The core content of her presentation was startling.  The research she shared suggests that more than 90% of the people on our planet live in a perpetual state of fear.  The decisions we make, the people we interact with and the directions our lives take are heavily weighted with fearful thought; “what if I don’t say the right thing” and we lose a deal, “what if I make someone mad” and they don’t want to deal with me anymore, “what if I lose my job” and I have to explain why I was fired to my friends and family, “what if I make less money this year than I did last year”, “what if I lose my home”, “what if my boss doesn’t like me”…the list goes on and on.  The more she spoke, the more connected I felt to this fear based thinking.  I was connected to it because I was living in fear and then I thought about how careful we need to be in the recruiting industry when it comes to fear based decisions.  What I have learned; fear doesn’t discriminate and it sure as hell doesn’t care what your title or compensation package is.  Fear seems to be everywhere!

Bringing this back to the recruiting industry, I would like you to reflect on how many of your decisions might be based in fear.  “What if the candidate I have been working with takes another job?” “What if the hiring manager I have to meet with seems frustrated by the level of recruiting support we are giving him/her?” “What if I offer bad advice to a candidate and their job prospect goes away?”  See, the questions are endless in our industry and most of them have a fear element tied to them (losing a fee, frustrating another person or losing respect at some level) and the more I pay attention to this, the more I realized how fearful I was.  As you begin to recognize the fear, it comes in handy to have a coping mechanism because  in reality, opportunities to be fearful will present themselves regularly.  As part of my coaching and training I have learned to adopt two methods that help me recognize and then position myself to make decisions not out of fear, but out of a philosophy of helping others and I want to share them with you.  My belief, the more people who begin to operate this way will help create a group of business professionals who embody the role we ought to play on a daily basis; that of a consultant and business partner to the candidates and clients we represent and to the people we interact with on a daily basis.  Here are the two areas I focus on each day:

Compassion:  The next time you experience a frustrated CEO or an irate hiring manager; instead of letting your heart beat 15-20 beats faster per minute and you begin to think about what you might have done wrong…slow down and listen compassionately.  Reflect about this person’s state of mind and acknowledge that they are venting to you (not necessarily because of you), but because of a myriad of potentially fearful thoughts.  Maybe their senior executive might jump down their throat if the next great hire isn’t identified quickly or maybe not hiring someone might mean extra work for them, which detracts from the family time they have committed to providing.  Putting yourself into the other person’s frame of mind helps curb the fear of… “I didn’t so something right” and puts you into the frame of mind… “How can I help eliminate my business partner’s pain or frustration”?  Those are very different perspectives and compassion can help you get there.

Acceptance:   I am sure most of you have read the latest books on this topic; The Power of Now, The Secret, The Alchemist and in each you’ll hear from different authors who have a bit of a custom spin to the topic of acceptance.  Most things in life are out of our control, so it is our ability to accept the people, discussions and challenges that come into our lives that enables us to become compassionate and being compassionate will help you make more clear and succinct decisions for yourself or on the behalf of others.

In closing; I have been applying compassion and acceptance on a daily basis for the last 4 months and I can only speak for me when I say that I “feel” more peaceful and I believe that my head is more clear to help other people, which is the core component of why we are all here in the first place.  Again, my opinion only!

Most recruiting professionals have a proprietary process and/or technology that enables the “smooth delivery” that our client and candidate prospects are thirsting for.  If we’re being honest though…most recruiting organizations have a pretty universal recruiting process that flows a little like this:

• client hiring manager/HR manager calls a recruiter who he/she knows personally
• recruiter finds a candidate (through networking, internet, cold calling or referrals)
• recruiter screens a pool of candidates (5 minute introductory conversation with 50-75 people found from their recruiting activity)
• recruiting team interviews a short list of candidates (behavioral based discussion, 20 minutes in length, with the 5 strongest people from that list of 50-75)
• recruiter introduces a candidate portfolio to a client hiring manager (top 3 professionals from that short list of 5 are sent to the hiring manager or HR leader through email)
• coordination of interviews (recruiter arranges interviews at the request of the hiring manager or HR leader and statistically speaking, 2 of the 3 candidates get interviews with the client company)
• offer a job (1 of the 2 candidates interviewed will received a job offer from the client company)

