I am in my 43rd year of recruiting .. something only a dozen or less of the (once 30,000) recruiters
in this country can say. I live it. I breathe it. I think it unconsciously and unconsciously compulsively !
I have come to some conclusions which I hope to share with the gate keepers of American Industry
and they are:

1. Increasingly relations with recruiters and all suppliers will become increasingly impersonal.

2. The days of 'getting to know' your agent, recruiter, and 'having lunch' are long gone and likely forever.

3. The belief that "In order to do business with someone "we have to like them" will become
increasingly archaic, obsolete and invalid, and fail to be sufficient to generate world class
candidates from the most qualified capable recruiters , anywhere...

4. The ABILITY to do business with a recruiter or supplier will depend on the ability to very
quickly establish the recruiters track record, and the ability to very rapidly and very accurately
verify his or her credentials, his/her resources, tools, insights, contacts, memory,
and his/her ability to provide a 'Bulls Eye' candidate on very short notice.

5. The number of recruiters nationwide whom have anywhere near my record of consistency
of contact with, at the scope & magnitude of contacts I've maintained with over 30,000 +
individuals via email over the last decade you can number on one hand .. & have a couple
of fingers left over !

6. Regrettably, even that type of effort will likely diminish in the foreseeable future.. only because..
as and when this markets recovery begins to take shape.. the demands on the time of anyone..
( let alone me.. ) will preclude the number of emails I have made to clients whom really want to hire,
because as few as a dozen assignments will occupy me full time.. and I'll be spending all disposable
time on them, and sending job specs to prospective contacts I have in my archives, some of with whom
I may not have had any contact for as long as a decade..

7. The time which a gatekeeper will have to make a decision will decrease from several weeks
(Nov 2010) down to several days.. and by 2015 (or sooner) to hours.. as the more seasoned or
mature gatekeepers make faster decisions, and make more liberal $$ offers to candidates whose
technical or leadership talents may be in very short supply as " the good ones" get snapped up quickly.

8. It will become very competitive for gatekeepers to find and be able even to engage recruiters with
the tools, resources, contacts, time, tools, and insights which make them capable of finding world
class candidates, and in fact..

9. Recruitment will become a more global activity.. with successful firms being willing to consider candidates
from any other country on the planet, whose native language is the same as that spoken in their company.

10. Corporate cultures will become increasingly dissolute, disparate, and the challenges of keeping most
of your employees on the same page, making comparable personal efforts to move in the same direction
at the same speed, towards the same objective, with the same energy and resolve.. will be a major
challenge .. certainly in this country.

11. Bi-Lingualism and Tri-Lingualism will become commonplace among a majority of employees, with
English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, and Vietnamese will be in evidence.

Comments welcome of course.