Headhunter FAQ’s & Musings

When being hired by companies to fill jobs, I ask the hiring manager the following three questions:

• Why should someone work for you?
• What sets you apart from our competition?
• What do you provide our workforce that is unique?

Often these questions irritate the individual I am working with because they cannot understand why anyone would not want to come to work for their company, but these three questions are very important, especially if the company is trying to fill a very skill/education specific position. Candidates today are searching for more than just a pay check and being able to answer those questions will go a long way toward filling the position with the best candidates.

Many companies do not want to hire candidates who are out of work and only want to hire candidates who are gainfully employed, believing, sometime mistakenly that these are the best-of-the-best. If the company cannot answer these three basic questions, how can I or any other recruiter entice a someone to leave their job (better the devil you know than the one below). Before starting a job search or hiring someone to do a job search make sure you can answer these three questions.

I am often asked, “give me a list of companies that have used your third party recruiting services”. Very often this is a verbal request and I cannot remember them all so I am providing the following list of companies where we have placed candidates recently:

2003- Ecowater, Novapak, Cycle Plastics, Amcor, Community Health Partners, Randy Hanger, NCM in Iowa (custom inj molder)
2004- Quality Culvert, Entegris, Ecowater, GY Packaging, Desert Plastics
2005-Climatech, Vision Ease, Merrills Packaging, Zadepack, Entegris, Greystone
2006- Entegris,Al Morrell, CH Recycling, Brotex, Victor Plastics, Graham Packaging, Leon Plastics, Prairie Packaging, Trim-Lok, Advanced Composities
2007- Trim-Lok, Advanced Composites, Forte Products, Cascade Plastics, Flexsol, Dixie Poly Drum, Texas Extrusions, Lenco, Tupperware, Premier Plastics
2008- Water Gremlin, Rexnord, Cascade Plastics

Some of these companies are no longer in business (not our fault!) but it does provide a good representation of the type of companies we worked with over the last 26 years. The level of these placements range from a janitor (no one is more suprised that we placed an janitor than I am) to company presidents (not so suprising).

As a Third Party Recruiter for the Plastics Industry, I get a big kick reading postings and spam e-mails telling people how easy it is to make big bucks as a recruiter. The e-mails usually say the only tool one needs to earn $30,000 a month, as an executive recruiter, is a telephone and a list of companies the spamming company will provide at a nominal price. If recruiting was only so easy.

One of the most frustrating parts of being a Third Party, Technical or Executive Recruiter is trying to figure out who or what the company really wants to hire. Usually the higher the position in the company the harder it is for the company to accuately define the attributes and skills for the position they are trying to fill. Recently I worked with a company that was trying to start a new business in bio-degradable plastic film. The company told me initially that they wanted a salesperson with a lot of plastic film sales experience selling to the packaging industry. I gave them a couple of individuals that could fill that position rather well, they were interviewed and they liked one of the canidates well enought that they did reference and background checks. Then they decided they probably needed a Technical Manager with bio-degradable plastic film development experience. I gave them an individual who had all of the qualifications and he was interviewed. The company then decided a less experienced individual contributor with any plastic experience would probably be better. Again I presented a couple of candidates that met the new requirements but never received any feedback on the candidates and numerous attempts to contact the HR Manager I was working with went unanswered.

Unfortunately, a lot of people spent a lot of valuable time trying to fill a position that to the best of my knowledge was never filled. Candidates wasted their time traveling to a company that was not conveniently located, Human Resources had to set up several interview trips and performed reference checks, and the management people had to make themselves available to interview candidates. This does not even include the time three recruiting firms lost trying to find the company candidates and in the recruiting business time is truely money. This type of situation could be blamed on poor business planning, changing business environment, etc. because it was a new and somewhat difficult to define position. Whatever the reason for the time and effort lost trying to fill this position usually it can be avoided if the hiring manager honestly answers some basic questions before starting the job search.

1. Do we really have a job to fill or are putting the cart before the horse?

2. Do we know what we want or are we hoping that we will know when we see it?

3. Do we have a current accurate job description for the position we are trying to fill?

4. When we hire an individual what will success in the position look like?

5. What problems could a successful candidate solve?

6. What type of individal will fit our culture best?

7. Are we trying fill a position that requires two or three levels of skills e.g. Laboratory Worker, Salesperson, Tech Manager?

8. Are we trying to hire a strategic thinker to fill individual contributor role?

The next time Human Resources or a Third Party Recruiter cannot find you the right candidate ask yourself did I proactively answer the right questions. If you did, you have every right to kick ass and take names.

