Be Yourself, But Also, Be Good

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This Week’s Breakdown

I had a moment on the podcast a few weeks ago with Shaun Hervey that made me laugh at myself a bit, because it reminded me of a mistake I’ve seen so many recruiters make. Really it’s not recruiter specific, but since you’re all on that side let’s focus on that (and if you aren’t, what are you doing here?)

At some point, a lot of recruiters get it in their head that to grow, to make more money, or to be taken seriously, they need to become someone else.

People who used to be a jeans and t shirt person start putting on the sport coat. They start adopt the account manager vibe (if you’ve ever been in staffing you know exactly what I mean, but even internal recruiters do this eventually when they want the next step). All the sudden they are a more polished and corporate version of who they are and the person that got them to this point.

I did exactly that.

I was doing really well as an agency recruiter early in my recruiting career, and like so many people before me, I decided the next logical step was account management. That’s where the money was, and that’s where the “grown-up” recruiters went. So I bought a few nice pairs of pants, a few sports jackets, a few nice shirts and started showing up to work differently. I convinced my boss to move me into that role and I’d be great and landing her the big corporate clients she wanted.

And this probably isn’t shocking, but I was terrible at it!

Not just mediocre, I was genuinely bad. My personality changed, my confidence dropped, and suddenly I was worse at the job I thought I was leveling up into. What I learned the hard way is that you can’t fake fit, and you definitely can’t fake trust.

Shaun shared a similar realization from his early agency days selling temp staffing. He talked about walking into manufacturing plants in a suit and tie and immediately being written off. Not because he was too professional, but because he wasn’t himself, he wasn’t relatable, and it was obvious.

And that’s the real lesson here, especially right now when recruiting and business development are both brutally hard:

You don’t win by looking different and convincing someone you’re more than you are. You win by being real. In this time of AI slop everywhere, people are craving realness more than ever, yet I still see people thinking they can’t be themselves.

The agency world especially loves to play the differentiation game. Every firm claims to be “not like the others” while doing the exact same thing with a different logo. Clients see right through that. Every company claims to be different, an exciting rocketship and opportunity you can’t miss, and candidates see right through that too.

The recruiters who actually last, and make money, aren’t the ones chasing every client, every candidate, every hiring manager. They’re the ones finding the people who want them.

Those are the clients who:

• Forgive you when a candidate no-shows

• Stick with you through a mistake

• Don’t fire you after one bad hire

• Treat you like a partner instead of a vendor

That doesn’t come from polish or being the most professional, it comes from being the person they want to work with, BUT ALSO being good at the job! You can’t skip that part and Shaun and I really dig into that.

So if you’re struggling right now, especially on the agency or independent side, here’s the uncomfortable advice:

Stop trying to become the recruiter you think clients want.
Find the clients who want you.

Because long-term relationships aren’t built on scripts, suits, or slogans.
They’re built on people actually liking and trusting the person on the other side of the table, and right now being trusted as a recruiter is more important than ever!

Check out the full episode, if you don’t know Shaun you should. You will be hard pressed to find a more real person than him. Listening to how he makes it works for himself is such a great thing to hear!

Recruited in the Wild

Seen on LinkedIn, overheard in Slack, or posted without shame.

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever shared my own post in this section before, but today I’m going to because it’s a topic I’m really interested in hearing from recruiters on.

Yesterday I made this post about a job I had recently opened and got way more reaction on it than I had expected. I knew some of the things to expect from this post like candidates saying they are tired and people poking holes in the idea of application questions by citing extreme examples, but there were also a lot of people involved in hiring debating if there should even be questions.

I’m curious to hear your opinions, chime in if you’d like on the post. Do you include questions on applications? Should you? What do you do if people skip them?

Personally, I think this is the future of hiring and would love to see a world where we don’t even need resumes and candidates can just differentiate themselves at this stage, but I know that’s a far way off.

Accrued Time

A weekly check-in on what I’ve got going on behind the scenes, events, projects, and life outside the req pile.

I hope you all get some rest this holiday season and your companies close down, but I also know many of you are working hard to fill roles before that (myself included) A few fun things going on recently for me though.

• Last week I attended a networking event in Milwaukee focused on AI, I honestly went in with very low expectations but wound up having some pretty interesting conversations with people who have a lot to learn about this space but really want to, as well as meeting some people very involved in the space. Also this is your reminder to go to in person events, they are so refreshing in this world of being chronically online, even if you’re an introvert like me

• New podcast episode dropped last week as well with Kara Miganelli who runs TA week in San Diego I will be speaking at the event this February (a perfect time to go to San Diego) and would love to see you there. It’s my first time attending this event and love the focus on just Talent Acquisition, not HR with a little bit of scraps thrown to recruiting in the tiny conference room at an event. As a speaker I do get a discount code to share, so if you are thinking of buying tickets you can use the code Peditto10 For 10% off (I get no cut of these sales, I’d just love to meet more of you)

Cope of the Week

Because it’s either this or scream into a pillow.

If this issue or the episode with Shaun hit a nerve, that probably means you’re in the part of your career where you’re quietly (or loudly) questioning yourself.

Am I doing this right?
Should I be more polished?
More strategic?
More “senior”?
More like the people who seem to be winning right now?

I’ve been there and know that spiral is exhausting. And it’s happening to a lot of good recruiters in a market that’s already unforgiving.

So here’s the cope this week:

You are not behind because you don’t look, sound, or operate like someone else.
You’re tired because you’re trying to be two people at once.

Recruiting already asks you to shapeshift all day long. When you add be someone else entirely on top of that, something breaks. Usually your confidence. Sometimes your joy. Eventually your performance.

If you feel off lately, it might not be because you’re bad at the job. It might be because you’ve drifted too far from the version of yourself that was actually good at it.

So as the year winds down and hopefully you get to remember how much exists outside of work, take some time to do one thing that feels like you again:

You don’t need to become “more professional.” You need to become more anchored.

Because the recruiters who last aren’t the ones who impress everyone. They’re the ones who don’t disappear when things get hard!

 Forward this to someone in TA who's barely holding it together.