I have finally decided (posted 20 July 2011) to address a major problem for the recruiting industry and
its gatekeepers. That being that most in their 30's and 40's have been raised on the Internet
and who have come to believe that somehow given its power. .that it is also capable of resolving
all their problems and solving any objective magically by some five finger exercise, including the
ability to automatically interview their jobseekers and make them offers and check their references
without anyone ever had the need to actually speak with any of them ?..

its somewhat like the Suntrust commercial now running where the couple wants to enter a
bank and speak with an informed professional to get some complex professional advice,
and are directed by a man out front who directs them to an ATM down the street, or to the
website for which he implies has any conceivable answer to any conceivable question....
as he laughs at in their faces at their naievete .. while a manager comes out and asks
" is theres a problem ??? There sure is and they are it !!

Ludicrous .. but that is the sad state of American gatekeepership, where HR managers
are clearly and patently indisposed to do anything which does NOT preclude receipt of their
next paycheck... which means that they do not EVER return emails. and GOD FORBID..
HAVE TO ACTUALLY SPEAK WITH A HUMAN!

I have left voice mails for HR managers with firms whom have hired from me
whose messages are . I'll get back to you as soon as possible.. ...
with not a single returned phone call of dozens by me... in over a decade..

The decades of its influence on the mindsets of most gatekeepers has been to isolate them from
social contact.. They therefore have severely diminished people contact and thus verbal skills,
intuitive people skills and the ability to read people and peoples intentions in the way I can
read a page of a book. They actually DREAD actually having to contemplate picking up the
phone and actually speaking with someone.

The reasons are abundantly clear. The extent of their verbal communications ability extends
all the way to WTF OMIG & BRB to their BFFs .. and their ability to string together a dozen
words in a complex and meaningful phrase is all but non existent. The significant impact of
minimal social skills is that THEY have almost ZERO patience.. and like my own kids in their 40's..
cannot hear, will not listen, will not comprehend, and cannot easily modify either their mindsets,
their priorities nor their behavior. They have all the answers, and only their answers are right,
and they are unable to give any visible credence to any wisdom of someone twice their age..
even their own father ! HOW CLUELESS is that ?

I seldom EVER make an effort to try to tell someone how to run their business, and cannot
be intimately familiar with every nuance of every firm in every industry from coast to coast,
nor exactly what to do today to insure bottom line profits.. but can inform a prudent course of
action to pursue an opportunity as intangible as a human being with a list of complex and
varied priorities.

By the same token and for the same reason I find it increasingly disconcerting to learn
that a hiring employer is patently unable to give me visible credence for my 43 plus years of
recruiting experience, and during which time I have managed to place over 350 persons
whose combined salaries are in the tens of millions of dollars..a dozen or more of whom
stayed 30 years and then retired, some of whom have passed away as long as a decade ago..
and which hiring employers become incensed when I am somewhat confrontational with their seeming
inability to do something as simple as pick up a phone and ACTUALLY SPEAK WITH someone,
including me, and whose perception of us recruiters is roughly equivalent to that of some
itinerant migrant worker who fell from an onion truck last week in Brownsville, Texas..

Not only do I not take easily to that perception, but will not spend my time as I did earlier
this week in spending at least 30 hours sourcing candidates and emailing them a detailed
job specification at the rate of 40 per hour from a database of 15.1 Million candidates..
never having known their names, never having spoken to them, in that case about 900 or more
prospects within a 30 mile locus and which resulted in only one respondent, whom
the gatekeeper then decided was unworthy of a simple phone call !

In that case he had visibly fallen into the trap of TRYING TO HIRE A RESUME.

RESUMES DO NOT PERFORM JOBS.. PEOPLE PERFORM JOBS.. Being able to
comprehend that is critical to my efforts in behalf of any firm. and at almost 69, I will not
spend my time nor my life in behalf of those whose principal beliefs and intentions is
TO HIRE A RESUME .. and whom cannot hear, will not take any suggestions from me
and accept any of the wisdom I have gained in 43 years of technical recruiting.

The notable problem with that approach is that it PRECLUDES, DENIES AND NEGATES ANY
ability to consider any of the SUBJECTIVES BELOW which are critical to the success of
any candidate in ANY ROLE in any industry, in any location, at any time, and their tenure in those roles.

Those subjectives are : vocabulary, insights, wisdom, work ethic, creativity, ingenuity, leadership,
timing, resource allocation, tenacity, drive, personal energy, fitness, imagination, cooperation,
team playing, flexibility, problem solving ability, having a clue to the magnitude of ones own
cluelessness and with compelling understanding how to compensate for any such deficiency..
and which subjectives are NEVER to be found in a resume and which can ONLY be learned about
by SPEAKING WITH AN INTERESTED CANDIDATE, and then determining whether their rhetoric
and their answers and their vocabulary imply that they merit an invitation for a personal interview.

Bottom line, if your gatekeeper has this mindset. I cannot help you. and in my opinion no
recruiter can help you and that if you continue doing what you have been doing .. you'll
continue to get the same results and jobs which have been open for many months will continue
to be unfilled .. unless and until someone modifies their approach and understanding of what
it takes go generate a candidate and then what is prudent action with that information, with any
hope of success..

In sales and marketing roles the downside is that a nominal cost to any firm of any unfilled
job could be between $6000 and $20,000 per month in lost opportunities, which not only do
NOT go to your bottom line, but go to the bottom lines of one of your competitors which
makes their firm that much stronger because of their relationship with that customer, and
that much harder for any firm to compete for the same finite MEGAcustomer dollars.

Resources are finite, labor, capital, material, energy and especially TIME IS FINITE.
Companies go belly up every day of the week.. Above have been detailed some of the principal
reasons in my opinion.

One final point. when it becomes abundantly clear to almost any third party recruiter
that there is no scenario in which he will ever have any chance to compete with all
other contenders for the provision of highly specific candidates.. and thus no chance ever
to do business with some specific firm...guess which firms he will go to first to find those
highly qualified candidates ? This apparently has never ever occured to any HR manager
in the history of American Business. !! ??

My best wishes to you and your firm and thanks for taking the time to read this.. Bill Griffin