As a Third Party Recruiter for the Plastics Industry, I know paying money to third party recruiters is difficult for companies given the profit compression in the plastics industry from world wide competition. My question is, can you afford not to use third party recruiters, especially to find those talented workers?

WhenPlastics News asked “Is it harder or easier to hire talented workers today?” on July 31, 2006, the respondents stated:

• Harder – 77%
• No Change – 13%
• Easier

Fewer companies can afford to train candidates today’s market so it is hard not to think that hiring talented plastic manufacturing workers is only going to get more difficult.

We know that finding qualified personnel for the plastics industry is difficult — and that you may need a bit of help in that area right now. Have you wondered why that is? With internet sites boasting of “smart” searches and “targeted” ads, shouldn’t it be simple to find expert candidates? With the myriad of recruiting firms clamoring for your business, shouldn’t it be easy to find a recruiter to fill your requirements?

Well, the reality is that for some positions the job boards work great. For certain industry segments, just about any recruiter can find good candidates. But when the position requirements are a bit more restrictive; when the right person is more likely to be a passive candidate; when evaluating a candidate’s fit with your organization’s culture is significantly more important than matching up resumes with keyword checklists — then things get a little tougher. And in plastics, where the technical requirements for a position are usually process and very equipment specific, finding good people can be nearly impossible in today’s market.

Of course, you hate to spend money on a recruiter — especially when you know that you could find a good match yourself if you just had a bit more time. But extra time is hard to come by, job postings are pretty expensive in their own right, and even posting on a corporate web site carries the cost of wading through stacks of resumes. Even after filtering out the most promising resumes, you know that you’re not necessarily looking at the best candidates; just those that happen to be actively looking for new employment, and those that possess enough writing talent to convey a sense of their capabilities (whether real or imagined).

So, perhaps with some reluctance, you may decide that you need the services of a “plastics” recruiter. There are lots of plastics recruiters to choose from. If you do a search for “plastics recruiters” on Google, you’ll have no trouble finding them. Just to save you the trouble, here are links to six plastics recruiting firms we found on a recent search:

• Strane & Associates, Inc.
• Gros Plastics Recruiters
• Allan James Associates
• Lucas Group
• MyPlasticsRecruiter.com
• Eaton Associates

So, whom do you choose, and why in the would you choose Discovery Personnel instead? After all, each of these firms claim to know the industry. Most are members of industry organizations, such as the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) or the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI). They all claim to know where to find the best candidates, with access to the most complete databases, and unmatched industry insight. (Some of their websites look pretty nice, too.) So again, whom do you choose?

What makes Discovery Personnel unique is our experience in the plastics industry. For the last 24 years, we have recruited solely for the plastics industry. We are not just a branch of a larger recruiting organization. We know plastics, and we know it well. The recruiters in our office have manufacturing and management experience in plastics that most recruiting firms simply cannot provide. Most recruiting firms can find candidates with the job requirements provided by the hiring company but they lack the depth of plastics manufacturing experience to identify the intangibles that often make or break a new hire.

Confucius, in The Confucian Analects once said, “When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge. ” Not only do the Technicial Recruiters at Discovery Personnel know the hiring needs, processes, and the equipment used in the plastics industry, we know enough to know if we do not know something and we will work with our client firms and contacts in the industry to obtain the requisite knowledge to meet the needs of our client firms. The Technicial Recruiters in office just returned from the 2006 NPE show where we went to update ourselves on equipment, processes, suppliers, etc. , not to try to recruit. It is this commitment to the Plastics Industry that we believe places us step above the rest.

Lisa Carpenter, founding partner and President, has a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. After receiving her degree, she joined the Materials and Plastics Division of General Electric where she worked as a process engineer and supervised production in several facilities. Jim Heilman, Vice-President, earned a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and later an MBA from the University of Dayton. His 25-year manufacturing career encompassed the development and manufacture of containers, devices, and packages that were thermoformed, extruded, blown, cast, blow molded or injection molded, including stints as design manager, maintenance manager, and production manager.

Discovery Personnel has placed candidates ranging from CNC machine operators to CEOs. We’ve found talented individuals for companies hiring their first employee, and for Fortune 100 firms. When asked to perform a job search, we work with you to minimize your commitment to the search process so you can concentrate or more pressing business needs while meeting your organization’s staffing requirements. In addition to supporting your hiring needs through traditional recruiting methods, we also have the flexibility to provide recruiting support on a contract or hourly basis. Details can be determined and arranged on a case by case basis.

