Expertise and Specialization

I saw a reference to an article today on the risks of promoting your 'expertise'. The article sort of began to coalesce some of my own thoughts, ie. it's better to under-promise and over-deliver, rather than the other way around.

My own experience has been that if you sell a client on your abilities and then fail to perform, you may be in worse shape than if you'd never sold them at all. Sort of along the lines of the saying, better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open it and remove all doubt.

When I started in recruiting, my career had been in IT. It covered a number of areas; lots of enterprise project management, a little development, operations, ERP, supply chain, EDI, etc. As a matter of fact, I had just come off a bunch of EDI projects for a telecom company.

My first search assignment ended up being an interface programmer position for a hospital. Now granted, I hadn't worked in a hospital, hadn't worked on Egate (the tool in question), or used HL7. And I didn't tell the client I knew anything about those. But I did ask questions that told them I understood applications integration at a reasonable level, EDI, and some of the issues involved. After filling that position, and many other similar ones, eventually candidates and clients started telling me how surprising it was to talk to a recruiter who actually seemed to understand what they were talking about.

The point is, I didn't proclaim myself a specialist, the clients and candidates did.

Too many recruiting firms hire newbies and proclaim them specialists in some area the minute they sit down. Once they talk to a few people and remove all doubt as to their 'expertise', they have already set the stage for their failure.

My personal philosophy and the philosophy of ROI is to under-promise, and over- deliver. Our reputation is built on performance, and we do very little advertising. We believe in telling you and showing you what we do, and letting you be the judge of how well we perform.

More on Selecting a Recruiter....

As I mentioned previously, finding someone with prior successful recruiting experience is a good place to start when trying to find a recruiter to work with.

I regularly get into discussions with candidates about locating the right recruiter(s) for their needs. What else goes into the equation?

Probably number one is simply the trust or connection. Finding someone you like, whose style you appreciate and whose approach and integrity you trust. A very bright woman, who has also been a hiring manager, told me yesterday that she had a recruiter recently who kept insisting that he was going to submit her for a position that she repeatedly told him not to. She put his firm on a list to never work with again.

Another factor is the recruiter's 'space' or specialization. A recruiter's space can have a number of dimensions - the level of their positions - C-level, executive, manager, staff, etc. Geography - local region, southeast, US, or international. Some work mostly contract assignments, some mostly perm. Function is another - Information Technology, Finance, Engineering, etc. Many may specialize in sub-displines within those areas, such as IT Security, or Programming within Information Technology. Some are industry focused - pharmaceuticals, healthcare providers, apparel and textiles, etc.

Firms may cover a variety of areas, but individual recruiters can only cover a limited space with any effectiveness. Most who have been around a while will identify a fairly specific space that they work. Individual recruiters who spread themselves too broadly limit their effectiveness, and often end up working on assignments for marginal positions, employers and fees.

This is not to say that recruiters cannot shift their focus. Industry and economic trends or other factors can sometimes dictate a shift, and a smart recruiter needs to evolve to thrive. Some recruiters have worked the same space for 20 years or more, others have stayed in a space on a downward spiral for too long, with disastrous financial results.