Networking with Hooter’s Girls?? What??!???

I received an invitation to attend an in person networking meeting with a large group I joined through LinkedIn. One of my work friends, E, also received an invite so we decided to meet there and network as a team. Working a room with two people is easier than one. As I parked in the lot waiting for her to arrive and talking to her via cell, a car parks and out hop the Hooter’s Girls. They grab food out of their trunk and head right into the networking group. I’m narrating the scene as it happens all E had to say was, “Are you serious?” Yes, I was serious. Right away my gut feel was is going to be bad and it was. The event was loud, unorganized, the food was all in one cramped location, and you had to yell to hear anyone.

E also had a few thoughts about the networking event I thought I’d share.

“It was very disorganized. You would think there would be some kind of welcome speech by the organizer with an explanation of the purpose of the gathering and some tips for networking, so that people did not just wander aimlessly. The set up was not conducive to meet and greets – just a mass of people huddled together looking befuddled. Also, there was no rhyme or reason to the broad cross section of industries represented. Perhaps if they set up areas for people with similar industries/interests to meet that would be much better. I just did not get a good vibe there. Zero interest in talking with anyone.

Then of course, you said it all when you commented that based on that experience you will never attend another event by them. Unfortunately, it leaves one with a negative impression of the whole group. Also, one last note – they made us go through the trouble of registering for the event, but then they never checked to see if we were actually registered – i.e. they did not check us in via a list of registrants. Now I get that they just wanted to fill the place up, but not checking names discourages people from taking them seriously when the appearance is that they letting anyone in off the street, and are just collecting business cards to bombard us with some sales pitch for some other nefarious reason.

Of course! Too bad you didn’t take a picture of the mess – it would have been a good visual of what not to do if you want a successful event. A photo of me looking very annoyed would have been good ;-). ”

I do agree with E’s appraisal of the event. This was the second one I’ve attended and I don’t plan on attending third. Lesson learned – sometimes large networking events are a waste of time and you’re better off cultivating the network you already have.

Working with Recruiters

Last week a CFO candidate called me about a job opportunity, great guy, good skill set but he came out of the wrong industry for my client. When I told him he may not work for my current client he got angry, frustrated and said my client didn’t know what he is doing.

I don’t like to waste time. As a recruiter, I work on commission and I am talking to you because you've been referred and I respect all my referrals or I found you and I think you maybe a fit. I prefer to talk to people who I think I can place either now or in the future. If at the end of our conversation if it's not a match for our current client we may have another one down the road. Plus you don’t know all the requirements for the job. We typically give you some of them but hold back on releasing all the information because it’s confidential. So please don’t get angry, frustrated or resentful. You can use me as a great networking contact and a resource for information.

Bottom line, the client, the company paying us, is who I work for and I may have to tell you no. Remember when you are job hunting you will hear a lot of no’s before you hear a yes. The yes will come.

Lee Hecht Harrison's Recruiter Roundtable

Today I had a great experience at Lee Hecht Harrison’s Recruiter Roundtable. There were four recruiters, including me, on the panel answering industry questions. I recruit, interview, cold call, schedule, coach, market and coordinate all day long. When it’s your job to find jobs, you forget how difficult it is for those of you searching for a job.

Lee Hecht does a good job teaching people how to find a job and how to work with recruiters. The candidates there had some great questions and got some good answers. One of the questions that got the most attention was - What are the most important questions for a candidate to ask?

The general gist of the conversation lead toward the wrap up of an interview. It’s good to ask questions but not too many. The max you should ask is five. You need to close the interview. What do I mean by that? Ask what the next step is, ask the interviewer if there is anything you need to clarify, ask for the job. Never, never leave without asking a question. The kiss of death is not asking a good question. So do your homework on the company and the people you’re meeting with then ask a great question!

