To our Fellow Recruiters – Let’s Stop Embarrassing Ourselves

I read an article on Next Montreal (a Montreal source of all things tech) and it left me with a feeling of overwhelming sadness. The article is entitled “Looking Back on my Year of Recruiting” and you can find it here.

The article was written by someone who spent under a year working in recruitment, so clearly no time to understand an industry or become proficient in it. He found no passion for it and is now off to look for the next challenge and hopefully find himself professionally. That is all understandable.

What I found odd, however, is that a recruitment firm chose to actually sponsor this article. An article in which the only words written in capital letters are “Recruitment”, “You” and … “Money”.  Hardly classy.

Let’s be honest. The recruitment industry does not have the best reputation and is known for treating corporate clients and job seekers as commodity. According to this article, recruitment is a “numbers game”. Apparently, in order to be a successful recruiter, you just have to make a whole lot of phone calls. Well, when you lack in quality (ie: strategy and analysis) you can certainly try making up in quantity. What happens in a “numbers game”, however, is that at the end of the day your contacts are reduced to feeling like actual numbers.

When you feel “irritated”, “aggravated” and “disheartened” in your job and your only motivators are “economic gratification”, “potential income”, “commission obtained with placements”, or a “generous check from your client”, it sounds truly unfortunate. Who in their right mind would want to be part of a field that is reduced to something this shallow?

It is obvious that successful recruiters operate with a completely different set of values, goals and aspirations.  A recruiter’s reputation, LinkedIn endorsements (or lack thereof) and longevity in the field are all testaments to that. It is nonetheless embarrassing to read articles that play so well into the unattractive and old-school stereotype of what the recruitment field used to be generations ago.

Fellow recruiters, you do make our lives easier by allowing us to shine in comparison. We would much rather, however, shine among super stars.