Pinocchio Logistics Recruiters

This morning, I received a LinkedIn connection request from an individual who titled himself "Executive Search Consultant." Naturally, I thought it worth taking a glance at his profile and was surprised to see in the "About" section that he claimed to be "The ONLY recruiter in Chicago who has physically worked the logistics floor."

Recruiters frequently get a bad rap and, for the most part, many of them deserve it. In Logistics Recruiting, we have companies in the UK who show American cities on their LinkedIn profiles and they have US phone numbers. The reality is that most, if not all of them, have never even visited the US let alone worked here. These same Recruiters will often obtain a resume and then pepper-shot it to every Freight Forwarder they have an email address for without telling the candidate where it's going.

There are a number of us who are trying to elevate the level of credibility that Logistics Recruiters have in the industry. My friends at CS Recruiting come to mind and, if you follow me on LinkedIn, you'll often see my positive remarks, compliments and likes of their posts. And for the record, there's absolutely nothing wrong with healthy and honest competition. We encourage it and certainly aren't afraid of it because that should challenge all of us to seek to be better at what we do on a consistent basis.

I accepted the connection request from the Pinocchio Recruiter this morning and sent him a polite message pointing out the inaccuracy of his claim. I let him know that the least of the 11 Recruiters at Logitalent - all of whom are domiciled in the United States - have twice as many year's experience as him in Logistics. I encouraged him to be honest and pointed out the importance of integrity. His response was, "Is the competition scaring you, Bill?" I already answered that question in the previous paragraph and I would add that it's only competition if they operate in the same league. We consider ourselves and companies like CS Recruiting to be in the Premier League while the Pinocchio Recruiter is in the lower leagues and working for a company who do not specialize in Logistics. 

Let's all be honest and transparent. Let's raise the level of professionalism in our industry. Let's not make false claims and statements. Let our work, reputation and recommendations from client companies and candidates speak for itself and above all remember that integrity is important. If we have it, nothing else matters and if we don't have it, nothing else matters.

Stay safe.