For the sake of this article; I looked at the high level process flow (above) and started wondering if my company does anything “different” in this space.  My conclusion; yes, my company does something different and it’s not simply the process or technology that we utilize; it’s the “how” we deliver that will set us apart.  I’m no longer talking about simply finding the next great candidate; I’m talking about “how” you communicate to your client if you don’t find a great candidate.  I’m not referring to representing the best talent, I’m talking about “how” you treat a candidate who might be represented by another firm and when they seek your help; how will you respond (do you continue talks with them and offer guidance or do you let the candidate deal with their problems on their own because you might not be representing them)?  In summary, as an organization that specializes in assisting organizations with the acquisition of their talent; we need to differentiate ourselves and here are some philosophical beliefs that help illustrate why our team creates a different experience for the people we interact with:

• Partnerships- We desire/demand that our candidates and clients become partners with us.  For those who know me, I work in a “hug it out” kind of environment, so a candidate or client who isn’t truly open to partnerships or connections might not want the “experience” we try to create. 
• Acts of Kindness- being kind is a philosophy, so if you need someone to vent to, done!  If you need some consulting advice to better your decision, done!  Our team looks for ways to help others before we help ourselves and it makes our business that much more rewarding.
• Control- I can’t control other human beings, so I have coached our team to control what we can, our actions.  Our team will own up to the commitments they make whether that means returning phone calls from candidates or if it means delivering a customized proposal at a certain day and time, we control our actions. 
• End Game- Some people’s end game is the “placement” of a candidate or the new contract signed by a client.  The recruiting industry has thousands of people trying to differentiate in order to make money; we are trying to differentiate by doing right by people. 

I empty the cup on a quarterly basis, which is “code word” for spending an hour or two at the beginning of each quarter writing myself an honest and direct letter about how I am feeling, areas of concern, areas for opportunity, etc. and I make sure to walk away from the letter for a day and then think through my thoughts the next day.  Here is a personal sample from Q1 2010:

I, like so many, do like things and material comforts, but I have been working hard to ensure that I don’t rely on money to determine my success.  I gather excitement from sitting in a conference room and talking to a team of professionals who need my assistance with making their businesses stronger and more strategic and then watching their businesses grow.  I enjoy teaching recruiting professionals to focus on taking care of the candidates and hiring communities we work to support and I continue to focus on being a better leader of people.  I enjoy the quick paced nature of the Recruitment Process Outsourcing business, the deadlines that are forced upon you, the level of communication and the articulate communication required.  Ironically, details can become a burden to me, so I have to embrace focus and discipline.  I don’t get too jazzed about business process, but I am a purist when it comes to treating people/clients the right way, so I work hard to build those core competencies into my recruiting processes.  I tend to care more about people and relationships versus gross margin and profit margin, which gives me a recognizable opportunity to focus on creating methods to build and execute profitable business while not surrendering the “human element” that I crave.  I like to win, but am not willing to do whatever it takes to win.  The privilege of being part of teams that make decisions, implement ideas and regularly execute on projects lifts my spirits.  I like change.  I detest stagnating and the concept of doing the same thing day in and day out (without variation or fluctuation) makes me want to crawl out of my own skin.

This exercise has helped keep me sane.  It has enabled me to catch areas within my career and my personal life that I am stagnating on and it has helped me find areas that should become a future focus.  My love of coaching, training and writing became more apparent in a letter to myself two quarters ago, which sparked my interest in building my “consulting and coaching” business model.   As people, we’ll continue to grow and change (that is a given) and I have learned to accept that fact of life.  As your life continues to move and develop, taking a deep look at the role you play and the experiences you have gained can be a valuable exercise.

Why is it that each spring we empty our garages, sweep out the floor, and hose down the walls?  We do it to feel clean, to get “organized” and it makes us feel better, hence the popular term, spring cleaning.  Professionals should spring clean their careers from time to time too. 

Clearing out a garage is easy, but clearing out a career can be more complicated.  Most of us have bills, house payments, car payments, etc., so reinventing our careers can be too daunting, can’t it?  I am working to reinvent my career (from a tactical recruiting professional to a coach and trainer) and it is not as difficult as you might think it to be.  After you complete this exercise (writing down how you feel about your industry, your daily routine and your energy levels) I am not suggesting that you quit your job and move to a desert island somewhere.  Typically, you can find subtle ways within your current role, to create opportunity and most people thrive on new opportunities.

