RPOlosophy

Traditionally, Ketchup is red. However, in 2000, Heinz started to produce green ketchup. Green ketchup had a successful novelty run until it was eventually discontinued in 2009.

The concept of green ketchup was blasphemy to some and pure genius to others. Also, some believe it was truly an innovation while others chalk the whole idea up as a gimmick to gain attention and boost sales.

In my opinion, whether ketchup is red, green, or purple, it is still ketchup.

Some Recruitment Process Outsourcing firms are like green ketchup. They have repackaged their services or freshened up their marketing campaigns, in an attempt to show the market that they are innovative and differentiated. However, like ketchup, just changing the look while the product or service is essentially the same doesn’t change the end user’s experience or the results.

Other RPO firms, like Pinstripe, are taking a different approach. Instead of looking to just deliver a new color of RPO ketchup, they are creating new RPO condiments with unique and novel attributes. They recognize that new economic realities, globalization, and the explosion of social media have forever changed the RPO landscape. Customers and prospects are starving for something new and truly revolutionary (and not just some cosmetic additive to create an illusion of improvement).

In the end, RPO companies that take the green ketchup path will share the same fate as green ketchup… Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, while grocery shopping with Samuel, my oldest son, he manipulated me into buying him some Grāpples®. Grāpples® are grape infused apples. They are made by soaking Washington Extra Fancy Gala or Fuji Apples in a bath of concentrated grape flavor and pure water. The end result is a grape flavored apple. Honestly, I don’t get it. This creation has no appeal to me.

Here’s how they advertise the product:

Apples are a fantastic snack. Grapes are a wonderful snack. Try a Grāpple® brand apple today, and enjoy the best of both of them in one!

I agree that apples and grapes are fantastic snacks; however, I don’t understand the reasoning behind combining them. I have never had a simultaneous urge for both fruits. Sometimes I want apples and sometimes I prefer grapes but I’ve never craved them at the same time. There is just something inherently wrong about messing with these celebrated fruits.

More importantly, I’ve witness the Grāpple® effect in Recruitment Process Outsourcing. Read the rest of this entry »

Being in Recruitment Pricess Outsourcing sales and business development, I use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM ) tool to help me manage the selling process; however, after listening to Atul Gawande discuss his new book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, I am considering increasing my reliance on the traditional checklist.

In his compelling book, Atul Gawande, surgeon and writer, expands on the ideas popularized in his 2007 New Yorker essay about the remarkable impact of simple checklists on medical care. Fundamentally, he notes, there are two reasons for failure: ignorance (not yet knowing how to do something) and ineptitude (failing to apply what is already known). The former can be forgiven, but the latter rightly arouses anger and judgment. Read the rest of this entry »

The other day as I was watching Aaron, my almost 5 year son, color Star Wars pictures at the kitchen table. He was working out of a huge plastic box of crayons that he inherited from his 2 older brothers.  As he was drawing the Emperor’s red lightsaber (fyi – I just learned that the energy color of your lightsaber is a critical), I started to wonder about just how many different Crayola crayon colors existed in the Universe.

Here is what I learned about Crayola crayon colors:

When first introduced in 1903, there were just eight colors Crayola crayon colors. By 1949 there were 48 colors. In 1958 the number of colors increased to 64 (this is my 1st recollection). Eight fluorescent colors were introduced in 1972, increasing the total number of colors to 72. In 1990 the total increased to 80 colors with the introduction of 16 new colors and the discontinuation of eight colors. The number of available core colors was increased to 96 in 1993 and to 120 in 1998.

I decided to take the investigation one step further and do a RPO experiment based on my crayon query. My RPO experiment was to determine how many RPO service delivery names exist in my limited Universe:

Here was my scientific protocol:

In 15 minutes, I would search and find as many RPO service offering names (colors) as possible. I hypothesized that I could find at least 1 RPO service offering name per minute excluding duplicates.

The first 4 were easy. At Pinstripe, we provide Talent Spectrum, Project Focused Talent Spectrum, Talent Point, and Talent Accelerator.

Others names I discovered during my trial were Hybrid RPO, Enterprise RPO, Selective RPO, On-demand RPO, Lifecycle RPO, un-RPO, Project RPO, Global RPO, Customized RPO, 2nd Generation RPO, Optimized RPO, Complete RPO, Adaptive RPO, and Strategic RPO.

In exactly 15 minutes I was able to aggregate 18 unique RPO “colors” that are synonymous, in some way, with RPO service offerings. I exceed my goal and I had hypothesized correctly. 

I also surmised that RPO service offering names could learn a lot from crayon names. Instead of all the duplicative Enterprise RPO, Selective RPO, and On-demand RPO, maybe Recruitment Processing Outsourcing organizations would be better served with names like Blast Off RPO, Sonic RPO, or Screamin’ RPO.

Recently, Smith Magazine invited writers “famous and obscure” to distill their own life stories into exactly six words. It All Changed in an Instant is a collection of very, very brief life stories from Smith. The six word memoirs are “both a moving peek at the minutia of humanity and the most inspirational toilet reading you’ll ever find.”

