You never know if you don’t know your audience

 A few weeks ago I was invited for a business event in Amsterdam. I walked around to see if I could spot familiar faces, people I knew. I noticed a small group and I joined them since that was the spot for the drinks and snacks. If you know me that is where you can find me. Before I could even introduce myself there was one individual in the group expressing his very clear and negative opinion about headhunters and executive search firms. He went on and on and became more negative by the minute.

I just listened; maybe I could learn from this “presentation”.

About a month later I had a meeting at our N2Growth office in Rotterdam. I studied the resume of the candidate, but the resume did not have a picture.When I picked up the candidate at the reception I recognized his face although I could not immediately place him. He told me he lost his job and was looking for another opportunity. I remembered him from the business event in Amsterdam. I told him he looked familiar and explained I was at the event in Amsterdam and I asked him his opinion about executive search firms and headhunters. He immediately understood I was in that group, and I could see his blood pressure went up ,…..Yes, this was not a nice thing to do by me but I could not resist.

Before you publicly express your negative opinion about a business – a group of professionals or any other topic, always know your audience as you might meet or need them at a later point in time in your career or business.We continued our meeting and we both had a good laugh and he found another position a bit later.

He wrote me a kind thank you note about a lesson learned and he became a valued client of our firm. At N2Growth we do not just place candidates for our clients: We always do something extra.