As you begin to explore your current situation; I have included a couple ideas that helped me get the “introspective thoughts” flowing:

Stand on a desk: If you haven’t seen the movie, Dead Poets Society, standing on a desk is a metaphor for looking at the world from a different angle (the classroom looks much different when you are 3 feet above the ground).  If you sell recruiting solutions, go work a requisition and get engaged with the candidate again.  If you are managing a heavy requisition load for a corporation, talk to one of your peers and engage a search in their business unit (learning a new set of hiring managers may create a spark that helps you perform for your current business unit).  In short, sometimes a subtle switch of the routine can help you recognize areas that you need to improve on or areas that energize you.

Change up your routine:  If you are a professional who comes in every day at 730am, talk to your management team about a swing shift because coming in a day or two per week at 9am versus 730am may give you enough of a change in your day to feel re-energized.

Clear out the file drawer: It can be cathartic to clean out old files and the mojo that comes with those files. Every quarter, look through your desk and your file cabinets and clean out the old/closed files, reorganize your desk and get prepared for the upcoming quarter.

Passion Project:  If work becomes a grind, look at it as a blessing that affords you the financial wherewithal to do the other things in your life that give you energy.  Get to work early, be structured and produce daily so you can devote 1 or 2 hours each day writing, volunteering, coaching or whatever it is that makes you tick.

Again, the world is always changing, so we have a choice; change with it or fight it and I advocate changing with it.

In my opinion, hiring is the byproduct of strong recruiting activity and recruiting, believe it or not, is strategic and has a disciplined methodology.  Recruiting is something that organizations could be doing on a regular basis, but why would businesses actively recruit in a down market?  My answer; recruiting can help with a strategic “top-grade” of talent in a down market and it can proactively connect you with pools of talent, so when the market picks up, your company’s time to recruit and hire is dramatically reduced.  It is natural for a leader to question, so it’s normal that the questions of; is the “investment” in new people worth the risk?  Can your business afford to hire?  Is the market positively turning in Michigan within 6, 12 or 18 months?  No one has the perfect answer for these questions, so now is the time to lead, fearlessly. 

I consult with small and mid-sized businesses each year that face these challenges.  For 15 years I have been “putting people to work” and helping companies design the “processes” for how to find, screen, interview and hire the right talent for their organizations. Michigan’s “rebound” from the economic disaster of 2008 & 2009 may not happen for another 6-12 months and when it does, we’ll still feel “different” than the glory days we experienced in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, but that shouldn’t prevent the chief executives in Michigan’s small business community from making a brave decision; paying close attention to the power of having the right people on their teams, regardless of economic times.

For those who haven’t read it; Jim Collins wrote Good to Great and in his book, Mr. Collins and his research team review the findings of years of research where they looked for trends to “pinpoint” why certain companies in the United States moved from “good performing companies” to “great performing companies” and one of the trends Mr. Collins’ team discovered was the common denominator of “great performing companies” finding the right people to work for their companies and ensuring that those hires are in the right role within their organization.  He uses the metaphor of a bus ride and says that business is like a bus; get the right people on your bus, make sure that they are sitting in the right seats on that bus and you’ll be one step closer to having a smooth ride.  As a business owner, you have your own “bus” and you determine what defines the “right” people and if you commit to it; you’ll also be able to work hard to determine who sits where on the bus, ensuring a successful trip.

As you read Good to Great, it becomes apparent that most of these business examples detail the experiences of “large” organizations, but the core exercise of keeping the right people on the bus can be applied to a bus that holds 5000 people or a bus that has 5 people.  Another strong read that illustrates similar points is Bo Burlingham’s book; Small Giants.  This book highlights organizations that choose to be great instead of big (growing not for the sake of revenues, but to increase their impact on a certain region).

The businesses I consult for want guidance and information about knowing how and when they should hire, so when I say “recruit” proactively, these leaders typically say, “I’m not ready to hire” to which I respond with; “recruiting is the process of attracting talent into your business radar, hiring happens AFTER you recruit.”.  Yes… you can recruit without having to hire! 

If your business is contemplating hiring; talk to an expert and work together to design a plan that affords your organization the people who will help your company grow.  Ironically, in a down turn, it can be one of the most strategic times to explore building an “engine” that can help you recruit the quality and the volume that is specific to your company.  Don’t wait until the market picks up and you “need” the hire, because by then, it may actually cost you more than you could have imagined.

