Three years ago today my father passed away. At the time it wasn’t a great shock; he had been suffering from a degenerative heart condition and spent his last few months in a care home. I visited him every weekend when he was in the home, though as often happens at these times sadly the only weekend that I was unable to make proved to be his last.

I often wanted to ask him what he thought of me, of how I had turned out, what had been his hopes or expectations and whether I had met them or had disappointed. I had never really known what he had wanted for me, but I suppose those kinds of conversations rarely happen…parental responsibilities don’t come with a performance review plan.

I’m not sure if any of us ever have that kind of conversation with our parents, or how honest the answers would be.

I was talking to a friend recently about things that we learn from our fathers. Certainly I’m sure my love of football (well Arsenal!) music and politics come from him as these were passions of his. He took me to my first live football match when I was four, and we still went to some games together until the start of his illness.

It goes without saying that our parent’s hobbies and obsessions are often picked up by us, but what about personality traits and attitudes?

What things did I learn from my dad? Continue reading “Things I Learned From My Dad” →

Its called Relationship Recruiting!

When I started working in recruitment I was quickly told about the 80/20 rule – 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. It certainly informed my day to day relationship building as I quickly focused on a small number of deep relationships which held good for me for my years as a recruiter.

As we moved towards modern social networking though the accent was more on broadening out your network, concentrating on the ‘weak ties’, the ones that were most likely to bring new information and opportunity. Although the research that showed the strength of these weak ties dates back to 1973 they certainly started becoming more popular over the last few years, a situation exacerbated with rising usage of networking and connecting platforms – LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter – as they, in turn, facilitated growing the widest network possible.

So it was with great interest that I read in this month’s Wired of research conducted by two information economists, in a white paper due to be published later this year, that found that it was, after all the strong links that delivered the most profitable relationships. The weaker ties may deliver unique information, but the nature of the connection (weak) means that the interactions are rare.

Closer links may bring less unique news, but the higher level of interaction will ultimately make them a stronger source. The contacts with the greatest bandwidth do ultimately deliver the best results.

And to test this they used an executive recruiting firm, analysing e-mail correspondence. Guess what? Those consultants relying on a tight cluster of contacts received more new leads and generated greater fees.

Whilst the ideal results may well derive from a combination of weak and strong ties, it can’t be denied that close connections really are important after all.

If you’re a recruiter then develop them and nurture them…they may provide your best route to success.

And if you’re a jobseeker building the widest network you can, then stop for a moment and think about who is closer to home and who you may be overlooking. Close friends, family, neighbours and ex-colleagues…they may be able give you that vital lead a lot quicker than the sister-in-law of the guy who sold a computer to the wife of the friend of the golf partner you just shot an 82 with!

This post originally appeared as a guest blog on the excellent Blogging4jobs site run by Jessica Miller-Merrell. If you don’t follow her…you really should!