2009. My onboarding in Boston as Director of Talent Acquisition, EMEA, for Covidien (now Medtronic), with my boss and mentor, Mark Streifer.
I have this love-hate relationship with Recruiting.
After over 20 years in Talent Acquisition, I got away from it, but now it keeps creeping back up on me. There is so much noise from frustrated job seekers. Recently an ex-colleague of mine told me that she found out only at the last interview (of a long series) that the job she was interviewing for was actually a one-day-a-week-job… And this is only one of many bad stories that make my recruiter heart sink.
Recruiting is a tough place to be
Recruiters always have the short end of the stick. It can be a very ungrateful job. Externally, because they are the ones facing the candidates, they are responsible for all the misery candidates go through. Internally, when candidates flow and jobs get filled, it’s all good and expected. When jobs remain open for too long, “Recruiting” is always to blame. No mention of unresponsive hiring managers, painful ATS that cost more time than they save, and streamlined processes than get blissfully ignored. And of course, the legendary Q4 Hiring Freeze, a wonderful invention from CFOs that turns Recruiters into a commodity. The seat at the table is hard to get, and hard to keep.
Let me tell you my love story
Recruiters have super powers. They are more influential than you think. How many deep conversations have we had with candidates about their ambitions, their vision, their passions, their doubts, the impact of a new job on their family… and how many have we guided in their decision to remain in a process, to try another path, to accept an offer or not? And how many leaders have we coached in becoming better at assessing people and making great hiring decisions? Beyond extraordinary scouting and matchmaking, we impact business results, and most importantly, we change lives.
Announcing Spark: Transition Excellence
Job hunting is nobody’s core skill. We scramble into it. There are no professional job seekers. Most of the times, we figure it out on the fly, because the rules are a moving target, and so are we.
For those of you who read my Bastille Day newsletter, I had my very own Revolution. After having been a Recruiter, a global TA leader, a Hiring Manager, a Head Hunter, I am adding on to zscala and bringing Talent Acquisition back. From a new angle.
I put together my Recruiting expertise and my passion for working alongside high impact leaders. And I created Spark: Transition Excellence. Spark is an accelerated 10-week Candidate University for leaders looking for their next big role. An intensive coaching and mentoring experience that will give you the tools, the confidence, the strategy, and the community to multiply your chances to land that role quickly. First cohort, promotional fee, launching Sep 8. Check it out. And share with someone stuck who would need this.
