Two of the bigger things in life for me are Golf and Recruiting. I’m pretty passionate about both. And since it’s finally freakin’ golf season in MN, I started thinking of the way the two relate. Don’t ask why, I just was. Now, you might think how the hell does Recruiting relate to Golf? I initially thought that, until I started to think about it a little more. Honestly, if you think about 2 things side by side enough, you’ll find a way to get them to relate one way or another. You might also ask, why write a blog post about it? Who knows, I don’t. If you’ve read this far, you might actually want to know how they relate? Well, for both of you that are still reading, prepare yourself for an insightful look into my world.

For you golfers out there (true golfers), you know how the game gets in your blood. It can be downright addicting correct? It’s even more so addicting in MN that any other state. Did you know that MN has more golfers per capita than any other state? Well, there comes a point when you become addicted, but how? Addiction is defined as being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming. But we become addicted generally after experiencing some kind of high or euphoria. In golf, things change quickly. One day could be the best day of golf ever, the next can be downright miserable. But what keeps you coming back is that one day or even that one shot that was perfect. So how is that different from recruiting? It’s not really. I always laugh and say how being a recruiter is the most bi-polar profession out there. One day the moon, stars, and sun align and things fall into perfect place. The next day, those same candidates that accepted your job offer decide to decline your offer or fail a drug test or something out of your hands. All we can do is try out best to practice or learn more about the mistakes we made to keep us coming back for more punishment.

Mentally golf is the most demanding game ever. Crazy how much focus and mental stability it takes to play. I don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to break a club over my knee. Usually at least once every few rounds. But, in order to really be good at it, you have to overcome all of those negative emotions and focus on the next shot, no matter how bad the last one was. It really is the same with recruiting. We’re getting pulled in every direction these days, with a never ending list of tasks on our plate. I think it’s more critical these days than ever to remain calm, focused, and maintain a positive attitude towards your job. I’ve also wanted to break something after a day of recruiting, but we have to learn to forget about the past and move onto the next task/shot. I can tell you from experience, if you don’t you’ll go nutty (that’s why I am).

Alignment is key when you’re on the golf course. If your hips are aimed one way, and your shoulders the other, consistency is a struggle. Every single day as a recruiter, you become aware and are involved with proper alignment. The main focus and task of our jobs is to align candidates with the appropriate position/job. It’s essential to master this skill! How do you master that? Get to know the clients you’re working with in detail, and know everything about your candidates. The more you know about both, the easier aligning the proper candidates to the positions get. Be a pain, ask tons of questions.

You can find just any golf course by hopping on the internet and doing a quick search, but in depth research and due diligence will allow you to find the best. As a recruiter, if you just hop on Monster.com or any of the other career sites and do a quick search on keywords, you’re not going to find the best. You might get lucky here and there, but generally it takes time and effort to find the types of candidates that are ideal for your open positions and fit with the culture. Put in the time, do you backdoor references and research, you’ll find better candidates and golf courses!

Probably my biggest weakness in golf is that I’m always enticed into buying some new kind of club that’s going to change the world of golf (at least in my mind). Of course, that never happens. I just spend a bunch of money on the new equipment and end up selling the new stuff I just bought (for half the amount I paid for it) and going back to the old equipment I am used to. Recruiting is similar. There’s always new and exciting stuff out there that entices us to spend money to improve efficiency and performance. Kind of like the new monster.com launch. I’m still yawning over that. The lesson here is stick to the basics and refine the tools you’re currently using. There’s no need to spend mass amounts of money to be a good golfer or recruiter. Stick to things that don’t cost anything. I don’t pay anything for Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. I use my existing network and the people I know to fill the positions I have open. Of course there’s fine line here, some money is wisely spent – the driver I purchased last year is sweet, and our new objectpartners.com website is pretty fancy.

I really have no idea why I wrote this post, sounded like a good idea at the time. If anything, it just made me really want to go golfing….not great when I have recruiting to do and I’m stuck in the office!

Tags: golf, Recruiting

This entry was posted by Ehren Seim on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 10:03 am and is filed under Recruiting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.