An open letter to The Recruited

"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."
- Bill Gates

One of the groups hit hardest during this recession is high performing professionals who have a history of being recruited from one job to the next. Let's call them "The Recruited."

Recruiters have done these folks a huge disservice over the years. They have made them dependant on services that the vast majority of companies are just not paying for anymore.

The Recruited don't know what they don't know: how to get a job for themselves. And in this recession they are not being "rescued" by someone else's efforts as they have been in the past.

Open letter to The Recruited:

You have that deer-in-the-headlights look when we meet; sometimes full of self-pity, sometimes resentment or even anger because no one is swooping in to fix your unemployment problem for you this time.

You try to "network" me (poor grammar for effect) and ask if I know any recruiters I can introduce you to. You eagerly write down their names and miss the point when I explain how I can help you even more by teaching you how to land a great job on your own.

You don't stay in touch after we meet - you don't see the value in it. People can either help YOU or not at this moment. Period.

You move on to "network" the next person on your list, hoping they will be the one to solve your problem for you.

Your network is weak at best because you've never seen the value of keeping it up, and you don't know how to approach people in it without them feeling used by you.

Your resume doesn't represent you to your maximum potential, because you don't realize that it needs to. In the past a recruiter has always been there to represent you to potential employers regardless of what your resume said.

You don't know how to write a compelling resume yourself. And you sure don't know how to write a cover letter that will get your resume read, since you've never really needed them before with recruiters pitching you.

Your elevator pitch consists purely of where you've been. Many of you don't even know what you want next. You hope that I, like the recruiters who have made money off of you in the past, will just tell you where you are the most marketable.

You look at me like I am from the moon when I ask you what your preferences are as well as your strengths. And when I tell you I believe that you are the most marketable where they overlap.

You tell me there are no jobs out there in your category or at your level. You believe that because you have no idea how to find opportunities and companies.

You easily feel defeated because you have no concept of how many companies and people you need to contact, since you have never been the one to find and create opportunities for yourself before. In the past you've just picked up the phone after someone else has done that work and said, "Sure, XYZ company sounds OK, go ahead and submit me."

You look at me like I am talking Swahili when I tell you that I can show you how to target companies you are interested in and create positions for yourself there.

You look at me like I'm a a little green martian when I tell you that how you conduct your job search is the best evidence a potential employer has to gage what a great asset you can be to them on the job.

Here's my harsh but heartfelt advice to you: BUCK UP AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR CAREER. Admit that you've been coddled and don't know how to do this on your own.

You've been given a fish so many times that you don't know how to catch your own fish.

You've been given a fish so many times that you also don't see why you should have to pay someone to teach you to fish - you think that somehow lessons and coaching in how to fish should be as free to you as the fish you've been given all these years.

You don't realize that the best investment you can ever make in yourself is to pay an expert to help you develop your own resources and knowledge in this process.

You don't realize that you don't need to be dependent on recruiters to define what you will do and where you will do it. You don't realize that with some guidance, you can do that for yourself.

You've never been the one to pay before (your new employer has) so you are suspicious. Yes, there is plenty of "free" advice out there, but you've been so removed from it in the past that you don't have the patience to wade through it all. And you have no idea how to determine which advice is good and which is not. You can waste a ton of time trying to compare and sort free advice into "useful" and "not."

And every day that you are not collecting that six-figure salary you are losing more and more money and long-term earning potential.

The best thing you can do, Mr/Ms Recruited, is to recognize that the business environment has shifted and that you need to shift your behavior with it. It's time to dig into your well-lined pocket and pay for some expert coaching on how to land your next job.

When you do, you'll also learn how to secure the one after that, and the one after that - steering your career toward what you enjoy and are most successful doing, not just what is available. It's time to take over the reins and manage your own career.