Recruiting Animal

Treat Smart People To Lunch

Hubspot's policy: "Take someone smart out for a meal. Learn something. Expense it. No approval needed. No limits. No rules. Use good judgment.“

At age 24, Shah had a small network so he asked a senior sales rep for guidance.

“His advice: ‘Pickup golf. Big deals are always done on the golf course.’

This was a problem I had never held a golf club and golf took time, money and patience, none of which I had.” Shah tells Quartz, expressing a sentiment that most people who aren’t wealthy white men can relate to.

“So instead, I decided that to replace golf as a way to do business, I would do meals.

"I would reach out to companies in cities I was traveling to and offer to take them out for a really nice meal. It worked so well that we made it a company-wide policy: Anyone could take anyone else out for a meal and expense it to the company.”

Will The Internet Expose Our Flaws?

My introduction to The Recruiting Animal Show of November 19, 2014. It's about 5 minutes long.

Our Transparent World

 

HOW TO SUCK UP ON LINKEDIN

by Jack Kosakowski

I'm super-excited to meet you. It looks like we both know how to crush a quota. You are one of my favorite influencers. You were spot on in your post about email marketing.

Read the whole thing: http://tinyurl.com/ljsyy3h

See my video about Social Media Suck Up Philosophy

 

Jeff Katzenberg's Networking Tricks

From Jeffrey Katzenberg: Mogul on a Mission (edited)

Another of Katzenberg’s tricks is his old-fashioned etiquette. In the age of mass e-mails and Facebook posts, Katzenberg is old school, plying his friends with “personal calls and handwritten thank-you notes.”

Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, described him to Kroll as “one of the best, if not the best, fundraisers out there,” and, according to the same piece, he doesn’t ask for much in return: “No ambassadorship to Switzerland, no regulatory tweak, no nights in the Lincoln Bedroom,” Kroll wrote.

Although, he added,: “Obama takes Katzenberg’s calls, and he and his political adviser, visited the White House almost 50 times between them during Obama’s first term.”

 

Peter Robinson on Networking

From an interview with Peter Robinson.

Peter Robinson was a speech-writer for Ronald Reagan. He then went to Stanford for an MBA and then started job-hunting. This is how he got his interviews.

Bill Buckley was a friend of Robert Maxwell, the British media baron, and Bill was kind enough to write a letter of introduction to Maxwell on my behalf.

A business school classmate's father did business with Rupert Murdoch and was kind enough to write a letter to Rupert Murdoch on my behalf.

And then a classmate was dating Steve Jobs and has since become Mrs. Steve Jobs.

 

Networking Hitchens Style

From Bernard Avishai, Hitchens (edited)

 

I knew him fairly well in the early 80s b4 he really became Christopher Hitchens.

He had just arrived from England.

He had followed my writing in the New York Review, he said, and so called me to ask (quite boldly, and charmingly, I thought) if I would introduce him around.

I brought him to a meeting of the Dissent Magazine board at Irving Howe's apartment and we kept in touch sporadically the way one did back then, before email and free long-distance.

Once I hit my own professional turbulence and took refuge of a kind at the Harvard Business Review, we pretty much fell out of touch.

In 1991, we debated about the 1st Gulf War at Wellesley College. He was against it, I was for it tho neither of us really knew what we were talking about. Then we went out for a drink and that was pretty much that.

My Comment: The fact that he was charming made his boldness easy to take. The same behaviour by a less competent schmoozer would not have been as acceptable. And most people don't have that pzazz.

Schmooze: To converse casually, especially in order to gain an advantage or make a social connection.

The Most Generous Generation

I used to ridicule all kinds of GenY hogwash from the 2 Ryans and I used make fun of the Gen Y Princess too  and I was noted for doing so.

Eventually I got tired of it and I stopped following their stuff and I assumed that the GenY Baloney Sandwich had already been totally consumed.

I was wrong though, I suppose, because last week I discovered @ValueIntoWords and @ResumeStrategy discussing this article on Twitter.

Where GenY Shines: What Goes Around, Comes Around Networking - Jan 5, 2012 - By Alexis Grant

The typical complaint about GenY is that we act entitled, lazy and even rude.

But here’s a soft skill GenY has mastered far better than other generations: Millennials are generous. Particularly in professional situations, 20-somethings understand the value of helping others, that what goes around comes around, perhaps especially in an increasingly digital world.

Whenever I chat with new acquaintances who are interested in learning about me or my business, some look at the conversation as something that’s benefiting them. Regardless of whether I contacted them or they contacted me, they ask how-can-this-help-me questions.

But GenYers tend to approach these conversations differently. Yes, they’re eager to learn about how I’m selling digital guides online or helping small businesses with social media or whatever project they’re interested in. But they also ask how they can help me.

A Small But Powerful Network

From: Scott Allen, Networking Lessons From Gene Simmons

Who in your LinkedIn network would buy a $10,000 hot dog from you for charity?

Write your book foreword in a weekend?

Introduce you to their CEO personally?

Pick you up at the airport personally?

Let you stay at their house?

If the answer is “no one”, it’s time to change your networking strategy.

 

How To Talk To Strangers

From: TimsStrategy.com

I spent an hour on the phone last week.  Getting my teeth kicked in.

And I have to tell you that I stumbled a bit.  Something I’m not used to doing.  I was out of my element.  Speaking to a radio audience that doesn’t care how much time I spend working with and helping people with job search and career strategy in my free time.  They just wanted answers.  Rightly so.

And if you listened to my appearance on the Recruiting Animal Radio Show you may have an interesting view of my personality and strengths.  Animal has a well-honed way of sweeping your feet out from under you.

But the places I stumbled were not his fault.  They were mine.  I was not able to answer some pretty basic questions he asked.  Ones that, I think, seem pretty straight-forward.  Not intentionally deceptive at all.

So now I’m here to answer the big one.  In full detail.  For the world to evaluate and comment on.  Yes: You.

His question to me:

How do you start, maintain and end a conversation with a stranger?

Read the rest

It's Not Always Easy to Assess People

For anybody who has studied from Steinsaltz’s volumes, meeting him can be quite a shock. The Steinsaltz on the page is brief, succinct, and sometimes even terse.

The Steinsaltz who sits at his desk, puffing on his pipe while letting his tea go cold, responds to questions with long, winding answers, shooting off on tangents along the way.

There is even a diversion before we start: His warm and non-egocentric nature means that he insists on interviewing this interviewer before talking about himself.

This contrast, he admits, is no coincidence. “This work was in many ways to keep myself in rein,” he said, explaining that it disciplined his writing style and his intellectual direction.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/135953/#ixzz1GCjVHxNE