HR and the meat market
Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 3:29PM Last week, few minutes into a presentation to a prospect, I was asked by the HR of a GSM operator if we could send them some of the more "interesting CV's" we have in our database. They would then pay us a fee if they would contact anyone in the CV's provided, within 6 to 9 months after submission.
It was clear the HR buyer assumed to go through another "been there done that" type of presentation, and decided to cut to the chase.
A question why an experienced HR is confused between Executive Search and Job Boards led to a pointed discussion as who we are and what value Executive Search delivers. In return they stressed several times that what occured was an unfortunate "misunderstanding".
By coincidence the same day, a senior and well known executive whom I met earlier that week, asked me if by any chance I had send her CV to that particular company. I told her we never send CV's to prospects or clients, and we only share candidate data with explicit approval from the individual in question. She was incensed to learn out her CV was submitted without her permission by a firm who heard she was "in the market".
She was angry because rightfully she wanted to keep control of her privacy while evaluating and choosing opportunities herself.
The company chasing CV's missed an opportunity because they lost out on a valuable senior talent, the search firm that send out the CV will never be considered for future business by that executive.
Job boards hold hundreds of thousands of CV's, and offer againts a payment access to that repository. However, such a vault of CV's does not offer solutions to an employee churn and attrition rate that vastly exceeds that of the combined competition, negative cashflow, market share erosion and an unclear, confusing corporate image. Those problems are tackled by the right managers, usually brought in by Executive Search firms; and who are consulting partners into genuine, effective and lasting solutions.
This was the grist of my argument to the HR employee: We're not a meat market.
Reader Comments (2)
Thanks for inspiration