Cheezhead

Recently I made a career decision. For a ‘boomer’ a fairly major decision. I have been in the search/recruitment technology business for 30 years. Since 1995 I have been on the technology side working to make sense and add value from the Internet and emerging technologies. And made some headway. On the other hand many of the solutions I envisioned have not come to pass. Technology was not quite there, the audience of buyers were not quite ready and the ups and downs of the economy over the past 8 years had an effect.

Through it all many like me have spoken loudly and vigorously about what needs to be changed or not about the recruitment industry. And we continue to speak…some ideas and suggestions are new and many are the same ideas and initiatives we heard in the late 90s. All good and through Joel, recruitingblogs, Penelope and others we get passionate voices carrying our industry forward.

My post today is personal. I have decided to hang up my technology bent for a while to go work my recruiting chops - executive search to be specific. When I made my decision I relived highlights in my career and many of the top 10 were specific recruiting experiences I have had the priviledge to complete. For instance, many don’t know that I recruited two executives away from National Semiconductor in the early 90’s, one in the Bay and one in Mayalasia. K. Wheeler and I discovered years later over beers in Sydney harbour he was the VP of HR for National at the time and was not happy at the time about the losses. My clients, Dell and Sun were so I bought Kevin another beer and we laughed at the incredible shrinking world. There are many others and as I relive each I discover I miss making the search happen. Many of you know what I speak of and missing the search just reminds me that though we grow tired of our work, our service at times, recruiting is still one of the greatest vocations on the planet.

I will have more to say. But based on my first two weeks back in the search trenches, I realize there is still much to learn. And I am clearly seeing opportunities to apply my experiences to the search industry and the technologies used to support. More to come….