This month, I am in the mood of writing a more introspective piece, and hopefully to allow my followers to get to know me and how I help my community members.
Perhaps let me define who I am professionally. I am an independent recruiter who helps my contacts to make meaningful professional connections and ultimately, leading to a mutually beneficial business “marriage”. And how do I help in the process? I see myself playing a combination of the following roles:
- An introducer: I introduce clients to canidates and verse vice. It is the most common “hat” and most people see it. However, there are many behind-the-scene tasks, no matter how trivial they are, which must take place prior making any consequential introductions
- A connector: Regardless of my current assignments at hand, I continue to reach out, seek out my peers in the logistics community. Making connections is my perpetual work habit. My experience tells me that you will never know when the next opportunity comes knocking on your door, but the key is to keep making steps every day, even if they are minute
- A career coach: As I have the privilege to private conversations which allow me to analyze, to ponder, to recognize patterns in many career choices, inevitably I have become a little bit of “career expert” from my peer’s, partners, and candidate’s perspective. Just like our DNAs, I have not seen two identical profiles. Through many in-depth conversations, these continue to help me understand many often complex and the underlying issues which are far from apparent. My decade plus listening helped facilitate many even challenging conversations
- A presenter: Those who have worked with me, know very well that I don’t send CVs to my clients, I present my candidate profiles to my clients. If you have all the relevant skills of a job description, good for you, but to make it beyond the probation period at a new job demands more than “checking all the boxes”. My tendency to is pay close attention to the nuances, or the in-between words which lurk in the background information and experiences. These can be very helpful to realize as they come to the fore under stressful situations, like a new job. What makes your tick, or sing, or cry? What are your red lines or trigger points? And then, I have no qualms of saying no to introductions because nobody gains from a bad professional marriage
- An “information exchange server”: isn’t it self-explanatory!
- A fixer: Well, or you could call it a mediator. Once an introduction is made, my clients and candidates leverage me as much as possible, especially when unexpected “bad surprises” pop-up at a blind corner. I will defend you as long as I have to and is right. I will hold fast to a company value as I have to and is right. For a middle-man’s role to work well on your behalf, either as a client or candidate, full disclose of information just works so much more effectively to all the parties involved
- A blogger: I love reading non-fiction/fact-based writings and it will be hard to see me with no physical or ebooks on my coffee table. And over the years, I find myself enjoying the writing (and thanks for you guys bearing my writings!) and sharing with my community. Things that resonate most are those not-so-conspicuous issues within my work realm
- A friend: Over the years, I have been blessed with many good friends who remain in contact. As we now live and work under a more unpredictable and volatile climate, we all benefit if we all lean in to our community, our profession and our relationships!
To be clear, I am not unique, I am sure you find yourself playing many roles as well, maybe a conscious decision to notice them will offer you a chance to better serve your “community.”
And now, more importantly, I am interested to understand how you serve.