Recruitment Dilemma: Who Would You Leave Behind?

Frank Zappa – “Art is making something out of nothing and selling it”

Here’s the situation. You’re an owner of a highly successful Recruitment Company, and from out of nowhere a highly trained team of assassins burst into your office, pin you to the floor and put a gun to your head. You may live, but only if you choose to completely obliterate one half of your database. Either it will be your candidate information, or your client information. Which one do you choose?

Perhaps I’ve been playing Call of Duty too much, but when this question was originally proposed to me by manager, I had to back track to square one to figure it out.

Let us move to another analogy. Look at this strapping young gentleman above, he looks like a hardcore salesman. Now, I imagine his business plan looks something like this:

• Find quality ingredients: lemons, sugar, carbonated water etc.
• Create quality lemonade
• Build cute/feminine lemonade stand
• Find clientele and sell lemonade
• Make some serious dollar

Imagine again that a team of highly trained assassins jumped over his lemonade stand counter and held a gun to his head, I’m sure he would scrap his clientele and keep the quality lemonade. The reason being, if he was standing there on the street looking cute with a sign saying “Lemonade 25¢” but couldn’t sell any lemonade, he would look like bit of a tool and actually deter future business.

As a Recruitment Consultant you are your own business.

You metaphorically find your own ingredients (candidates), create quality lemonade (preparation of CV’s and interviews), build a stand (social media, your office, your phone and any coffee shop with tables and chairs) and find your own clientele. Network with the best possible candidates within your vertical and you will become an invaluable resource to your clients’.

So, the answer to the question, keep your candidates!

PS, I’m very thirsty after writing this blog…