I'm tired - a rant

Bear with me folks…I feel like a little rant on a couple of topics ranging from Recruiting to Blogs to Books. Sorry for the long post.

I’m tired of receiving 50 emails & phone calls from 50 different ‘recruiting’ companies for the same position.

Example – A local company is looking for a Project Manager in Plano TX…and they’ve been looking for one for at least 6 months…and I’ve been contacted at least 50 times for this position over the last six months.

Note to organizations: Use a real recruiter that understands how to find those people that fit into your organization. Stop using ‘body shops’ to find your employees/contractors. A few good examples of great recruiters are Max Pons, some Technisource recruiters, Genesis10, and Tridenta.

I’m tired of the half-truths and untruths told by recruiters and organizations.

Example – Another local tech company has a job posting for a “Technical Solutions Project Manager” that they’ve had listed for over a year. According to a friend of mine who works at the company, this posting is a way for the company to capture resumes for their resume database for later use…they have no intention of ever hiring for this position.

Example – I received a phone call from a ‘recruiter’ who wanted to talk to me about an ‘exclusive job’ that they were recruiting for. After speaking with him, I realized the job was the same PepsiCo job that I’d heard about from 50 other recruiters.

Note to organizations: Keep lying to employees and potential employees and you will be out of business. Being less than honest will be easily spotted and the good employees will leave and the not-so-good employees will stay.

I’m tired of receiving multiple emails and/or phone calls from the same ‘recruiter’ about the same job.

Example – I received 12 phone calls over the course of 3 days from the same ‘recruiter’ who wanted to talk to me about a contract position. Over the course of these 3 days, he left a voicemail every time. When I got back from my vacation, I called him to talk with him about the position…turns out he couldn’t find my resume and didn’t know what job he wanted to talk with me about.

Note to organizations: If you farm out recruiting, at least farm it out to knowledgeable people (much like those mentioned above).

I’m tired of reading the same blog post on 10 different blogs.

Example – Gizmodo and Engadget…most of the content on these 2 blogs cover the same topics/technology/products.

Example – Just about every blog that focuses on business, leadership, management, project management or technology. I’m afraid that my own blog is included in this example.

Note to bloggers (myself included): Write some original content. Don’t just rewrite something you found on another blog. If you do take a blog post from another author, spin it in a different direction than the original author did to make it your own story (with appropriate reference to the original author of course).

Some examples of very good blogs with what appears to be original content are Seth Godin, Charles Green’s “Trust Matters”, David Maister’s Passion, People and Principles, Levitt & Dubner’s Freakonomcis Blog, Jim Stroup’s Managing Leadership and Dean Bubley’s Distruptive Wireless. Mike Schaffner’s Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms is another very good blog. There are a few others, but these are the ones that pop into my head as having original content and/or making me think about topics in a different way.

I’m tired of reading ‘the greatest business/strategy/management/leadership book ever written’ and it being nothing more than a lot of words thrown into paragraphs that do very little to shed any new insight onto the subject.

Example – The Strategy Paradox. Is it just me or is this book one of the most boring every written? At the outset, I was extremely interested in the concept of the book since it talks about complexity and paradoxes, but after reading the first few chapters, I can’t bring myself to finish it. I constantly found myself thinking “OK…so what…that’s common sense” (e.g., the behaviors that position a company for success also maximizes its probability of failure). I still think the concept of the book is great, but the writing leaves a lot to be desired and the so-called ‘case studies’ aren’t really that supportive of the main argument of the book.

Example – Rich Dad Poor Dad. This book (and most of the other books in the series) is nothing more than a rehashing of common sense topics. There may be a few nuggets of information in the book(s) but not enough to warrant paying full retail price for.

Note to Authors and Publishers: How about some original content? Something like Guy Kawasaki’s “Art of the Start” or Ricardo Semler’s books “Maverick” and “Seven Day Weekend”.