Discovery Personnel, Inc. takes every possible measure to be sure we are finding the right candidate for your company. We post positions at www.discoverypersonnel.com, on over 400 job boards, on the Top Echelon Network, which is the largest network of independent recruiters with over 1,400 recruiters, and with approximately 100 recruiters that specialize in recruiting for the plastics industry that are members of our informal network. Discovery Personnel, Inc. also has a database of over 7,000 candidates and of course we do the traditional recruiting thing; getting references and calling into companies that are not, and have not been, our client companies.

Companies looking to fill a new or replacement position within the company usually post a job description on their web site, run an advertisement in the local newspaper with an abreviated job description, or hire a third party recruiting firm (headhunter) to fill the position after giving them the job description. There is nothing wrong with providing candidates a job description, per se, but in order to run an effective job search the hiring company needs to provide more information to the job seekers and/or the third party recruiting firm(s). Information rarely included in the job description but often requested by job seekers includes:

“What will I get to do and will my contributions to the company be recognized?” (You would be suprised by how many job descriptions do not include an accurate description of the work that needs to be done)
“What will I earn?” ( I know job seekers should only be worried about the job and not the $ but to some people money is important and the word “competitive” just does not get it done)
“What are the benefits?” (An increasingly important issue for job seekers as benefits go the way of the dodo bird)
“What will I get to accomplish?” (Job seekers do not want to feel like a very small cog in the company drive train)
“Who will I be working with?” (Can be very important for younger job seekers looking for a mentor)
“Are there promotional opportunities in this position?” (Companies that have a policy and a record of promoting from within have a real advantage answering this question).
“What will I get to learn and is their any training provided?” (Very important for entry level job seekers)

Yes Virginia, according to the Mayo Clinic, workplace generation gaps do exist. This finding was published on the MayoClinic website on July 6, 2005. I will be referring to this article freguently.

As a 30 year veteran of the workplace with 16 years of that time spent (or misspent) in management, I have long believed that generation gaps exist in business, just as they do in all areas of life. One of the biggest mistakes I have seen companies make over the past few years is to totally disregard the generation gap issue when companies hire. I have seen companies hire 45 year olds to manage a groups of 25 year old workers, believing the older, and presumably wiser managers, will impart his or her wisdom on the group he or she is managing. I have also seen a company hire a 30 year old to manage a group of 50 plus year old workers believing he will “energize” the older workers. Both approaches are often receipes for disaster beause the consequences of hiring managers or supervisors to lead across large generation gaps in the workplace are not understood or they are ignored.

I learned about the generation gap the hard way when I became the Engineering Manager of the EZ PAINTR group of Newell Corporation. In my career, most of the individuals who reported to me were actually older than me and in retrospect, the “Traditionalist” (Born 1900 to 1945) as the MayoClinic.com article calls them were relatively easy to manage because of their loyalty and work ethic. Managing fellow “Baby Boomers” was also fairly easy because I could relate to them. Unfortunately, when I went to work for EZ PAINTR I was unprepared to manage Generation Xers (Born 1965 to 1980) even though I had a son who was born in 1967.

The MayoClinc.com article Workplace generation gap: Understand difference among colleagues defines Generation Xers as

“technologically savvy, having ushered in the era of vido games and personal computers during their formative years. But witnessing skyroceting divorce rates, their partents being laid off after years of dedicated service and challenges to the presidency, organized religion and big corporations instilled a sense of skepticism and distrust of institutions. Because they don’t expect employer loyalty, they see no problem changing jobs to advance professionally.”

I only wished some of the Generation Xers reporting to me would have had no problem changing jobs instead of using their positions only as a perceived springboard to further their career and run their personal lives. I read a magazine article during my management stint at EZ PAINTR that had a line that stuck with me, “Generation Xers are the biggest bunch of whiners in the history of mankind.” I really agreed with that statement back then since nothing I did seemed to positively motivated the Generation Xers. They were usually motivated to get as much time away from work as possible to work on their advanced degrees, go to the tanning booth, or work on their personal lives.

Mercifully, after two years with Newell my boss fired me. He said that I was not Newell material and that I did not relate well to my subordinates. I had met all of my management by objective goals and he even said that if he gave me my review it would have to be at least satisfactory. After getting over my initial shock of being fired after receiving outstanding reviews throughout my 20 year career, I felt very relieved. I also had to admit that I had not related well to my Generation Xer subordinates. To this day I am not totally sure why I had so much trouble relating to them and I did try. Suprisingly I have decided I was not firm enough with them. I should have fired some of them sooner than I did and forced them to meet me half way instead of responding to their demands most of the time. Now lets see how the Mayo Clinic Staff says I should have handled my Generation Xer staff.