Experience #1:  I had the opportunity to work for one of the “Big 4” professional services firms for a short period of time in 2003.  I came into this company after a 6-year stint as a “headhunter” with the mentality of “eat what you kill” and my success was defined by the number of people I put to work for the month.  After my first month inside this new and cutting edge organization I realized how “different” it was going to be.  The new team’s perception of a recruiting leader’s success had minimal to do with the volume of hires that were being produced (I think I helped hire 12 people in my first month) and was defined by the relationships you built with the partners who managed this firm.  I continued my feverish pace of screening, interviewing, submitting and coordinating interviews and was met with some internal resistance; a slow down would ya… attitude.  I was coached by an internal mentor who said that I should pay attention to my service levels (something I have been good at doing in the past), so I took the advice and watched and learned how catering to my “internal partners” was more important to this organization than the act of “filling requisitions”.  As long as the “partners” were happy, everyone else seemed to be happy too.

Lesson: sometimes it isn’t about how fast you move, but how comfortable you can make the people you are supporting.

Experience #2: After a 6-month consulting assignment with the “Big 4” I was recruited back to my first RPO employer and was charged with implementing and delivering a large North American RPO project.  I was responsible for hiring a 60 person team, implementing a national process and was charged with hiring 2000+ direct hire engineers across the U.S. for this Fortune 25 client.  The client’s HR leadership made a strategic decision to outsource the hiring to our team based on an existing relationship with our organization.  Our team traveled from division to division, across the company, talking about the metrics and the service and the processes that we had built (which all looked great on paper), but our delivery struggled early on.  We struggled to learn the culture of the company and the essence of what they were searching for.  It took our team 6 months before we began to work less than 12 hours per day and as we continued to beat our heads against the wall regarding why things aren’t running as smooth as they could be and it was clear that this client wasn’t happy with metrics, meetings and reports; they wanted action!  This particular client didn’t care about process or the fancy documents we produced, they cared about finding great talent who would be supporting the new projects their business had accumulated.

Lesson: Process is critical to “show” a client because it validates your thoughtfulness around “how” you are going to help them, but action (filling jobs) was the only thing inside this client that kept hiring managers and HR leaders happily quiet (very different from my Big 4 exposure), so make sure that your process is strong and your delivery is built to be effective.

I could type stories like this ALL day long with experiences gained and lessons learned and the moral to all of these stories is simple; listen to the people around you.  Pay attention to what your clients are searching for and quickly determine what defines “success” inside of the different cultures you may work.  What defines success for one client may not be what defines success for another, so be “nimble” with how you build solutions.

Throughout his presentation, Matt referenced video clips featuring Will Smith and ironically, one of my co-workers had sent a video about Will’s “I can attitude” earlier in the week, which talked about the creation of his personal brand and how it has helped build the perception of “strong work ethic” and “disciplined professional”.  During these clips it became clear that Will’s belief system, which mirrors mine, states that everyone has talent and unfortunately, people confuse the meaning of “skills” and “talent”.  Talent we all have (hidden somewhere), but skills take time to develop through repititious behavior.  In order to fully recognize “skill”, I believe that one has to have immense discipline and incredible focus to achieve those goals or targets we set in front of ourselves.

I lead a consulting/coaching and training business relative to recruiting and I know how challenging our days can get while building a business; meetings, presentations, project work, emails, voicemails, more emails, etc. and I am sure some of us are tired of the 12 hour day that leaves you feeling more buried than when you walked in at 7am, right?

If you have experienced this feeling, you should consider testing a structure that has worked for me and a structure that has worked for other professionals I have coached and managed.  The premise to this theory; people’s behavior can be modified.  I know this to be true because I graduated with a behavioral psychology degree and spent 3+ years reading, studying and applying behavioral modification processes to watch how they impact people and truth be told; they work.

As a simple test, try the following schedule for the next 30 days and if you are dedicated and disciplined to applying it, I believe you’ll experience more organization in your day, which leads to more productivity, which leads to less hours, which leads to more peace. 

The big 4 “to do’s” that happen in a day (my opinion only); 1) emails,      2) voicemails, 3) meetings and 4) individual projects

Emails: answer your email three times per day (upon arrival, after lunch & before leaving for the day) and when you aren’t answering email, don’t have it open on your desktop and ignore the blackberry.  I know, it sounds crazy, but trust me, if you are accessible 3 times per day via email, no one will have to wait longer than 3 hours to hear back from you and if it’s an emergency, they’ll know how to contact you!  When you open your email, answer the email (act on the request in the email) and then file the email into the pre-designed personal folders, so your email inbox stays clear (don’t keep 1000’s of emails sitting, so you look jumbled and disorganized).

