“Harper and Harper” . . . it sounds like a television show about detectives, doesn’t it?  Sort of like “Cagney and Lacey.”  But it’s not.  Instead, it’s this week’s installment of Offers Accepted and Completed Placements!  Okay, maybe not as exciting.  Unless, of course, you’re one of the recruiters who made a split placement this week.  You can always catch “Cagney and Lacey” on whatever cable channel is showing it, but hey, a placement’s a placement.

Not only are we running pictures of the recruiters involved again, we’re also highlighting the job title, so that readers can see exactly what types of candidates are currently being placed in the Network.  Now if you want to see the amount of the fees associated with each of these placements, all you have to do is login to the Members’ Area and click on the profiles of the recruiters involved.  The fee totals will be listed along with those placements.

So, here are this week’s Offers Accepted and Completed Placements . . .

OFFERS ACCEPTED—DIRECT

Job order recruiter: Debbie Harper of Harper Hewes, Inc.

Candidate recruiter: Betsy Harper of Sales and Marketing Search, Inc.

Job title: SALES

Action causing placement: Regular communication with another Top Echelon Network Preferred Member recruiter

 — — —

Job order recruiter: Larry Baker of Computer Careers

Candidate recruiter: James Compton of Compton & Associates

Job title: OUTDOOR LIGHTING DESIGN ENGINEER

Action causing placement: Regular communication with another Top Echelon Network Preferred Member recruiter

 — — —

Job order recruiter: Bill Quackenbush, CPC/CTS of QCI Technical Staffing

Candidate recruiter: Mario Fidanzi of MedTeam Staffing, Inc.

Job title: MANUFACTURING ENGINEER

Action causing placement: The job seeker or client was found through my Hiring Hook website.

 — — —

OFFERS ACCEPTED—CONTRACT

Job order recruiter: Bob Vogt of Vision 2020

Candidate recruiter: Kristy Jones of Jones-Ingham Exec and Sales

Job title: HEALTHCARE IT EPIC ANALYST

Action causing placement: Top Echelon Contracting will handle this contracting placement.

 — — —

Job order recruiter: JR Gipson of The James Allen Companies, Inc.

Candidate recruiter: Mike McDonough of General Search and Recruitment

Job title: LEAD BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DEVELOPER

Action causing placement: Regular communication with another Top Echelon Network Preferred Member recruiter

 — — —

COMPLETED PLACEMENTS—DIRECT

Job order recruiter: Carolyn Barcus of Barcus Associates

Candidate recruiter: Kim Fowler of Fowler Placement Services, Inc.

Job title: NEW BUSINESS SALES EXECUTIVE

Action causing placement: The job order or candidate was found by searching Top Echelon Network’s Split Database.

 — — —

Job order recruiter: Christine Ramsay of Corporate Resources, LLC

Candidate recruiter: Jim Crumpley of Jim Crumpley & Associates

Job title: DIRECTOR OF DISTRIBUTION OPERATIONS

Action causing placement: The job order or candidate was sent to me via the automated email alerts.

— — —

Be sure to check future issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog for more Offers Accepted and Completed Placements!

Everybody gather around the fire.  Uncle Steve is about to tell us some more stories of horror from the recruiting trenches.

Okay, so maybe it’s not quite like that, but Halloween is just around the corner, after all, and what better time to share recruiter horror stories than during the Halloween season.  More than one recruiter has been tricked out of a placement treat by a candidate, hiring authority, or both, and sharing such stories is very much cathartic.

Not to mention the fact that you might win the “Craziest Recruiting Story of 2011” award.  Not that it’s an actual award.  You see, it’s more about bragging rights and—never mind.  I’m ranting.  You came here for more tales of the crazy, and Steve Kohn of Affinity Executive Search just happens to have a couple of them . . .