“Be aware of the differences. Acknoledge that everyone is different your colleagues’ unique experiences influence their attitudes toward work.”

“Appreciate the strengths. Instead of harbouring frustration over differences, focus on the positive ttributes your co-workers possess.”

“Manage the differences effectively. Once you’ve acknowledged the differences and taken time to consider the strengths of your co-workers, find ways to interact with them that will be mutually beneficial.”

Obviously, the staff at the Mayo Clinic jotted down some warm an fuzzy strategies for dealing with the baby boomer/generation Xer conflicts but obviously they have never been in a management role. I was never able to “find ways to interact with them that will be mutually beneficial”. I’d welcome any emails that can shed some light on how baby boomers should manage generation Xers.

I personally believe generation Xers will have an easier time managing baby boomers than vice versa because baby boomers will put up with more from their managers that generation Xers will. Actually, the workplace strategies for generation Xers to use with baby boomers listed in the Mayo Clinic article, Workplace generation gap: Understand differences among colleagues, is quite good:

“Show respect. Acknowledge that you have less experience and can learn from them. You may be quite bright, but you can always learn something new.”

“Choose face-to-face conversations. Many baby boomers find e-mail or voice mail too impersonal and prefer speaking with someone face to face.”

“Give them your full attention. Multitasking may help you accomplish a lot during the day. However, if you’re typing away at an e-mail while your baby boomer colleague is talking to you about a project, chances are you’ll wind up at odds with that colleague. Giving you full attention at the times it’s needed actually may be more efficient in the long run.”

“Play the game.” Workplace plitics are a fact of life. As a generation Xer, you may be completely turned off by politics, but sometimes, you’ve just got to play the game. Gaby boomers are diplomatic and particularly adept at navigating politically charged environments.”

“Learn the corporate history. Unless you’ve been with a company since its inception, know that plenty of things transpired at the organization long vefore you set foot in the door. Find out what’s gone right and what’s gone wrong in the past – especially the lessons learned over the years. Nothing rankles a boby boomer more than a new employee who breezes in and wants to change things, with seemingly no thought given to what’s gone on before.”

The MayoClinic.com article goes on to talk about what they Millennials (Generation Yers?) Born between 1981 and 1999 and says:

“Millennials are eager to learn and enjoy questioning things. They’re confident and have high self-esteem. They’re collaborators and favor teamwork, having functioned in groups in school, organized sports and extracurricular activities from a very young age. They reject the notion that they have to stay within the rigid confines of a job description. Expect them to keep their career options open. As opposed to generation Xers who change jobs, millennials are more likely to make entire career changes or to build parallel career.”

I am not going to talk much about millennials because many in this generation are still in school. Some millennials have entered the workforce but the numbers are still to small to have had much of an impact yet. If you want to see some millenials in action, I recommend that you watch THE APPRENTICE where you can see them debase themselves while fighting over a bone that Donald Trump throws out. So much for the high self-esteem that the Mayo Clinic Staffers believe millenials have.

I have written this blog article more to raise questions than to answer them. I just want to point out that if a company is not careful when hiring, they can set managers up for failure. Just take care when hiring to insure that the new hire will fit not only the company culture but also mesh well with the generation they will be working with or managing.

I was asked a few days ago by one of my client companies, “how does Discovery Personnel find its candidates”? At first I was worried that the company might be trying to learn my hard learned secrets and then circumvent our services (just remember even paraniod people have enemies). After thinking about the question and realizing that the individual asking me the question was not the sinister type, I realized this was a very good question so I quickly sent her an email with an outline of how we go about finding candidates. Most recruiters use many of the methods Discovery Personnel uses so I thought writing a brief summary of how we recruit candidates might be worthwhile for companies considering using the services of a third party or executive recruiting firm.

Discovery Personnel usually starts the job search process by posting new jobs (but not all) on our web site at www.discoverypersonnel.com. We also post the position with the Top Echelon Network of independent recruiters, which is the largest network of independent recruiters in the United States. Discovery Personnel is a Preferred Member of the Top Echelon Network. Then the job is listed on approximately 400 job boards nationally and some internationally.

After posting the positions on all these sites we run a database search on our own database, which has over 17,000 qualified job seeker resumes, most having experience in the Plastics Industry. The candidates have responded to previous job openings, to our advertisements in plastic industry related magazines, are found by our spider that scours the internet for candidates, or from job seeker resume services such as ExecutiveResumes, ResumeRabbit, etc. After searching our database we search the Top Echelon Network Database which contains approximately 50,000 current and qualified candidate resumes. Recently we have started working with a large and rather well known outplacement service, McKenzie Scott Partners helping to place executives that are being outplaced.

