Today’s guest blogger is Laura Schmieder of Premier Placement Inc., specializing in manufacturing especially engineering, operations, supply chain, sales and marketing roles globally. She currently serves on the NPAworldwide board of directors.
I’ve been pondering off and on for years “the meaning of success,” especially during the awards season. How do they decide the Best Actor, Best Picture, Best Director? It’s all a bit subjective, because it certainly isn’t determined by box office sales OR the profits made once a movie goes out for distribution. It shouldn’t be popularity – how many tickets are sold or logins for streaming. It should be a performance that so moves you that you think about it for a very long time, at least in my opinion! Subjective decision.
What is the definition of a successful recruiter?
Is it how much money one earns in a year/decade/lifetime in recruiting? How is that number determined? I once had a long talk with the perennial biggest biller in my network and as we talked, he told me that I, as a one-person, home-office recruiting firm, with one PT administrative assistant and a CPA to do my year-end, made more profit than his 15-plus recruiter firm with three full-time admin staff plus researchers AND fancy office building because year-end, I was more profitable (likely I had less write-offs too!). Nonetheless, my question is, who had the most successful recruiting firm?
What about the percentage of successful placements? Or the number of candidates interviewed for roles, since only one can be hired but employers want to interview more than one person to determine the best candidate to receive an offer?
Is the answer having clients AND candidates who continue to turn to you for help, year after year, so that you weren’t constantly doing business development? Continuous referrals because you are known for your knowledge of a niche market, have a reputation for hard work, being trustworthy and thorough?
What about balance of life? Are you a successful recruiter if you work long hours, seven days a week to the extent that family and friends never really spend any quality time with you? Do you take the time to perform community service, exercise and diet to maintain your physical and spiritual health, or share your talents with other recruiters?
I confess that some of my thoughts come from a point of feeling inadequate or ineffective…has my life’s work been unsuccessful because I didn’t grow my business taking on more employees OR billing more than $1 million a year? OR am I eminently successful for having been in business over 30 years, having volunteered time and effort to help other recruiters be successful?
What is YOUR definition of a successful recruiter?
Flexibility and personal fulfillment!