— — —

“I had a client in the video distribution business (supplier to Blockbuster in the early days) who was seeking a Chief Financial Officer, and miraculously a video distribution CFO saw my ad and answered.  I asked him why he was available, and he explained this story to me.

He was CFO of an X-rated movie company, which was not obvious from his resume.  To quote him as exactly as I can recall, ‘The owner was banging some of the actresses, and his wife caught him.  She blew his brains out in his office and was charged with murder.  Her defense is draining the cash out of the company, and we’re in bankruptcy because of it.’

“I also had a candidate this past year who was being considered for a $150K job with one of Craig Chrest‘s clients.  A Google search revealed that the guy was being charged with his ex-wife’s recent murder.  That was the end of that one!”

— — —

Remember, there are three ways you can submit your “Craziest Recruiting Story”:

1. You can email your story to marketing@TopEchelon.com.
2. You can post the story by including it in the comments section at the end of this blog.
3. You can give me a call and relay your story to me.

The deadline for submitting your “Craziest Recruiting Story of 2011” is midnight on Saturday, December 31.  We’ll announce the winner during the first part of January in The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog and also on “Top Echelon TV.”

Send us your stories.  The more (crazy), the merrier.

— — —

330.455.1433, Ext. 125
MDeutsch@TopEchelon.com
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn.
Follow Matt on Twitter.

Okay, so you might not be attending the upcoming Top Echelon Recruiting Network Fall Conference . . . but we hope that’s because you’re attending the National Association of Personnel Services (NAPS) Conference.  This year’s conference is scheduled for Wednesday, September 21, through Saturday, September 24 at the Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa in Las Vegas.

NAPS is currently celebrating its 50th year of existence, and as usual for these recruiting conferences, the conference will feature an outstanding lineup of speakers.  That lineup includes the following:

Heidi Frye
Mike Gionta
Jeff Kaye 
Ken Keis
Conni LaDouceur
Jennifer Lambert
Neil Lebovits
Scott Love
Rick McDonald
Rob Mosley
Pasquale Scopelliti
Mike Tischer
Amy Williams Healey
Scott Wintrip
Patricia Drain
Jeremy Sisemore

Hiring Hook, websites for recruiters, is proud to be a major sponsor of the 2011 NAPS Conference.  Hiring Hook works with recruiting firms to help them create a strong presence on the Internet through website design, graphics, content, special plug-ins, job advertising, and social media integration.

NAPS has been the staffing industry educator since 1961 and enjoys its reputation as the oldest industry association.  It continues to maintain the position as the search and staffing industry educator through its certification program, continuing education initiatives, eLearning, and annual conference.

We forgive you for not attending the Fall Conference, but if you’re not going to Chicago . . . then go to Las Vegas instead!

We have a multiple winner in our “Recruiter of the Month” award!  Not that we haven’t had a multiple winner before.  We have, but that was back when The Pinnacle was in delivered via email in a PDF format.  The winner for the month of August: Trey Cameron of the Cameron Craig Group.  Cameron was also the “Recruiter of the Month” back in December of 2010, and the way he’s been churning out split placements lately, he might win the award again in the near future.  As it is, he’s currently the number-one recruiter in the Network in terms of cash-in.

As always, we recognize recruiters for achievement in two categories every month and quarter.  Those categories are “Recruiter of the Month” (as we’ve already mentioned) and “Highest Split Placement Fee of the Month.”  Below are the winners of these awards for August.  We’d like to congratulate the recruiters who earned them and thank them for their efforts.  Remember, for more information about the placements and cash-in totals associated with these awards, please login to the Members’ Area and view the profiles and placement details of the recruiters involved.

— — —

Recruiter of the Month
Trey Cameron of the Cameron Craig Group

Cameron ran away from the field with five split placements, finishing ahead of two recruiters who had three placements each. Those recruiters were Russell Schutt, CSP of Progressive Executive, Inc., and Bob Small of Carroll Technology Services, Inc.  Schutt edged Small for second place by the smallest of margins—$140.  How close is that?  The closest two recruiters have been since the inception of these awards a few years ago.