Voicemails: clear your voicemails in the morning, prior to lunch and prior to heading home for the day.  Return each call and act on each request and do not begin another part of your structured day until you have cleared through each message (and do that three times per day).

Individual Projects:  most business professionals will have tasks and projects that need to be completed (that is why we get paid) and for most recruiters, it’s phone time, so ensure that you afford yourself 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon to focus on your prioritized list of tasks.  You will be shocked at how much you can get done from 10am-12pm and from 2pm-4pm if you aren’t answering emails, voicemails and having visits from co-workers.

Meetings:  This is where you have to be flexible.  Meetings will get scheduled that cloud your calendar and might prohibit you from having a structured day, so accept it and plan around it.

In closing, plan your day, each evening before you go home.  It sounds like a lot of work, but if you are disciplined, you’ll be shocked at how your productivity increases.  You know by 5pm each business day how many meetings you have the following day, so ensure that you give attention “time” to each of the areas mentioned above; emails, voicemails, projects & meetings.  Building the framework to be disciplined will create repetition, which will create habit, which creates good energy.

A survey from HR.com, published a few years back, stated 94% of people who apply for opportunities never hear back from the organization that they applied to.  When I first read the article I laughed… believing that the “propaganda police” were at it again, publishing skewed data to create drama and frustration for those looking for work and for those who spend their work hours trying to acquire the best talent in the market place for the organizations who pay them, but then I experienced the dilemma first hand (during a career search of my own) and realized how true this 94% statistic may be.

If it was tough to get a call back from a recruiting professional or hiring manager in 2005 & 2006, flash forward into 2010 and realize that if 94% didn’t receive calls then, it can only be worse now (statistically speaking). Unemployment sky rocketed in the U.S. from 4.9% (Bureau of Labor Statistics) in 2005 to a steady 10% in November of 2010.  Now, if we have a doubling of unemployed people and reduce the number of new jobs created, imagine the spike in volume relative to those people applying for jobs, staggering, right?

Okay, so here is my first request, Corporate Recruiting Leaders, please turn on your AUTO RESPONSE feature on the Applicant Tracking System that your company has paid for.  This feature, common with most of the applicant tracking systems I have used, afford each applicant an system generated email after they apply to a specific requisition that could state; “thanks for your application, we will be processing 100’s of applicants and if your qualifications meet our expectations, you’ll hear from a member of our team within 5 business days and if not, know that we’ll keep your record on file for 1 year.”

A statement, similar to the one above, helps to reduce the % of professionals who claim to never hear back from the organization they apply to and it will make some feel a little better and will limit the verbal bashing that some of your companies take on chat rooms, on LinkedIn and on various blog sites.

Applicants (those of you applying for jobs) please understand this perspective; as organizations reduced headcount to prevent bankruptcy and maintain the ability to deliver their core services, people were asked to leave, people were terminated and those who were left, were asked to do the work of 4 people.  From the perspective of a past corporate recruiter and recruiting leader (I was in the corporate space from 1995-1997 and again from 2001-2006) I lived that role and now that I consult to corporations, I am watching corporate recruiters struggle to keep their heads above water relative to executives who are now preparing for an “uptick” in the economy, which means the hiring forecasts are increasing, but the companies have to be careful to not hire too many people, too quick and the executives expect their corporate recruiters to be prepared to hire, but they have to keep doing it with limited resources…get the drift and anxiety that people are living through?  For every 1 job open today, most organizations will receive between 100-200 applications and if you are a recruiter who has 5 open jobs to fill, that means you will have as many as 1000 people to call back, right?  Those call backs can’t happen, so recruiters look for the most qualified candidates and present them to hiring managers, someone gets hired and the rest of the resumes sit in a database.  So now imagine that you work in an organization who is actively trying to hire 50 or 60 people and you can have 1000’s of resumes and guess, what…there is only 1, maybe 2 people in your recruiting department.

