Farmer Wants a Wife - But These Girls Have "Retention Issue" Written All Over Them...

Oh yeah, admit it, you knew the chick from Omaha would be writing this one. Have you seen the promos for this particular show? It's called "Farmer wants a Wife". Premise? Hundreds (okay tens) of glam pixies with very trim thighs don cowboy boots and chase chickens in an attempt to show an "old fashioned hunk farmer" that they are the right woman for the job. That is, the job of farmer's wife. Um...yeah.

So what possible application can this have to recruiting? Just this - sometimes we're so desperate to please a client or get a candidate the job he really, really wants, that we lose sight of a VERY important part of the job - making sure it's the right match, not just A MATCH. The truth is you can get a fee for any old placement, and I'm sure not knocking that. But until you take a full on consultative approach (and I do not consider chasing chickens or mass emailing candidates consultative), you're not going to find a long-lasting relationship that's beneficial for all three sides (that's you, the client and the candidate).

Kristin Gisarro brings this up a little bit over on TalentMash in her post about retention. She successfully argues that (competent) recruiters tend to be pretty darned good at retention efforts and it's in their best interest to get even better at them. Making sure that the void you fill continues to tell a story, (through the super awesome placement you made) even after you've gone, is a great way to make sure that your match sticks.

Which is more than I can say for whoever becomes the Farmer's Wife... As soon as he tells that city girl to fix him a chicken pot pie, the Springer scene is on...

Editor's Note - Maren Hogan is a millennial living the dream in Omaha, Nebraska.  When she's not plotting the downfall of Gen Xer's like me, she's doing marketing and development for an IT recruiting and outsourcing firm called HCI.  Maren's slated to appear in the first reality TV series that challenges participants to belong to 100 social networks, have 2 jobs, 3 kids, etc.  First one to drop a ball gets kicked off the show each week.

Comments

[Ann Bares]

Maren:

Great post! You do a wonderful job of using the farmer's wife to make an important point - that we ultimately serve everyone better (including ourselves, really) when we insist on pursuing longer-term, high quality talent matches. Even if it means holding back (and it probably often does) clients and candidates until this goal is met. Someone has to keep their head, after all!

[Michael Homula]

Omaha Stylee did not think there was one well you the radio's weak and the shows are more fun...311

Love that song and lyric and I love Omaha. Rosenblatt Stadium, home of the college baseball world series. Gotta love it!

Anyway, great post Maren. One of the best parts of working a desk in third party is that you can fire clients and candidates when they aren't as committed to making good matches as you are. It is the fundamental difference between a transactional recruiter and a relationship recruiter. Ann Bares said it brilliantly right up above me here so just read what she said...she is spot on.

Michael

[Jessica Lee]

i wonder what the job description looks like for the role of a farmer's wife and what the requirements are!

[Wally Bock]

Great post. It's easy to get "target fixation" and forget that lots of great looking candidates might not be a good fit for the organization or position. I posted on the particular aspect of this related to going after the brightest candidates on Three Star Leadership.

The best and the brightest may not be the best fit.
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2008/05/13/the-best-and-the-brightest-are-not-always-the-best-fit.aspx

[Tim Tolan]

Truer words were never spoken. There are lots of search firms that don't actually do much searching at all (almost none...nada) In fact, they blasts resumes to clients over and over as a way of trying to create value. I call that spam:-) The resume spammers will wear out their welcome quickly.
However, using a consultative approach by profiling, and recruting top shelf talent to meet and exceed your client's expecations will always be in demand.
Great post!

[Maren Hogan]

I was at Kennedy all week so I haven't responded. Sorry! Ann, thanks for the kind words, I think this concept will only make recruiting a more respected profession in the long run. Michael, knew you would work 311 in there somehow, the 'Blatt's getting replaced, check the OMA news sometime. Jessica, not sure of all the requirements but I am sure they have something to do with partial perms and denim jumpers. Wally, read your post, good stuff, thanks for the link! Tim, trying to add value and stay ahead of the game are no mutually exclusive, thanks for pointing that out. Whew. I need a nap.