreds or even thousands of responses. If yours happens to be one of them, good luck getting noticed. It has become such an issue that we now include language in our agreements with employers to the effect that if we submit a candidate who is already in the employer’s database, but not “active”, that candidate is ours and we are due a fee if they decide to hire the candidate. We’ve gotten some pushback from clients, but it does open the conversation regarding the fact that they are so overwhelmed with information that they don’t even know what they have in their own database. Some large employers with aggressive in-house recruiting operations are actually “linking” with candidates and creating records in their applicant tracking systems (ATS) based on LinkIn data or other online information. They often fail to notice qualified candidates right in their own database, but will claim that they “already have the candidate” when a search firm submits that candidate for a specific opportunity. Bastards.

Increasingly I hear complaints from candidates who say they have responded to job postings for which they are clearly a match, but never even get an acknowledgement, much less an interview. In some instances, the candidate has been overlooked. But in others, they just did not appear to be as good a match as some of the others who responded. The more competition you have for a position, the tougher it is to stand out. Sometimes it simply comes down to which keywords the ATS is looking for or perhaps an entry level HR person has been instructed to give priority to those candidates who have worked for XYZ company or held certain job titles. Welcome to the jungle.

Then there is the fact that your current employer can see your online activity. I would not call it a trend yet, but over the past year I’ve spoken with candidates who have reported being questioned by their employers regarding their LinkedIn activity. “Hey, I see that you’re connecting with some headhunters and/or competitors. Are you looking to leave?” As a result, some candidates are dropping out of the “social network” or significantly edited their online profiles. Again, it’s not yet a trend, but I think as the economy improves and companies put more effort toward retaining their best talent, there will be more discussions about online “self marketing” and job hunting.

So how is all of this impacting the Candidate-Headhunter relationship? First of all, search firms are starting to seriously evaluate how much time they invest with candidates who are “over-exposed”. Candidates are going to have to pick their poison. They can be all over the internet with a big network, responding to everything and everyone, hacking through “the jungle” so to speak; or they can be more selective. This is not to say that a search firm will not recruit you, or accept your resume or submit you for an opportunity even if you are “over-exposed”. We’ll take the shot where it makes sense and sometimes we’ll be successful. But, we cannot afford to invest a lot of time with candidates who are power-shopping the online job market. Ultimately, search firms are paid to source, evaluate, recruit and negotiate the employment of candidates with their client companies. To the extent that companies can do this on their own without using a search firm, that is exactly what those companies will do.

If I were a candidate these days, what would I do? It depends. Assuming that you are employed and wish to maintain some level of discretion, I would avoid putting too much out there. I think it does make sense to have a presence on LinkedIn with enough information that you will be identified for job opportunities, either by companies or search firms. It’s probably ok to have your personal email address on the profile. I would not list a phone number nor would I indicate an interest in “career opportunities”. I would not post my resume on line. Be like Fonzie. Be cool. Also be cautious about responding to inquiries whether they come from headhunters or directly from employers. Make sure that you know the who, what, where and why of the inquiry. Regarding relationships with search firms, I would limit it to no more than three. Pick firms that work in your industry and routinely fill positions that would be of interest to you. Work with reputable firms you can trust. Build long-term relationships by being open, honest and offering to help with referrals and recommendations.

If you are unemployed, then you have to get more aggressive. This is where search firms are becoming less of a factor. We don’t find jobs for people. We find people to fill jobs with our client companies. However, if you are a senior level executive, I still think it pays to be like Fonzie. Be cool, even if you are unemployed. If you get over-exposed too quickly, most search firms will ignore you. And many higher-level positions are still “under the radar’ being worked by search firms. When I am included in a blast email where someone is sending their resume to dozens of search firms or “undisclosed recipients”, I usually just hit the delete button. My guess is that most experienced headhunters do like wise.

Next time, we will look at what this changing world of headhunting means for Employers and the Employer-Headhunter relationship.

The Changing World of Headhunting (Part II)…How it is Impacting the Candidate-Recruiter Relationship.

“The Crystal Wind is the storm, and the storm is data, and the data is life. You have been slaves, denied the storm, denied the freedom of your data. That is now ended; the whirlwind is upon you . . . . . . Whether you like it or not.”
― Daniel Keys Moran, The Long Run: A Tale of the Continuing Time


Once upon a time there were Active candidates and Passive candidates. Active candidates were those who were “actively” looking for a new job. Many were unemployed and looking for any job. Some were employed, but really unhappy, and looking for a better job. Passive candidates were not looking for jobs. In many cases they were not even interested in hearing about a job. If you were an employer needing to fill a position, you ran ads and/or used a search firm. You might also work your limited network or dig though a file of old resumes. But the truth was that many of the best candidates were passive. They were not going to respond to ads and most of them were not in your professional “network”. Even the pool of active candidates was tough to cover. It took time for ads to be published and those ads had to be seen by the candidates. Then there was response time. Maybe a phone call or a fax, but mostly via old-fashioned mail service. It was a slow process.

Once upon a time, search firms had much better networks than employers. Passive candidates had relationships with one or two trusted search firms and that was about it. Employers seldom if ever directly recruited passive candidates. If employers wanted to really open the box and see all of the talent that was out there, it made a lot of sense to use a search firm. If a passive candidate wanted to be presented with specific types of opportunities in a manner that was safe and confidential, working with a headhunter made a lot of sense for them as well. Even active candidates were channeled through search firms. Employers found it difficult to reach them all and the active candidates had no way of knowing about many of the job opportunities. Headhunters spent a lot of time on the phone and touched a lot of paper. It was a slow process. But, in the end, it was a pretty sweet deal for the headhunters.

As noted in my previous blog entry, times have changed. The job search/recruiting process has gone digital and, for the most part, is totally transparent. Today’s passive candidate may not be responding to job postings, but their professional profile is out there on LinkIn and they are gladly accepting “Inmails” about new career opportunities. Assuming someone has written up a decent description of the position, a ten year old kid can pump out messages to prospective candidates. Getting the word out about jobs is easy. Finding people looking for career opportunities is easy. Does “easy” work? Sometimes it does. At least, often enough that it is changing the way search firms operate and add value.

So what does this mean for Candidates and how has it impacted the Candidate-Recruiter relationship? The answer to those questions and more next week.