Are you a sad, mad, ‘Recruiting Tragic’?

What is a ‘recruiting tragic’?

A ‘recruiting tragic’ is a person who can’t help bringing most things in life back to… recruiting….or recruitment… or recruiters.

I admit to being guilty. I know many others in the sad club. We don’t want to be like this. We don’t speak of our affliction. It’s just in our DNA.

And frankly, if you are still a recruiter after the 2020 year from hell, you are most likely a full-on, 100% ‘recruiting tragic’.
Despite everything, you are coming back for more, just like me.

Think you may have the ‘curse’? How many of these have you been guilty of?

1. You see two people, smartly dressed, folders by their sides, talking earnestly at a café. You are immediately convinced it’s a job interview, and you try to work out who is doing the hiring.

2. When you meet someone new socially, it starts to get interesting for you only when they talk about their job.

3. You still look at the job advertising classifieds in the weekend papers, especially the give-away suburban ones, even though you stopped advertising there years ago, and so has almost everybody else.

4. In any new town, your eye automatically finds recruitment agency shopfronts or signs that suggest a recruiter occupies the building. In extreme cases, you actually take photos of recruitment offices in strange places. (Confession: I have photos from Burma, Kathmandu, Darwin, Santiago, Cape Town and a dozen other places. I know, I know! But remember I admitted guilt already. Recruiting Tragic!)

5. The weatherman on TV says, “Temps tomorrow will go up to the high 30s” and you think, “Not a bad temp count this week, wonder what the margin is?” Or you see a poster like the one I snapped on my phone below. It was in a car park, talking about parking, but I of course immediately thought “Cheap Perm Placements“.

6. You don’t mean to do it; you can’t help doing it; but within a few minutes of meeting a new person, you have decided whether they would make a good recruiter, or not. (Usually, not.)

7. Just chatting with friends and acquaintances, talking about why they might leave their current job, you want to drill down on potential counter-offer. Right there! Right now!

8. The ’employment statistics’ put out by the government (any government), just make you laugh, as they are so at odds with the reality on the ground, as you see it.

9. You know there are many hopeless recruiters out there, and you criticise them yourself, but you still feel very offended when recruiters are demonised as a group. You think to yourself when confronted by a pompous ‘anti-recruiter-type “Well you are a lawyer and you defend criminals for a living! And you are a banker and you probably are a fucking criminal!  All I do is find people jobs, and help companies grow”. Or, if you are beyond redemption like me, you actually say those things out loud. Very liberating, I find.

10. Any interview scene on TV or in a movie, indeed any hiring scenario, gets you on the edge of your seat and is often much more interesting to you than finding out who committed the murder. (Oh, and also, you consider most of these scenes to be ‘unrealistic’ and not the way it would actually happen).

11. A drive in an unfamiliar part of town has you mentally taking notes of company names you see on signs because ‘they look like they have lots of staff needs‘. Sometimes, you stop and write company names down, or dictate them into your phone.

12. Sitting in a train or a bus, you start to fantasise that the ‘perfect’ candidate for the crucial, hard to fill role you are working on, is sitting just across from you. Or maybe next to you. Or by the door. They are definitely on this train!

13. You read random job Ads, and mentally you edit them as they ‘should have been worded’. And then you read between the clichés to decipher what is really going on!

14. When you travel, you study the local job ads as closely as anything else, as I did in Dubai one time, and was richly rewarded with this incredible job advert, which would get you sent to jail in other countries!

15. When a friend is battling to decide between potential partners in a relationship situation, you offer advice using words like ‘shortlisting’, ‘reference checking’, ‘second interviews’, and sometimes, ‘performance on the job’.

16. You will never admit it. You are ashamed to admit it. But I am admitting it. You sometimes dream about candidates and clients! Not in a creepy way. They just seep into your unconscious mind because… well .. because you are a recruiting tragic!

17. Someone you hardly know mentions they have secured a new job. Even though you know better, you make the fatal social faux pas asking what the salary is. You know it’s wrong. It’s just that the words tumble out before you can stop them…

18. When a friend comes back from a first date, you debrief her like you would a candidate reporting back on a first interview, asking if she ‘pre-closed’ a second date, and occasionally asking how much money it would take for her to ‘have a follow-up meeting’…

19. A friend or acquaintance asks you do help her 16-year-old daughter with her resume for her first part-time job applications. You produce a 5-page masterpiece that might well get the CEO of BHP his/her next job! And if they ask you to give her some tips, God help her! She is given a gearing, role play interview, asked to prepare 20 questions, given tutoring on grooming and etiquette, and told to buy new shoes for the interview!

20. In the shittiest of times, you plan to leave recruitment. You even look up job Ads and bookmark them. You are definitely leaving recruitment! But you don’t. Ever. (Except for the few tragics who actually do leave. And then come back, quick-smart!).

So ‘tragic’!

But we are happy, right? And proud too.

Any other ‘recruiting tragic’ traits you admit to? Leave me a comment below, please.

*****************************************************************************************************************************************************

Back by popular demand! The THRIVE Webcast is available to stream for February with an ALL-NEW final Q&A session.

Perfect for Owners, senior managers and anyone on your re-invention journey and market share growth in 2021. Enrol now.