There is a part of me that is regretting the decision not to go to Las Vegas for the SHRM ‘11 conference. The convention is so big there is something for everybody regardless of specialty area. However, part of the conflict in my mind is that I am too interested in everything HR, but in reality my niche is in sourcing and recruiting. It would be difficult to choose whether to expand my knowledge in new areas or to reinforce knowledge I already have and push that to the next level. Las Vegas and SHRM together would be like visiting the Smithsonian in Washington, DC: Where do you begin and how do you budget the time to take it all in?
Still, I consider myself to be an HR person first even though I wake up in the morning thinking like a recruiter. When I was studying for the SPHR exam, I had a recruiter colleague ask me, “Why would you want to work in HR?†She was serious. Even though we both worked in little org chart boxes that rolled up to an HR boss, I suddenly realized that some specialists did not have experience beyond their own world. Being somewhat of an HR snob, I had felt that my experience in recruiting, job evaluation, compensation, training, workforce planning, HRIS, employee relations and some experience working with unions had made me a better recruiter, but now I am hearing from a yeoman recruiter that all of this was unimportant to her. My knee jerk reaction was “Duh! Don’t you know where we are?†but it made me think. My path was evolutionary and I was proud of my accomplishments, but she was absolutely right. There is more than one way to get to the recruiter desk and my way may not be the best way. In fact, if it had not been for one particular recruiting mentor in my past I would be at a tremendous disadvantage in the real-life corporate world.
The value of specialization is becoming more pronounced in today’s complex business environment. It is not uncommon to outsource for specialization that does not exist inside the company. Large corporations can afford to hire specialty area experts (if they chose to do so) to work together for common HR goals. Small company HR managers often find themselves in the thankless position of dealing with the whole Smithsonian-like HR universe under management’s critical eye. Recruiting as a specialty profession works in both of these worlds. Agency recruiters, contract recruiters and consultants can bring a level of expertise into the corporate arena to supplement the existing staff in several ways. Lining up candidates for hire and marching them through the process is a primary function. They are also an ad hoc source of information on trends, salaries and market movement. Additionally, a great source of in-house recruiting talent comes from third-party agency recruiters who have paid their dues and learned from the best in the business. The down side is that the mantra for many agency recruiters is to find unnoticeable ways to get around HR to make a placement. Working on the other side of the table is a mind shift and sometimes a culture shock.
So the age old question remains: Is it better to teach HR people to become specialists or find a specialist and teach them HR? In the recruiting specialty area, it is often a coin toss based on the intelligence, flexibility and track record of the individual recruiter. My experience based on working with people from both worlds and a painful self examination of my own successes and shortcomings is that it can work either way. To succeed, HR management must clearly define the expectations of the recruiting role in the organization and their interface with other specialty areas. Recruiting management must ensure that recruiters and sourcers not only maintain proficiency in their own specialty but also dovetail with the rest of HR in a way that reduces conflict and provides maximum performance. Some key conscious elements for recruiters to achieve this level of cooperation are as follows:
- HR is not the enemy – And to specialists in other areas: Recruiters are not the enemy either. In the corporate world, there are often conflicting ideas that impact on the hiring process. The number one issue is usually compensation and the paradoxical situation where hiring a particular candidate will be out of line with peers in the organization in spite of a critical need for talent. A mutually agreed upon solution has to be found where neither the compensation structure nor the skill set requirements are compromised…while at the same time considering the future career and salary progression of the selected candidate after hire. Likewise, staffing departments and organizational development and training specialists must work together to align employee expectations, workforce planning and new employee orientation. Hands-on, desk side show and tell is an important aspect of the recruiters training mission, but it must be in line with other company practices. Finally, the HR business partner or generalist working with management cannot exclude their recruiting partner when considering organizational changes and recruiters need to be joined at the hip with their HRBP so that there is consistent communication and no mixed messages telegraphed to line managers or to candidates. In the successful organization, communication is the key, cooperation is the norm, and no one operates in a vacuum.
- Find a mentor, be a mentor – I did not learn recruiting from a textbook. I learned from a very polished recruiter with years of experience. He was well connected in recruiting circles, wrote the book on how to create a corporate staffing department and had a stellar track record that proved his expertise. I felt honored and humbled to be included in his circle. It actually matters more that someone cares than that someone teaches or what is taught. It is great to have oversight and leadership in development of good recruiting talent, but it is also necessary to give recruiters the latitude to experiment and possibly fail. Conferences, seminars, meet-ups and even the mega-shows like SHRM ’11 are not just nice to have but are essential tools of forward progress. An investment in recruiting tools or mind broadening experiences actually has measurable return on investment, but usually shortsighted budgetary allocations stand in the way. This necessitates that everyone on the recruiting team draws upon their strengths to share knowledge with their colleagues. Those attending such conferences must bring back ideas and turn on the light bulbs back home.
The value of SHRM ’11 for a recruiting HR person is intuitively obvious. Nobody paid me to go to Las Vegas for them, I was not asked to be a speaker and my plate is otherwise full at the moment, but by deciding that other things were a higher priority I have set myself up for the disappointment of missing this journey into learning, fun and camaraderie. Putting envy aside, I will be looking to those in attendance to satisfy my need to feel the excitement. This will be a week of reading blogs, tweets, emails and other reports on the event.