In addition to all of these methods, we contact other recruiters who specialize in placing people in the plastics industry and request their help. Last but not least, Discovery Personnel utilizes the traditional method of calling into companies that our not our client companies to find those hard to find candidates who may not be looking at all.

Needless to say, we look at a lot of resumes and talk to a lot of job seekers before sending a half dozen, or so, targeted resumes to our client company. And then the fun begins…………….

I just read a very interesting article titled “Why We Hate HR” by the deputy editor of Fast Company, Inc. While I do not share the “Why We Hate HR” sentiment (I don’t believe in biting the hand that feeds me) I do believe it reinforces my last blog article by stating that the HR Department should contract out the hiring function (among others) so strategic issues can receive more attention. Just food for thought.

Before delving too deeply into the the subject of why companies should utilize third party recruiters, I want to confess that I am a third party recruiter (headhunter). I may be a bit biased, but I want to point out that as a hiring manager for 16 years, I have directly or indirectly retained the services of many headhunters to find engineers and technicians.

The most obvious reason for hiring a third party recruiter (or headhunter) is to save time and therefore, money (yes hiring a headhunter can be less expensive in the long run). Of course, everyone hates to spend money to obtain the services of a recruiter — especially when you know that you could find the perfect candidate, if you just had a bit more time. But extra time is hard to come by in this era of ever increasing job responsibilities and shrinking staffs. In this business era, the old “time is money” cliche was never more true.

Savings realized from retaining the services of third party recruiters are usually from hidden costs that are often hard to quantify. The most obvious potential cost saving is obtained by giving the human resources personnel more time to develop better programs to reduce benefit costs, provide more time to work more closely with managers and supervisors, develop programs to retain employees, increase the quality of sexual harrassment training courses, concentrate on diversity hiring, solve employee issues, etc. Quality of life and family issues might also improve for the HR personnel because they would not be expected to do telephone screenings from their homes in the evenings and weekends.

Another lost opportunity cost is due to hiring from a weak candidate pool. Time and other issues often force companies to use the historical methods of candidate searches; e.g. Help Wanted Ads in Newspapers, Job Boards such as Monster, and paying employees to recommend their friends. Unfortunately for hiring companies who use traditional recruiting methods, the best people (the top ten percent or so) are not looking for a job when the company is trying to hire. They are not looking at the Newspaper Help Wanted or Job Board Advertisements, and hiring the friends of individuals already working in the company reduces diversity in the hiring process. The hiring company is often left with a pool of candidates that are out of work (not always bad but sometimes questionable), disgruntled employees who might bring their bad attitudes with them, etc. but usually not the upper tier candidates you want in your organization. Of course some companies know they do not want or are not able to attract or keep top tier candidates (an issue for a future blog article).

There are usually a couple of reasons that Human Resources cannot find these hidden prospects. Developing a Rolodex or ACT database of potential candidates takes a lot of time. Calling into your competitor to recruit their employees can result in lawsuits or, at the very least, a tit-for-tat situation where they try to hire your employees.

Most Third Party Recruiters have a candidate database or access to candidate databases through associations of recruiters such as The Top Echelon Network, the National Personnel Associates Cooperative, Inc., etc. which have candidates not found on the job boards. Third party recruiters can also call into competitor’s companies with little (but not zero) chance of creating lawsuits. The Third Pary Recruiter can also be given a list of competing companies where they can “harvest” candidates.

The final lost opportunity cost is due to delays in the hiring process. Delaying hiring of employees to fill key positions can be a hidden cost that can actually be the largest and the hardest to identify. When I was an engineering manager, I often spent my employer’s hard earned money utilizing the services of a third party recruiter because of the need to fill a critical engineering position quickly. I could not afford to wait for the Human Resources Department to run advertisements and wait for weeks for responses (pre-Monster era). Very often not having that key engineer was costing the corporation tens of thousands of dollars per week in lost revenue because the launch of a key product or execution of a major cost reduction project was being delayed.

Let’s face it, hiring is usually relegated to catch-as-catch-can priority across all levels of the organization, not just Human Resources. Often the company that states “our employees are our greatest asset” is just as guilty about giving hiring too low a priority as the company that believes their employees are a pain in the ass but unfortunately cannot make the product(s) without them. Hiring a Third Party Recruiter can bring that urgency to the hiring process that is badly needed.

There are of course, other reasons to hire a headhunter and my next blog will deal with them. Just to keep the playing field even, a future blog posting will be “When Not To Hire Third Party Recruiters.”