My background is from working in a Executive Search firm and towards the end of my time there I worked as a Researcher. Back in those days all preliminary target name identification (name id) was done by trawling through paper based directories (sometimes I’d even get a field trip to the local library for an obscure directory!) or by telephone. When Mark Senior of Henley Research gave me this guest post I just had to agree how much of a shame it is that many modern researchers/resourcers aren’t capable of, or confident in, the very essential use of the telephone!
Every Monday our research team stops work and we sit together for our weekly meeting. This normally lasts around 45 minutes and everyone has a turn to summarise their current workload and give a flavour of the searches and assignments they are working on.
This week’s meeting was nothing out of the ordinary but what it did do was to reinforce how important the telephone is in our work. Much is said and written about LinkedIn and other sources of online information (and we use and cherish these as much as any researcher does) but the phone remains the key to most successful searches. Not only because we need to speak to potential candidates, but, prior to that, as the primary tool in actually identifying people in the first place.
For example we’re currently searching for Laboratory Managers for an end client involved in mining in hardship locations – these types of people aren’t on LinkedIn. We’re also identifying senior executives in countries like Mali, Sierra Leone, Angola and Mozambique – nothing on LinkedIn and little or nothing online at all. The only way to get their names is to pick up the phone, and be resourceful, patient and persuasive.
We’re also starting a new search in Japan, where online privacy is very important. Most users of Mixi, Japan’s Facebook, don’t reveal their names, and a service like LinkedIn which encourages users to reveal their entire work history, has had real difficulty establishing itself there. So, once again, it will be the phone to the fore.
Bearing this in mind, it’s becoming increasingly important when recruiting younger researchers to ensure that they are comfortable with using the telephone. This may sound strange where we are talking about well-educated people who possess a range of communication skills, but for many such candidates the default modes of communication are texting, messaging, emailing and ‘facebooking’. Speaking on the telephone, so vital in our research work, is often an unfamiliar concept.
