Funny thing happened this morning…. it’s a long an involved story so it may take some time for me to weave the tale and have it make sense for you…. but here goes.
There is an ongoing buzz in the recruiting blogopshere which I think was started by Dave Mendoza with his series of articles on the Influence of Bloggers on the Recruitment Industry…. Quite a few folks have commented on the premise both on their own blogs and on recruiting.com: Harry Joiner, who write Marketing Headhunter.com, says that no blog equals no sale. Matt Martone of Job | Searchmarketing writes The night the lights went out; an experiment in blogger influence, Martin Snyder of Main Sequence dukes it out with Animal, Jim Durbin of Stlrecruiting.com has give and take on a number of blogs on this topic, Recruiting Animal who has blogs Recruiting Animal and Recruiting Bloggers, seems to make the claim that our community is too small to have much influence. Seems like there is an argument about how our 300 (plus or minus) recruiting focused blogs don’t have much influence in the industry. Heck, there is some question about whether or not my blog even counts as a blog in the recruiting industry, as Recruiting Animal and I have had some tongue-in-cheek dialogue about that in comments on recruiting.com.
Now here is where it gets somewhat interesting. I got an email from one of my readers, we’ll call him "Mike." Mike sent me a note complimenting me on my blog and asking if I knew of any restaurant chains for sale. Mike just happens to be a big wheel at a group that invests in and buys restaurants and restaurant chains [among other things.] In fact their main office is in New York near Wall St. and they have hundreds of restaurant properties world wide.
After sending him an initial email response and getting a note back from him detailing sort of what his group is looking for, I had an idea. In between my first note and his return email I had read an article on Jason Alba’s (no relation to Jessica) JibberJobber Blog about "Chicken Lists" and it got me to thinking. See I don’t really have a chicken list. After starting in my very first recruiting role with MRI, I had spoken to and recruited about 20 CEO’s of various sized companies. In fact when we added up potential fees for their placement, my boss got the idea that restaurant recruiting might just be lucrative… but I digress. Anyway, I decided that since I wasn’t afraid to call Mike that I might just as well do it… now! So I did just that. Mike and I had a great conversation and I gave him an idea for investment into a chain of restaurant properties not far from his office. Both Mike and I were happy to make the other’s acquaintance and I’m sure that we will be doing business in the future.
Now, if that isn’t influence, then I’m not sure what is. How would I measure it? Well that’s a different matter altogether. But It would say it is significant just from a relationship standpoint.
Sooooo, Carl has a Not Chicken list 😉
This is an amazing topic (that of, do blogs influence)… I’m glad you shared the story, and hope you become fabulously wealthy because of this phone call. Then maybe you can send me a thank you post card from your private island.
Will you still blog then?
The author of the number one recruiting blog posted a link to this posting on Recruiting.com and I answered there. But I’ll repeat what I said and expand upon it.
Bull Doza is trying to push a line that Recruiting Blogs are major players in the recruiting industry at the present time. He’s got his tag line “Recruiting Blogs Are Empowered!” and he’s trying to say that they are “industry partners”. Of course no one knows what that means exactly but I assume from other remarks that it means that they have a big influence on companies producing product for the recruiting industry.
The evidence. Pretty shabby. I’ve already taken it apart during the week on Rdc and the number one recruiting blog itself. But I will compile all of my arguments on my own blogs next week.
Hey people. Being a blogger is different from being a glad handing cheerleader. And as Papa John Sumser points out on the number one recruiting blog, if you post bullshit someone is going to call you out. Well, I’m that someone. If you want to take me on on this one, let me know directly and I’ll give you a special opportunity to do so. But if you do, you’d better write your will cause YOU-GONNA-DIE.
PS: Carlo, I never said that individual recruiters like Harry Joiner could not benefit from blogs that cater to their client and candidate pools. And that’s not the line that is currently being promoted.