New Rules for Recruiting

One of my first posts. Perhaps worth revisiting for future conversations.

1.) Talent is more expensive than capital.

2.) A portfolio is more important than a diploma.

3.) Recruiting is a sales function, not an administrative function.

4.) Recruiting is a fundamental business driver.

5.) Recruiting must run as a separate P&L within the business.

6.) Talent is defined by production, not opportunity ("Real artists ship").

7.) A requisition is a non-critical financial document designed to manage risk.

8.) Great recruiting organizations design for reward.

9.) Bad recruiting organizations operate to manage risk.

10.) Quality is not a measure of satisfaction. Quality is a measure of the frequency and range of variation to a specification.

11.) The recruiting "specification" is a job description. There is never scientific rigor applied to the creation of job specifications. That is why recruiting can't be held accountable for quality. That is also why recruiting needs to own organizational development.

12.) Talent is not a person. Talent is a capability.

13.) Talent is not an employment contract. Talent is the delivery of the capability.

14.) In every recruiting sale there are three customers: the company, the client (hiring manager) and the candidate. All three must be closed simultaneously.

15.) Time to fill is a worthless statistic. It measures administrative cycle times. "Strike zone" is the appropriate measure - hitting the defined specification for delivery of talent.

16.) Cost per hire is a worthless statistic. It measures neither the contribution of good recruiting nor the cost of bad recruiting. This is why recruiting must be a P&L function.

17.) Management should have no insight into recruiting budgets, nor any control over any recruiting headcount or line items. Recruiting must be profitable. Period. How that gets done is up to the recruitment management, as long as it is consistent with regulation and the organization's values.

18.) Recruiting does not exist for the candidate or the client (hiring manager). It exists for the company.

19.) Most companies have no idea how to define, defend, attract, integrate and manage talent. So recruiting generally exists for something that isn't even there: the company's understanding of the value of talent.

20.) Talent is more expensive than capital. This simple fact will change the world in ways not envisioned since the 1800s.