My dad was a clockmaker to trade. Pretty much the only useful business advice I got from him was that most people just want their clocks to tell the right time and not to be furnished with a detailed explanation of how a fusee works (although it is quite interesting). Based on his lead, I’ve tended not to say much about my trade because I’ve made the judgement that my clients don’t care.
In the nearly 20 years since I told my last employer to go screw themselves, I haven’t bothered much about the goings-on in the “trade”. When I set Snedden Campbell up my founding principles were essentially to remember how I’d seen other people do recruiting over the previous 15 years and then not do it that way.
However, the course of events over the last year or so has gradually persuaded me that maybe its time to get some things out in the open because they clearly do matter to my present and future clients.
There are longer stories to tell but for now, the summary is that:
I’m indebted to my friend Darren Ledger, a recruiter of some experience, for inspiring me on this. In summary, his opinion is that a lot of the recruiter discussion on public forums isn’t very funny.
In essence, we present ourselves as a trade in which incompetence and crass mismanagement is tolerated indeed accepted as part of life.
In short, I’m starting to care how other people run their recruitment businesses because their incompetence clearly has an effect on mine…thoughts anyone?