Persistence pays off

In 2006, IIC started working on a new account in the Northeast. This was a brand new lead and no business was done with this manager earlier. While all the other 20+ recruiters at IIC gave up on this account declaring it worthless, I relentlessly pursued it and generated approximately $400,000 revenue in the last 12 months for the company just from this one manager. Even better, this manager deals with IIC exclusively now and he is singing songs in our honor. He just does not want to deal with anyone else. Last I heard, his group is expanding and we are going to eat more from his plate.

On several occasions, I had to skim through 300+ profiles to get one perfect candidate.

As they say, you have to shuck through a lot of smelly oysters to find a rare pearl.

Why I make a difference in hiring?

Late 2003, I hired a Consultant named DG. He was assigned to an IBM project at ML. This was a highly visible project and one that warranted great attention since it dealt directly with their financial services division. DG’s job was to attend a knowledge transfer session from one of IBM’s key resources over the next 8 hours and to carry on with the project from there. IBM’s resource was being sent back to their off shore location that evening. A day later, ML’s entire application broke down and things came to a chaotic stand still. IBM’s top management and ML’s VPs came running down to this project team to request them to revive the application immediately. Unfortunately, not one of the existing team members was capable enough to accomplish this formidable task. In sheer desperation, they reached out to IBM’s key resource who at this point just landed in India. After a few unsuccessful trials, she surrendered too. ML was losing serious money by the hour and it needed all the help it can get. A Sr. VP was made in charge to solve this conundrum and he immediately summoned a meeting in which he asked if there was anyone who considered himself or herself capable of fixing this problem. My candidate DG stepped up to the challenge and accepted it. Instantly, ML’s Sr. VP made DG a team lead and urged everyone else to cooperate with him. It took DG 24 hours to analyze the issues and understand the glitches. By then, he was working 18-hour days to resolve this crisis situation. Looking back, it is hard to believe that ML’s Sr. VP asked for a Limo to be arranged for my consultant to get to work. After 3 days of incredible work DG and his team succeeded in breathing life in to the system. Things were all back to normal. By this time, DG got another job and was about to take it up due to the difference in wage rates. ML’s Sr. VP spoke to DG personally, thanked him for his dedication and hard work and then did the unexpected. He doubled DG’s contract rate from that very hour and DG stayed. Such is the quality of my hires. IBM and ML were both delighted with DG’s work and had only great things to say about him.

As they say, Quality begins on the inside...