— — —

Highest Split Placement Fee of the Month
Steve Brody of Executive Resource Systems and Ross Causley, CTS of QCI Technical Staffing

This hefty fee was earned by placing an Audit Partner.  The action causing this placement was listed as “Regular phone communication with a Top Echelon Network Member in my specialty area.”

— — —

Our criteria for these awards:

Top Echelon Network is a split placement network.  As such, we place an emphasis on split placements, and that emphasis constitutes the basis of our criteria for these awards.  We determine the monthly and quarterly award winners based upon two factors, which are listed below in order of importance:

1.) The number of split placements made
2.) The amount of cash-in dollars earned as a result of those split placements

In other words, the number of split placements that recruiters make is our first consideration.  In the event of a tie, the cash-in total earned from those split placements is the deciding factor and serves to break the tie.  Obviously, the recruiter with more cash-in dollars in the event of a tie is the recruiter who wins the award.

Top Echelon Network’s Split Candidate Database has been responsible for a great many split placements down through the years . . . and it continues to be responsible for splits.  This is evidenced by the fact that this installment of “Comments and Compliments” involves a recruiter who’s made not one, but two split placements because of the Split Candidate Database during the past three months . . . and who wouldn’t want to make two split placements every three months?

But it doesn’t matter exactly how you’ve made your split placements in the Network.  If you’d like to compliment your Trading Partners for a job well done, send your comments to marketing@TopEchelon.com.

— — —

“This is my second TE split this summer as a result of finding good resumes in the Split Candidate Database.  It’s proving to be a successful resource!”

Submitted by Amy Recker of Bridgeway Professionals, Inc. regarding her split placement with Eric Berg of JN Adams & Associates, Inc.

Position Title—Lean Manager
Fee Percentage—25%

— — —

“I’m excited we got a placement together.  Matt is great to work with!”

Submitted by Chris Burchell of Recruiting Excellence regarding his split placement with Matt Bruns of the North Peak Group

Position Title—Cerner FirstNet Consultant
Fee Percentage—Flat fee

— — —

Remember, if you have compliments for a Trading Partner regarding a split placement, please email those compliments to marketing@TopEchelon.com.

(Editor’s Note: This is the next in a series of guest blog posts about contract staffing, courtesy of Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s back-office solution.  Similar posts will appear in future issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.)

Working mothers are helping to create a new niche for recruiters—placing parents in flexible work arrangements, according to The Washington Post.

The traditional workplace model has left many mothers passed up for promotions and relegated to less time-sensitive, mundane work.  For some, it has forced them out of the workforce altogether.  According to one survey, 30 percent of mothers with MBA’s have opted out of the workforce.

But many of these women want to continue working and can provide valuable experience and knowledge if allowed to do so on their own schedule.  For example, many parents can achieve the same results by working while their kids are sleeping at hours much earlier in the morning or later at night than the traditional workday.

Some are even willing to take contract assignments with no benefits for this type of flexibility.  (Note: this is not necessary when they take an assignment through a recruiter who uses a contracting back-office, such as Top Echelon Contracting, that provides benefits.)

In light of this emerging need, some recruiting firms are building their business models around placing mothers in positions with fulfilling work that they can complete on their own schedules.  These firms can negotiate contract assignments, consulting arrangements, telecommuting, part-time hours, and other flexible arrangements for those balancing work and family obligations.

Of course, as companies continue to run tighter ships in the wake of the recession, these arrangements can be equally as good for them.  We have written numerous times on how companies are utilizing more contractors because they don’t want to commit to full-time employees and they value the flexibility that contractors offer.

It sounds like these women who are hungry for flexible, challenging work could be the perfect match!

— — —

888.627.3678
DFledderjohann@TopEchelonContracting.com
Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn.
Follow Debbie on Twitter.