Bashing the Recruitment Bash

I suppose I should probably start with a disclaimer, so I don't get sued. I mean if a recruitment agency is willing to pay for an award, odds are they will pay the same to sue my arse. However, wheres the fun in that...

If you do work for a company that wins a recruiter award, it’s not you, its them. You know the ones, the people in your business that tell you to ring 100 people a day, they are the ones so out of touch with reality they need to pay for these things to justify their archaic practices. Its the equivalent of a dick measuring contest between the last 2 men alive on the planet, who cares who wins?

I imagine there are a few innovators around who back in the day would have faxed an ascii meme to the client to win business. So ahead of the times... Anyway...I digress.

I was invited to "The Global Recruiter Awards" by a software company who were up for the innovation award. This wasn't the normal Recruiters Awards this was the Global Awards, the best in the world. THE WORLD. Shit, we must have recruiters flying in from America, China, Russia, and Poland to this. Plus, free drinks. Mainly free drinks.

Instead we got a bunch of UK recruiters one of them won the best in Europe or something but last I heard of them their consultants were ringing up clients and calling them "C U Next Tuesdays" on voicemail. Was a great LinkedIn post... But hey I bet they make loads of money so we can excuse that sort of thing, right?

My brain screamed at me:

"Don't go, you hate these things, you hate recruiters, hell you hate people."

But another voice said:

"Free alcohol."

So, I went.

Let me paint a picture... A picture so obscure that in 100 years it will hang on the walls of a Russian Billionaires wall and be called art... Considering I am sitting at home now trying to drink myself into oblivion and no doubt will end up trying to cut off my ears later in an attempt to remove the voice of the MC from today’s events... This may have potential...

I arrived at the event in the classiest bar in London. Cafe De Paris. Its French. It means the The Paris Cafe. Swish. However, if you grew up in London in the last 30 years, you would know its a shit hole, next to a strip club. We were swiftly swept downstairs and handed a warm flute of champagne by a scantily clad woman. Where I was greeted by a group of people milling around drinking and generally looking like they were auditioning for the next season of Big Brother.

I turned around to the chaps and asked where their table was... They let me know they hadn't got one. After doing another 360 turn of the room I swiftly informed them they had zero chance of winning an award.

After 30 seconds of looking around to see if I knew any of the 300+ people in the room I came to realisation I know nobody at Randstand or Robert Walters and decided to hit the bar.

"San Miguel please. Do you take card?"

"It’s free."

"3 San Miguel please."

I stood at the bar, surveying the scene (Silently humming "Club Tropicana Drinks are Freeeeee") I was staring at the Gods of the Recruitment World. Titans of the industry. These people will be shaping future generations...And then like a voice on the wind I hear the group next to me:

"So, what you gonna do when we win? Who is taking the award? Dave, you need to make a funny face. Ahahahahaha."

Her laugh, like a scrotum being dragged down a chalkboard, brought about an epiphany. These guys know who's winning. Probably not the greatest epiphany in the world, probably on par with turning 13 and finding out that WWE (Spoiler alert) isn't real.

I walked over to my group standing by the stage, table-less, and proceeded to let the guys know about the conversation I just heard. Nobody seemed particularly surprised. I was then asked to be in a photo which, if it ever surfaces, I will post so people can see the pained expression on my face and the look of a man who wanted to rip his own fingernails off. It may even become my LinkedIn Profile photo. Worst case Tinder.

Then a booming voice from the heavens informed us "The Awards had begun." The lights panned up into the sky where a Young Lady proceeded to bang a set of bongos frenetically for 2 minutes, and the scantily clad women descended from the balcony to stand on the stairs and look like they wanted to be here.

Enter stage left the embodiment of what you think a Recruiter looks like. Close your eyes for a second, then think of the most annoying/smarmy recruitment call you have ever had and try to picture that person in your head. That was our MC for the evening.

He waffled on about how big the Recruitment industry is, and how much money we make and told us all to pat ourselves in the back as in this room is the best of the bunch. The industry is constantly growing, and in this room, we have the people that are truly pushing these boundaries. Cue cheering and raised glasses. It came off like something REC write about when they try to justify Kevin Greens 300k salary.