Plastic People

I’ve been working for a plastics/foam company searching for a Sales Manager, so my work these days revolves around what I call my “plastic people” search. Plastic people make me think of hunting down my kids little Lego people around my house. Consequently, I am now hunting around the Western United States for a “Lego” for my client. I can’t get the image out of my head – I’m around Legos often! The good part of this is that it keeps me smiling even when on a harder-than-it-sounds mission to find the perfect candidate for my client. To also better serve my client, and quite frankly to satisfy my own curiosity, I went on an internet research binge to learn more about foam. I started with Wikipedia and typed in foam. This is what I got:

A foam is a substance that is formed by trapping many gaseous bubbles in a liquid or solid. A foam is normally an extremely complex system consisting of polydisperse (A collection of objects is called polydisperse or polysized if they have a broad range of size, shape and mass characteristics.) gas bubbles separated by draining films.

It goes on from there, but it’s so technical that this is definitely not the blog for that particular subject. Although, if you know of a blogger specializing in said topic, please let me know as it might lead me to the right candidate for this job!. Most of the guys I’ve talked to (very few women seem to be attracted to foam; I’ve only talked to one,) pretty much fell into foam. They are not academic tech types who specialize in foam. They do not have degrees in chemistry or biology. Most of them happened upon the industry and learned on the job about their product.

I’ve learned about foam too. I've learned it’s in pretty much everything - cars, airplanes, couches, computers, phones, medical devices, TV’s, buildings, etc. Some of it is so specialized that before I call a sales rep, I have a bit of research to do on what type of foam they sell. The point of my foaming at the mouth message? (O.K. I couldn't resist saying it.) Sometimes something that seems so simple really isn't, it’s quite complicated and the search process can become quite complicated too. However, this can be the most fun and interesting part of the job as well. One thing is for sure, I will never look at all of those little Lego people scattered about the floor of my house the same way again either.

So off I go through the recruiting maze armed with new information and some silly images to keep me smiling while searching for the perfect plastic person.

The Bench

I got benched.

I just spent a week being very frustrated. I got a horrid cold/flu along with laryngitis. First off, I don’t do sick well. I like to be busy and doing almost anything other than resting. This means my version of sick is me trying to pretend I feel fine and then collapsing in a heap on the couch. My kids love the laryngitis part of the whole gig. I can’t talk, so they get away with a lot more bad behavior. What kid wouldn't like that?? That said, I did learn something about myself this week. Apparently, I normally sing a lot around the house - I know funny huh? I discovered that it’s not nearly as much fun listening to Pink crazy loud when you can’t sing along.

Working as a recruiter with laryngitis is almost impossible. All of my "sign language" can’t be seen over the phone and face to face meetings with me sounding like a frog are less than desirable - ugh. On the other hand, some people say my voice sounds great this way. However, the price to pay to have a, to quote a client - "sexy-raspy" voice for a week is too great. It plain ol' hurts to much to talk, so I shut up.

I guess I’ll have to reflect on this week as a rare week of Zen like silence – almost. It is definitely a lesson in taking better care of myself, which seems to be the true lesson being imparted to me through this experience. I guess occasionally getting off the roller coaster ride is a necessity in spite of the fact that I much prefer it! Sitting on the bench some days and letting others take the ride might not be so bad every once in a while. Regardless, it seems to be something I’m going to have to learn to do a little more often.

Now where does the line start? I want to get back on that coaster!!!

Taking my own advice - get out of your own network!

Last Friday I decided to take some of my own advice and get out of my normal work and social network. I RSVP'd for the Chapman Woman in Film Conference. What a great conference for women in general, and what fun it was learning about the film industry.

I majored in Communications/Public Relations. When I graduated from Chapman, I thought I’d never use the skills I learned in school recruiting. I was wrong. My classes taught me how to write and market. In the past, recruiting was all about talking and networking face to face. Now with recruiting becoming an on-line profession with more written communication than verbal all those classes with Janell Shearer and Veston Rowe came in handy. So going back to my roots was a good thing. I reconnected with some people I have not talked to in years and connected with some new people. Getting out of your normal network does work!