By Craig Fisher www.fishdogs.com
I see quite a few posts lately about "old school" recruiting, about how all this social media and web2.0 stuff is just a waste of time. And it makes me wonder if we are really talking about old school, or just recent school.
My first recruiting job in 1995 was for a physician search firm. That company folded about 9 months after I started. And looking back I’m not surprised (I have since confirmed that it wasn’t my fault). There was good coffee. There was a split desk setup, accounts and recruiting. There was the old school schedule: everyone works until 5:30pm, goes to work out, and comes back by 6:30 or so for pizza, or whatever the company bought for dinner, and continues working until about 9pm every night of the week but Friday. On Friday we went home closer to 7pm.
So far so good. We each had our own office with a big desk. This big desk was absolutely necessary to support the giant freaking list that we used to call our prospects. It also held a phone, a Rolodex, a calendar, some pens and highlighters. That’s it. No PC, no ipod clock radio, no cell phone charger.
Ah, the good old days. I wonder if we could effectively recruit "old school" today. Really old school. No job boards, no ATS, no Outlook or email, no Google or LinkedIn. Just a list, a phone, and some note cards. Yes, I think maybe we could. But we would also be stuck at the office every night until 9pm.
How "old school" are you? Could you be effective that way today? Would you rather work at Red Lobster?
It makes me kind of nostalgic to think about the way business used to operate. Although, staffing software is awfully useful and I do appreciate being able to spend time with my family now that e-mail is so easy to use.
so why'd the old company go broke? Old school for me means working harder on getting my staff to do social media as i do working it myself. Old-School=Delegate.