Recruiting should really be called the “Employee Intelligence Agency (EIA)” in the tradition of the CIA. Recruiters live in the intersection between employees and employers where the truth lives about what really engages employees and gets them turned on about work. Recruiters hear tales of heartbreak about bad management, bad pay, bad practices . . . the list goes on. They also know what employees get excited about and they know what kind of energy new employees bring into an organization. Recruiters have a unique and valuable perspective on the talent coming into our organizations and our ability to engage and utilize that talent.
Armed with all of this information, why aren’t more recruiters driving change within their organizations? Why aren’t they leading a transformation? Some common answers are:
• “It’s not really my job.”
• “I’m not the one in charge, I’m just a recruiter. Who’s going to listen to me?”
• “I don’t really have any power around here to make anything happen.”
• “My boss won’t let me.”
There’s one thing that all of these “reasons” have in common. They’re BS. They each represent a state of mind. Regardless of your role, your title or your level of experience; once you accept the idea that you cannot drive any change in your organization, you have become part of the problem.
It’s time to cut the BS. It’s time to stop settling. It’s time to stop going with the flow. This is the time for a revolution in our work. A revolution in how we think about our own role in the organization, how we think about the role of those that we work with, and in what we hold ourselves accountable for.
It is time for us to own it.
Recruiters in particular have the potential to be incredibly powerful change agents because of the unique intersection they occupy with one foot inside the organization and one foot on the outside. They have all the tools, talents and resources needed to help lead business into the future.
And business seems to be having a really hard time finding that future on its own.
This topic is not on the agenda for RecruitFest later this week, but it does need to be a part of the context. We have to participate in helping our organizations evolve, especially regarding people practices, or the organization can eventually become our biggest barrier to continued success.
Talent Anarchy is excited to be a part of RecruitFest and to participate in this (really large) conversation with the best and brightest recruiting folks in the country. See you Thursday.
-joe