The economy overall—and recruiting in general—has undergone a considerable amount of upheaval during the past two years. Despite all that upheaval, though, has anything about the profession changed? What’s different? What’s not? We asked Top Echelon Network Preferred Members for their thoughts on the subject.
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Cheryl Campbell of Career Search Associates:
“I think my clients are much pickier, and I think it takes much longer to get the placement done. Not only that, but I have to work a heck of a lot harder and work more hours to make the same amount of money. I’m about on track with last year, and I’ve been able to keep my head above water.
“One of the things I tell people is that I’ve learned to work harder and streamline my process. If I had worked the way am now five years ago, I could have retired. Back then, you didn’t have to work as hard. But I think that all of us who have survived the recession will make a lot of money when things turn around.”
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Philip Bartfield of Bartfield Search, Inc.:
“I think the more that [recruiting] changes, the more it stays the same. This has been a very deep and long recession, and how we identify candidates is changing rapidly. We’re now moving from job boards to social networking in order to grab the low-hanging fruit, but the mechanism of identifying a candidate, connecting with the candidate, qualifying the candidate, and moving them through the process hasn’t changed.
“I see the actual components of the process as being the same. It’s easy to presume that one of these components is larger than the others, but you spend X amount of time doing this and X amount of time doing that. I don’t see that part of recruiting ever changing.”
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If you’d like to contribute your thoughts on this subject, call Communications Coordinator Matt Deutsch at (330) 455-1433, Ext. 125, or send an email to MDeutsch@TopEchelon.com.