What's In It For Me? (WIFM)

WIFM. A four letter word. Or abbreviation anyway.

The philosophy seems to be pervading American business these days.

Execs and board members focusing on short term corporate performance to trigger their options and bonuses. Backdating options. Overstating revenues. Or for that matter, underfunding Social Security and leaving it for future generations to deal with (a personal pet peeve).

We all have to make choices between today and tomorrow, sometime what benefits us vs. what benefits others.

Recruiters too. Some can get too focused on getting a deal done for the sake of a fee, when perhaps it shouldn't get done. I know one recruiter who practically uses WIFM as his motto as often as he writes it on his white board.

I've run into recruiters who claim to be client focused, but have no problem recruiting your Controller out while placing someone else in your IT dept. A former colleague used to advocate plying candidates for info on other jobs for which they were interviewing, so as to market other candidates to the potential new client. When questioned about the ethics of the practice he said "if they are stupid enough to tell me, it serves them right".

By the way, we also ask candidates about what else they have going on. And then we ask their permission about contacting the other companies, if they no longer have interest.

We believe we can serve our interests and the interests of others by focusing on the long term benefit of clients and candidates. Then WIFM doesn't have to be a four letter word.