When Recruiters Speak, Candidates Listen

To say that we get questions from our members on a daily basis would be an understatement; we get them by the minute both by phone and/or via email. We don’t mind, it comes with the territory, and indeed, as a membership organization we encourage it. So the volume is not what surprises me, just the reverse in fact, it pleases me. What surprises me, even after nearly 18 years of involvement is that the number one question, bar none, has always revolved around relationships with recruiters.

The next understatement would be that the questions that we get on the subject of relationships with recruiters are purely based on simple intellectual curiosity. Not, as my British friends would say, "bloody likely." Most of the time, they are questions filled with passion and fueled by frustration.

Number one on the frustration list is "Why does it seem like I never hear back from these SOB’s?" There are, of course, all sorts of answers, including the fact that the same social spectrum in which people reside outside of the recruiting world, also exists within it. Simply, there are people who are discourteous and unprofessional on both the recruiter side and the candidate side of the career aspiration equation.

Given the emotionally charged atmosphere that surrounds the ongoing relationship between candidates and recruiters, it should not have been surprising to me that when we offered up a

Web based FastTrack program featuring Naples Florida based recruiter Dave Dart, Managing Partner of the Morisey Dart Group,that it would produce more than just passing interest as indeed it did.

What made the program special wasn't so much that Dave provided the audience with real insights into the world of executive recruitment, although for sure his sincere and candid style opened many eyes. No, what made it special was Dart's understanding of the frustration that many candidates feel both because of the perception many executives have of the search world, which is compounded by the lack of knowledge that they bring to the relationship. Dave's answer to this challenge was a commitment from the start of the program that he was prepared to stay online until the audience had no further questions, no matter how long that was and he did just that.

For more than an hour Dave answered questions from right and left field, as well as those where people were throwing curve balls. He answered them all, and in doing so, Dart put a lot of points on the board for the search community as well as himself. His audience appreciated it, and so did we for his having invested the time to give people a chance to meet and talk with a recruiter, as Howard Cosel used to say, "Up close and personal."