This was posted on my personal blog, referencing this post. It echoes what you are saying I think:

Amitai -
After 20 years in recruiting, I can tell you that there are more “A” candidates rejected by Corporate Americia than B-players. One opening + 4 “A” final candidates = 1 hire and 3 rejected “A” candidates.

To think that if you are rejected by 1 employer you are automatically a “reject” for any employer means that everyone who has ever not been hired for a job is a non worthy candidate.

Have you ever interviewed for a job that you ultimately did not get an offer for? I assume you still consider yourself a highly employable person, why not assume it’s true of the general population?

“like an umbrella, a mind is only useful when it’s open”.

To which I replied, and now to you:

Anonymous:

Notwithstanding that you may have taken the excerpt out of the original post’s context on the point you make you are right and I am wrong. I stand corrected.

Agreed now that one recruiters’ reject is another’s A-player that doesn’t make AllianceQ’s approach reasonable, nor its adoption by employers who could do a lot better if they had a well-primed talent pump.

As I am sure you already know, talent pools are created deliberately and systematically with the best qualified candidates sourced to profile/organizational fit, etc. That someone may just happen to fit is accidental and therefore too risky a proposition to start with. Consequently, the touted savings in sourcing dollars would soon evaporate as recruiters waste time and resources wading through unqualified candidates looking for their jackpot hire.

On the original I linked to a post on The Human Capitalist. There is an interesting exchange of views there too. If you haven’t seen it, check it out if you like.

You strike me in your tone as sensitive of the “individual” candidate feelings, a worthy human being regardless of their employment status.

I agree with you we should not forget that candidates as people have feelings but that is not the issue here. I have been rejected for many jobs and that didn’t change my worth as a human being or as someone’s else’s potential hire. So I can relate to your point although I am reminded that being a candidate for a job doesn’t automatically make you a good one [at any point in time!]

Even so, thanks for tempering my remarks with a reminder that just because a vendor views candidates as fodder that doesn’t excuse me from appearing to be of the same mind.

>> “like an umbrella, a mind is only useful when it’s open”.

The same is true for parachutes, right?

To your second point:

Being a headhunter does not preclude me from understanding the dynamics of corporate recruiting and talent acquisition. Far from from it. I spend as much time working with corporate recruiters as a coach, and with talent acquisition leaders as an advisor, that I think I can claim not have a TPR axe to grind when I point out:

a) The huge waste of the model you describe [although receiving a resume is not the same as a candidate in the funnel, is it?]; and

b) The flawed argument that suggests surplus A-player for employer X automatically is an A-player for employer Y. For example, surely you would agree that an excellent outside sales rep. rarely makes an equally good inside sales manager.

To your point:

>> Then it was a gut feeling, or a ‘pick ‘em’…and we certainly weren’t right on who we selected, even 50% of the time…

Did you view making bad hires with such frequency as a sourcing or a selection problem? Or was your position that with such high volume 50/50 success rate in hiring comes with the territory?

Thanks for the comments and adding your point of view.

So, this means the companies who are collaborating are doing it to have exclusive access to this pool of caniddates—let me see, hire a sales person for free, or pay AMG $65,000–oh my!!

I recruited for IT, Sales, and Senior Level Accounting/Finance and I can’t tell you how many times our hiring managers and recruiters came downto a handful of candidates–all who could do the job. Then it was a gut feeling, or a ‘pick ‘em’…and we certainly weren’t right on who we selected, even 50% of the time…

To think tha the 2.1 mm resumes we recieved in 2005 (hiring 21,000 of them) were ‘B’ players is absurd—

Matt Hanson