While clearly an autobiography in six words is the ultimate challenge, I thought it would be really interesting if, in the spirit of Recruitment Process Outsourcing, our readers and friends could share their RPO story in exactly six words.

Here’s my stab at it:

Pinstripe’s RPO is Uncatchable – Unmatchable – Unbeatable.

Next week will be my 1 year RPOlosophy blogging anniversary.  I truly enjoy the opportunity to share my unsolicited thoughts with you and I really appreciate your opinions, comments, and feedback.

Sometimes when work is overwhelming (like this week) blogging is truly difficult. However, it also seems to come together by some sort of divine intervention.

Here is a case in point. Yesterday, I heard a great piece on NPR by Barbara Bradley Hagerty entitled Blog Tips For Pope: Give Us This Day Thy Daily Post .

Clearly this story has nothing to do with Recruitment Process Outsourcing.  It’s all about communication and sharing your message. But wait….isn’t promoting the Pinstripe brand and extending the RPO dialogue my goal? Maybe this article has everthing to do with RPO.

Most importantly, after listening to this story, I now recognize that each of Ten Commandments would be perfect for Twitter’s 140 character limit.  Someone was really thinking ahead!

We have a mantra at our company: “Be more like Pinstripe…and less like everyone else.”

I must hear this 10 or more times a day. So I got to thinking, how does “Be more like Pinstripe…and less like everyone else” impact the RPO sales process?

In the RPO industry, it seems as if suppliers are sounding more and more alike. I frequently check out the competition. I go through their websites, read their brochures and case studies, and check them out at trade shows. From these activities, I have observed a uniformity of sorts. I am losing my ability to distinguish one Recruitment Process supplier from another. Also, it must be getting more and more difficult for potential buyers to make decisions if all their down selected suppliers sound and look and alike.

Pinstripe has chosen not to conform. Some might think we are being different just for the sake of being different, but that is far from true. We chose to follow our own path because that is who we are and, hopefully, potential clients will both appreciate our authenticity and further realize that our uniqueness will carry over into their RPO programs.

It is probably an unconventional strategy to “stick out” as much we do; however, in the long run, it is a benefit. The benefit is that potential buyers can quickly determine if we are the kind of RPO supplier they want to partner with. If they want bold and innovative, then Pinstripe is a yes. If they want gradual evolution and are philosophical late adopters, then Pinstripe is probably not a match.

It is about culture and culture fit. And this is our way of helping organizations in their RPO selection process.

My daily commute to Pinstripe is about 18 miles each way.  Last week while driving into work, I got stuck in a major traffic jam. It wasn’t due to severe weather or an unfortunate accident. It was just because there were lots of cars commuting to work. The highway was simply congested with vehicles.

I was sitting on Interstate 94 West (by the Petit National Ice Center) with nothing but my lukewarm coffee in my cup holder and NPR on the radio. I had lots of work waiting for me at the office and if things didn’t get moving soon I was going to be late or miss my 1st meeting of the day.

As nothing was happening, I began to get more and more aggravated.  I was wasting so much valuable time. Time that could be spent selling Recruitment Process Outsourcing  to people truly in need of our services.  My daily mission and routine was being interrupted. It seemed all I could do was look at the unwashed Quadruple A Plumbing van directly in front of me and wait impatiently for something to happen. Read the rest of this entry »

I started writing the below blog back in early December and just can’t seem to finish it. It seemed so promising when I started, but the more I worked on it, the worse it got.

I have about 1/2 dozen of these partially completed blogs sitting in a folder on my desktop. I think this Popeye one is salvageable.

Can someone help me? Here is the intro. Please feel free to write an ending. Thank you for the collaboration!

Popeye had Spinach. What does a Recruitment Process Outsourcing salesperson have?

December 8th 2009 was the birthday of E.C. Segar. Segar died in 1938; however his best known work, Popeye the Sailor, has lived on for more than 80 years.

Popeye’s strange and comic adventures take him all over the world, and place him in conflict with his archenemy Bluto. Popeye when faced with adversity (and losing Olive Oyl to Bluto) is able to summon extraordinary strength by eating spinach. This spinach consumption inevitably leads Popeye to victory and a happy ending.

Often in the Pinstripe RPO sales process, like Popeye, I am faced with challenges and adversity. While I don’t use spinach to overcome my obstacles and prevail, I do have…..

It is the beginning of another year, my 12th in Recruitment Process Outsourcing. The holidays are over, the celebrations are done, and our SalesForce CRM is reset to zero.  The opportunity to pause and reflect on the past year is gone, and I need to set my 2010 RPO sales resolutions into action.

Normally, I keep my RPO sales resolutions private; however, I decide that if I went public then it would increase my likelihood of success.  When I talk about my goals it helps make it more of a reality and I’m also more likely to hold myself accountable for reaching them if I’ve mentioned them to others. Also, this year I’m going to put my list someplace where it’s visible. Hopefully, looking at my goals will help me keep them top of mind and remind me to work towards them every day.

So here are my top 5 RPO New Year’s pledges:

1. My list of resolutions will be finite and achievable and yet still a stretch.  2010 will be about increased focus. Increased focus on those industries and organizations where Pinstripe can make the most impact and be most successful.

Read the rest of this entry »