I wondered to myself if people in the room truly believed they were the best in the industry? Truly innovating and changing the way we work? Did they think they deserved the awards they would get today? Did the person handing over the brown envelopes of cash for the large seating areas (all the winners seemed to have) think they were the best? Plus, what’s the point? Does the award win respect, help you win business? What is the actual point of this utter pile of bullshit?

And then it began, the awards...

It was actually a relatively quick process. I will say, whoever wrote the content for the MC you Sir/Madam made what should be a rather bland diatribe into a speech Churchill would be proud of.

The problem was... The way every Winner was made to sound like they had cured cancer.... Something along the lines of:

"And now let’s start with the award for best use of social media this company are a titan in social media, always innovating and pushing the boundaries of how we use social media to engage with our clients and candidates. We should all aspire to such depths of Greatness!!! And the winner is..... ROBERT WALTERS"

Wait what?

Social Media and Robert Walters in the same sentence? Are they even allowed to use social media? Anyone able to point me towards some of this social media they use? I found their Youtube channel... I think Hays has more hits on their Youtube channel and they aren’t even up for nomination (Hays you were robbed, your Youtube videos are the height of satire... That’s what you are going for right?)

I guess the award was sponsored by Brook, who have their own section on Robert Walters website, but I am sure it was completely impartial... Yawn. Next one.

And so, it continued...

After a few of the awards had been rolled out to equally undeserving companies I grew concerned that I may vomit sometime soon so proceeded to the bathroom. Now I will keep this short, but standing in a toilet the size of a red phone box which also had a toilet attendant and trying to do coke at said urinal then offering it to a random stranger (me) isn't the smartest move. But hey it was 4pm in the afternoon, you are probably used to guzzling that stuff down at this time of the day for your power hour phone session. Keep hitting those KPIs buddy. Fight the good fight.

I proceeded to the bar; hoping that enough alcohol could act as a colonic irrigation for my soul. Sadly, the bar was closed during the actual award giving. Not sure if this was planned so that full attention was on the people on stage, or if that we as a collective had managed to drink all the alcohol in the first 45 minutes.

It was at this point. I decided to leave. I thanked the guys that invited me and left. I woke up this morning and read the article the people who run these awards put out (Link below), from reading between the lines the winners are the people who paid. The honourable mentions are the people who probably are the most deserving out of the rest.

I had luckily not yet had my breakfast, so the dry retching that ensued after reading the first four paragraphs made no lasting damage to my cream carpets. Even the judges believe this tripe, however after doing a quick LinkedIn lookup on the judges and sponsors it became apparent there was some correlation between sponsors and winners.

I suppose I need a point to this story. Some people will read this and potentially be offended and think I am jealous. I promise you nothing could be further from the truth. Some people may read this and think they deserve the award. To them, I say try winning it without spending a penny. To those that had anything to do with the creation of this event, do you honestly believe any of the tripe you peddled, or is it just about the money? 

Is there a solution? Can we recognise truly great people in the industry without the process coming down to which one of the large corporates can be bothered to spend the most?

Sadly, probably not. It’s all subjective, one client might love a recruiter, another might hate them for exactly the same reason. Plus, what really makes a good recruiter? How much money they billed? Their placement ratios? Their customer services? Their copy-writing? The amount of crap they talk on LinkedIn? (Guilty)

It is really hard to sift through the dross in our industry and find a Consultant you not only want to work with, but who does a good job in every possible area. When you do find one, I would bet they don’t work for an award-winning agency, because they don’t care about awards, they don’t need a bunch of hack judges to tell them they are great, they hear that from their clients and candidates and that is all that matters.

As I mentioned above, I think the vast majority of the industry knows all the awards in recruitment are bought and paid for. So as a client, if you get a phonecall from a coked-up specialist who uses the word excellent as their only adjective. Whilst telling you they won “Best Recruitment Agency of the 21st Century” please feel free to tell them from all of us in the industry where to go.

And if that doesn’t work there is always napalm.

Tim Chattaway – Recruiter, probably never get invited to a Recruiter Awards again.