Blessed Be The Middlemen. They Are The Icebreakers.
“Hi, my name is Maureen Sharib, and you don’t know me."
"No, I don’t,” came the cold, stiff response.
“I’m calling to ask if I might have three minutes of your time. I promise I won’t take more than that,” I say.
Sometimes, when my mind’s not right, it feels like begging.
“You got it.”
More frost.
“I’m in the United States and this is kind of complicated so I need you to listen carefully to what I’m saying. I’m calling to see if you would have an interest in talking to a Recruiter in Canada about a General Manager position in a new mine located in a very harsh environment in the Congo for probably close to twice the money you are earning now.”
I say it slowly like I would to a child so he can follow my words.
“Can you hold on a minute?” came the suddenly warmer, more interested response.
I hear what sounds like a muffled receiver and a call to someone with some instructions and I hear “close the door.” Things on the other end seem to quiet down.
“You got my attention.”
I realize I do and I take the interview to the next level and the conversation lasts longer than the three minutes I promised not to take and, as it turns out he probably wasn’t the one but, as the saga continued one other most certainly was and as any successful recruiter reading this recognizes the genre…
Somebody has to do it.
Somebody has to be the one who makes that uncomfortable first call and – no way around it – this uncomfortable first call – is, and always has been - a recruiting call.
It’s hard.
It’s hard to get your mind right and sit down and pick up the telephone and dial those numbers and have a stranger answer on the other end and – and -
It’s scary.
It’s probably the one thing in your organization the least amount of people want to do.
It’s the thing that can bring your organization results in the least amount of time.
It should be the thing that is most richly rewarded.
Why isn’t it?
***
Thanks for reading my post.
I train people how to use the telephone.
Call me.
Maureen Sharib
maureen at techtrak.com
Phone Sleuther
TechTrak
513 646 7306
Headhunter/Agent
9 年Pleased to have you as a work contact; glad to follow you..
Very experienced international Recruitment leader for SMEs; HR Advisor; SME Non-Executive Director; Associations sector professional
9 年This is one of the reasons I've always had a not so secret dislike for many of the snooty and over-priced Search companies. Their "Partners" or whatever word they are using today take all the acclaim for the latest CEO placement etc, when actually it is the foot soldier, the Researcher (in-house or outsourced) who actually does all the hard work - usually in exactly the way you describe. I hope I've always had the humility to put credit where it is due.
Fractional HR & Recruitment / Community Builder / Podcast Host / Startup Advisor
9 年When is the book coming out? I want to buy the advanced copy! Phone Sleuth and Master Word Smith!!!
??Recruitment/talent/people/workforce acquisition evolutionary/strategist/manager ??Workforce/talent acquisition strategy to execution development/improvement, innovation, enthusiast ??
9 年Just as always.... beautiful (meaning; resonating, making sense, being relevant, and saying it as it is and need to be said) BRAVO