Zen and the art of recruitment.

(Somewhat off piste from the usual I know but it is the new year. Be grateful you weren't subjected to a  rundown of my 100 favourite blogs/shoes/gin and tonics of 2011)

Ah recruiters. my post holiday inbox is full of your invites on LinkedIn, your emails and your phone messages (nice trick the one who phoned reception and pretended they KNEW me). *sigh* 
Some tips.

I need to know the name of the retailer/company
blahblahnoise company doesn't want to reveal itself, blahblahnoise I can't tell you unless I discuss in person, blahblahnoise I need to know if you want to apply before I tell you, blahblahnoise I'm going to refer to 'a large multi channel grocery retailer whose online operations are based in Welwyn Garden City' secret code. If I don't know who it is I won't know if I want to apply. Coming from a top tier consultancy I have some great names on my CV and I don't need to especially stick to the big players but admiration for a company is a big factor.  I'm someone for whom strategic vision is everything so I need to know what the company is, what their plan is and where they're going.  So quit your mind games and just tell me.

Never ask if I know someone for the role:
a) I'm not doing your job for you and nor is my LinkedIn network
b) Surely you thought of me for the role because I'm uniquely awesome? No? Just spamming then.

READ!
My background is really varied yet people insist on offering the same roles which don't really fit who I am or what I do. It's so obvious they've just searched for a keyword which has popped up in my profile.

Similarly after I joined my current company last December I got about ten emails in the first month-  clearly I've just moved jobs, likelihood is I'm not looking for a change quite so fast!

Be genuine
Ok so partly this is a rant about my inbox and partly it's because I'm doing a whole load of recruitment at the moment. I'm learning a lot about it and what it's taken me about two months and about 200 failed CV's to realise is that I'm a lot better at it than recruiters we pay to do it. For a start I don't charge my company a gazzion pound fee (or any fee...hang on.....that needs to change....) but no, the key to good recruitment (in ecommerce, in retail.... in anything) is sincerity. Genuinely building a relationship with a candidate who you know will be honest with you and who you can be honest with is the way forward. For those who make this their career this means playing the long game I'm sure, for me it's stalking (ahem) developers where they like to hang out rather than waiting for them to come to me.

Ah you see - you thought it was going to be a rant but no, there was a moral in the end.