It's never too soon to start building that all-important relationship with North America's top headhunters. Once again, you must start with the identification of the right executive recruiters-those recruiting interests coincide with your own employment interests. It's a matter of creating your personal target list of recruiters to cultivate, as outlined earlier in this chapter. Then comes the ongoing process of becoming known to the right recruiters and helping them create a file on you that causes them to call you on every search they do that is in your field of interest and aspirations.
The first step, of course, is getting your well-crafted resume into the hands of the right recruiters. Your cover letter with a compelling handle helps you accomplish this critical step. Maybe the first call-back from a headhunter will be right on target. But chances are better that it will be about a job in which you neither would fit nor be interested. Let's say your call is from a recruiter who is looking for the new general manager of the Detroit Athletic Club. You happen to be managing one of America's top country clubs. You know how difficult it is today to run a successful city club. You also have the wisdom to realize that with the dues deductibility issue and the major shift in member lifestyles, city clubs of all types are having significant difficulties. And then, of course, there is the issue of working in downtown Detroit. Besides, you like to get in an occasional round of golf, which you can do on Mondays at your current club. Do you just say, "No, Mr. Recruiter, I'm not interested," and hang up? No; instead, you put your mind in gear to help that headhunter with a suggestion.
A light bulb goes on in the recesses of your memory, revealing seldom-used but hopefully useful facts, and out comes a response like this: "I'm sorry I'm not quite right for your search, but I do have a suggestion of a possible candidate for you. Mortimer Club head and I went to school together at Michigan State, one of the top hotel and restaurant schools in the country. He is also a CIA graduate. Incidentally, that's the Culinary Institute of America, not the less reputable outfit you might be thinking of. He's been at the Cosmopolitan Club in New York for the last twelve years. He runs one of the best city clubs in the country. He grew up in Michigan, and I know he would like very much to get back there. Would you like to know more about him?" Of course your recruiter friend would.
Or maybe your response is along these lines: "Try as I might, I don't have a single individual to suggest to you as a candidate, but I can give you the names of a couple of terrific sources. They manage top athletic clubs themselves, so they aren't recruit able, but they know everybody who ever ran a gourmet dining club or bounced a hard rubber ball off the wall of a squash court." In addition, you might know of the various club management journals and the association to which virtually all club managers belong. Whatever you do, leave that recruiter whom you have worked so hard to cultivate with food for thought-and a nice warm feeling that you are a very worthwhile contact. Your name and phone number will go into the recruiter's workbook as a good source, someone for him to call again.
Then, as fate would have it, a week later you bump into Sally Donovan, the manager of your own city's athletic club. She had heard about the search at the Detroit Athletic Club and told you that she might have some personal interest but didn't know who to contact. You promptly follow up with your recruiter friend by phone with Sally's home telephone number and some complimentary comments of your own about her. By this time most of the top recruiters will very likely have started a file on you even if you have not yet become a candidate on any of their searches.
Now it's a matter of gently but regularly stuffing the file folder with your name on it in that headhunter's office. You're in no immediate hurry to make a change, but you do want to know when an exceptional opportunity opens up. Your recruiter will not only add items to your file but will also store key elements from your background in a computer. This data will be available for years to come not only to that recruiter but to all other search consultants in his firm and those in branch offices.
Don't be concerned if no acknowledgments come from your recruiter. Keep adding to his file on you. Some always-helpful items are news releases or publications that talk about your activities or clippings from a trade journal that has an article referring to you or a new program you've launched. If you happen to be with a government agency, school system, college or university, hospital, hotel or association, the same logic holds. Take advantage of articles and stories that talk about you and what you are responsible for. Please do not send complete curricular that you've worked on for your high school, a copy of the Federal Budget for the United States of America with a paper clip on the page that refers to your department in a footnote or the membership directory for the University Club-copies of each of which I received in the past.
