Good Neighbors and Recruiting

When I stepped out of my house last night to shovel my driveway, I didn’t know I was in for a two hour odyssey of frustration, embarrassment, and well… backaches. But the gods had it in for me.

My snowblower wouldn’t start, so I, being the super mechanically inclined guy that I am, determined that there must not be any gasoline in the tank. After inspecting my completely empty red gas container, I decided to go to the gas station. My rear-wheel drive sedan made it four feet from the driveway before it started spinning out. I was stuck. After forty-five minutes of trying everything from laying down cardboard to throwing birdseed under the tires, my neighbor took pity on me.

My neighbor is the kind of guy who has the right tool, at the right time, in the right place. He quickly laid down some roughed up old towels and rocked the car back and forth a few times. A few minutes later, the car was back in my garage and I was shaking his hand in the snow, telling him about my lousy birdseed idea. A few more minutes passed and my father-in-law drove down with a spare can of gasoline. Hallelujah. I was back to clearing out the snow and another battle of man versus nature was about to be won.

We’re very lucky when we have people around to help us out when we’re stuck. I get caught up most of the day thinking about recruiting technology and job search on the web and all of that new fangled stuff that analysts like to think about and recruiters think very little about. But it is important to understand that recruiting, what this website is about, is a lot more about being a good neighbor than about the next social technology. Recruiting is hyper-local and time-sensitive. It’s about relationships, referrals, and your personal circle. When you need to find a candidate, you need a recruiter that knows the local market and your industry. And when you need to get a job, you need a recruiter that will tell you the truth and help you out where they can. At its best, recruiting provides that friction to launch careers, build great companies, and bring the right people together.

Hope you’re staying warm out there. We’re supposed to get more snow on Friday and come to think of it, I still haven’t made it to the gas station.