The Operator's Blog

Being a good networker with access to many people in all levels, and practices like having your profile on LinkedIn are an important part of being a good operator.  It takes some effort and you need to contribute to the network consistently, whether sharing information, or, making connections between people, but when you need it and ask for it, people in the network will give you the information you need.  And, it will be much more reliable than any resume data a candidate will ever provide you.  Part of my work as a turn-around operator is helping my clients find managers - either while I am doing it, or after I am done - to take over the operation when I leave.  Above a certain level, I always check out people that pass the initial screening with my network.  Generally people that take the time to respond to an inquiry have strong opinions one way or the other. The majority of times people will call me and tell me what a great person that executive is or share some additional contacts I can call.  That info is usually supporting of a hiring decision/recommendation almost locked in. 

However, in at least half a dozen cases over the last few years, I avoided making a bad recommendation because of the feedback I received from my LinkedIn network on those particular executives.  In those few cases the feedback was anything but flattering.  In the worst case the feedback not only did it not match the public reputation, the resume, or even the perfunctory recommendation the previous company gave, it was downright ugly.  That was the case of an IT executive who had been in three companies as CIO over the course of ten years and was considered a high flier by many in the region. After a couple of interviews, my client was considering him for a CIO role in a division we had just finished re-structuring so I decided to check him out.  When I discreetly asked my network for feedback it came back so negative I thought they were talking about a different person.  It turns out this CIO had an amazing ability to get credit for work other people did before he got the job, raising his visibility in the business community, and then launching his next position right as things he set in motion and managed badly were starting to fall apart, usually about two years into his tenure.  People who called me to give me their perception of this person came from all levels of the organization (Programmers to VP’s) and used words such as incompetent, snake-oil salesman, backstabbing SOB, inept, brown noser, etc., words you will never find in any resume.  Ouch!  Needless to say, I asked my client for more time and started over.

As far as recruiters go, they do indeed use LinkedIn and other social networking sites to search for talent. I personally know at least two dozen internal HR recruiters, independents and small firms, as well as partners in large retained professional recruiting firms who use LinkedIn to search for talent, check references, and gather info about potential candidates just like good operators do. I do not know anyone who found a job through a recruiter through LinkedIn (less than 10% of open positions are filled by recruiters anyway), but the potential is there.  I do know quite a few people who found positions through members of LinkedIn (generally managers and executives) looking for recommendations from the network for positions they are trying to fill without a recruiter (the majority of mid to senior management positions).

Even though some recruiters deserve their bad reputation, I think people forget that professional recruiters look for candidates for companies looking for candidates, not for jobs for people looking for jobs. Recruiters get paid by their client companies to find candidates, and not by the candidates to find them a job, so they focus, rightfully so, on their clients requirements. Also, many times they are limited to finding "square pegs for square holes" because their clients give them tight parameters for what they are looking for (down to the title a person should have on their resume) and they don't have much time to be creative or work with people that do not fit the criteria as closely as possible, or people whom they would have to repackage to get through the clients initial screens. There are some executive level recruiters, usually operators who retired into a recruiting role, who have enough experience and carry enough weight with their clients who can design job descriptions and can see past the checkboxes to find people from other industries, or with a similar but not exact backgrounds and experience.  Unfortunately, those recruiters are the exception rather than the rule.

So here is my funny experience from last week. A recruiter called me curious to find out why I was recommended to him by three different financial services company executives for a President position for a servicing company in the financial industry. In his "reading of the resume" he could not find any relevant experience other than my consulting engagements with a financial services company, and that did not carry a title that matched the “title requirements” his client gave him. After I stopped laughing, I asked him to call the President of that company (who was my client and who I directly reported to) and ask him what my title would have been if I was an internal executive. His response was that if it was not on the resume, he could not present it to his client. How funny….

Now, I will assume he will, at some point, read this blog or my LinkedIn response, so let me make sure I explain that I honestly understand his dilemma and I am not sure I would have done differently if I was in his shoes. In order to present me as a candidate, he would have to do more work and more selling, compared to finding an executive from a services firm that had the COO title in his resume. It would have been easy for me to call my clients in the financial services industry and ask one of them to call the CEO of the company and recommend me directly, or find another contact to that CEO through my LinkedIn friends, but the job did not pay enough for me to give up my consulting practice anyway, so I let it go. The lesson is nevertheless the same. Professional recruiters look for candidates that fit a specific profile for a specific job at a specific client; not for jobs for people who are looking for a job.