Should You Pound Out Recruiting Calls on Memorial Day?

A guy over at ERE says yes... But Homula's mad as hell, and seemingly offended.  See clips from Mikey at Bearing Fruit and I'll let you decide....

"Over at ERE there is a post by David Szary on his blog 3-O'Clock Coffee Break going into some detail about how Memorial Day is the best time to recruit passive candidates. 

First off, I don't know David and I have no personal issues with him.  I am sure he is a nice guy and knows his stuff.  That said, I have to take professional issue with some of the recommendations in his blog post.

While David is correct that Memorial Day, and for that matter the days leading up to holidays in general, is a good time to recruit (calling the Thursday and Friday before Memorial day are great times to connect with people) the tactical recommendations in this blog post are not the best.

Here are the 3 recommendations from David with my thoughts interspersed:

Develop a target list of passive candidates and do a "networking" email blast followed up by a phone call (concurrently or within a few hours).  Volume is the key, get your message out to as many people as possible.

Email blasts are notoriously ineffective and have a low ROI.  Great talent will shun this approach because it isn't relational enough, and it has a dirty telemarketing feel to it.  Recruiting is, at its very core, a relationship driven profession.  Trying to recruit talent absent a relationship, even of the most minimal nature, is an exercise in futility.  In this tactical scenario, the email and the call is "allegedly" about them but the agenda is all yours.  You don't just email "blast" high performing talent about you and your job and hope that someone will respond to you when you call.  This is the same tactic played out in bars everywhere at 3 a.m. in the morning.  If you aren't familiar with that analogy you should listen to and watch this.  Volume does not replace quality in recruiting EVER."

Click over to Homula to see the other two ideas and the response. 

I'm with Homula on this one.  Plus, it's freaking hard to make calls from the beach - the sand, the background noise as I'm applying 100 SPF (which has a grain to it, I believe)...

Have a great holiday weekend, we'll see you back here on Tuesday.... 

Comments

[Maureen Sharib]

I dunno the effectiveness of making recruiting calls but holidays are GREAT TIMES to names source!

;)

http://tinyurl.com/6by43v

[Michael Homula]

Here, here Maureen. You are so right on about name sourcing at holidays for the very reason you mention in your piece over at ERE. Go there people. It's a good one!