All of our research shows that this challenging market will be around for at least another 12-18 months, so I am offering up that everyone “accept” that this will be the case for a while (overworked schedules and too many people to call back) and I have included some tips for people looking for work that might help prevent navigating that process nightmare and will increase your odds of getting your resume into the hands of the right people, so you aren’t 1 of 200 unknown applicants:

1. Get networking.  I read an article on Electronic Recruiter Exchange (ERE) that stated more than 80% of all new hires originated from a referral or networking contact, so don’t worry as much about applying to jobs on line as you should about getting in front of networking contacts.  Start networking with professional organizations, civic groups, etc and for those people serious about the world of networking and referrals, you can visit Tim Green from the Referral Institute of Michigan (tgreen@riofimi.com) and Tim can help you to become a referral and networking machine.
2. Get creative. Take networking to the next level and start thinking about how many people you come in contact everyday that may be able to help.  Your dry cleaner, your church group, your gas station owner, your dentist all has connections and informing these people of your situation will aid in getting you in front of some great contacts.
3. Get Helpful. Yes, you may be looking for work, but you probably have a friend looking too.  Do a kind act and help introduce your friend to a company or two that you are aware of.  The act of kindness will spark energy from one person and it could open doors for you too.

Good luck, stay positive, get creative and all will work out.

Isn’t it hard to believe when you read that year, after all, I remember the bombing of the World Trade Center (2001) as if it were yesterday, I can remember the Y2k preparation and I can remember when recruiting only required a box of rolodex cards, a phone line (no voicemail, we went with the pink “while you were out slips”) and a strong fax signal.

It’s 2010.

Our U.S. business climate is still a challenge to work in, but fortunately, it is showing signs of progress and as I connect with fellow recruiting professionals they seem to concur that an uptick in temporary/contract staffing has happened, which means (historically) that an increase in steady jobs creation is somewhere between 6-12 months away barring another market set back (not too bad knowing that less than a year ago, we were wondering if our U.S. banking system, U.S. automotive system and U.S. management system were going to collapse).

It’s 2010.

As a new decade begins I think it is important to address a critical shift in business thinking that will give your teams more energy, help your business models be looked upon as “consultative” and ultimately drive the revenues that are so critical today.  The shift in thinking that I refer to is a servant leader mentality. 

Servant Leadership: As a leader in an organization we need to focus our efforts on supporting and serving the people who work with and for us. There have been great books authored on this topic (Robert Greenleaf and James Autry have both written extensively in this area) and the books reference how the 1980’s and 90’s hard charging “manager” who was hierarchical, dictatorial and disengaged slowly disappeared in the early 2000’s and if you expect your teams to rally around that kind of leader today, you are in for a frustrating shock.  Today, people are nervous, anxious and fearful of so many things, so when you serve your teams, you enable them to let go of fear and focus, intently, on driving the business.

Here are a few things a leader can do that demonstrates his/her interest in becoming a servant leader:

• Take on some of the administrative work that your people may be burdened with and complete it yourself.  It could be as simple as getting a cup of coffee for the early riser on your team or it could be as complex as occasionally offering to enter sales call information into a CRM system for the sales team member who is on calls all day long and needs to get home to his/her family.
• Ask, each day, one member of your team how you can help them and when they reply with a request, act on it.  Don’t make empty requests and/or promises.
• Anonymously survey your team (SurveyMonkey.com) on a monthly basis regarding suggested ways to make their jobs more comfortable and more productive and then discuss the results in a formal meeting format to let the teams know that they have been heard and show progress toward making their requests happen (when possible).

These simple steps begin to lay a foundation of servant leadership that will make the team members you have today stand up and notice that their “leadership” has a vested interest in their comfort and success, which leads to increased productivity.

Our team is working to become an organization that leads without fear.  We are engaging in more open, honest and trustworthy relationships and we will work hard to offer some of our successes through our weekly leadership blog.

Over the next year, we will be working with professionals across a number of industries and their input will be one of the channels where we secure information to offer to our readership.  Our site, (www.fearlessleadership.wordpress.com), is a forum based on leadership for business and for personal life situations.  Our “Managing Editor”, Travis Furlow, a SE Michigan based recruiting leader, will post weekly and will include posts from guest authors, interview articles, industry links and other leadership tools that offer guidance and suggestions for those who wish to focus their efforts on leading versus managing.  Please feel free to visit our site and leave your questions, issues, concerns and comments and we’ll work together through the year to share information that makes 2010 as strong a learning year as 2009 was!

Our posts will occur weekly and will begin on January 4, 2010.