As a recruiter, I’m facinated by people with exceptional talent in the recruiting profession.  Troy Billings is one of those people. 

Troy Billings impressed me years ago as one of the brightest recruiters I had encountered in the Twin Cities.  It seemed to me that his knowledge, skill, creativity, personal skills and results focus destined him for an extraordinary career in the recruiting profession.  Troy has indeed enjoyed a rapidly advancing career and broadly expanding professional expertise.  I caught up with him recently (he now lives and works in the Chicago area) and asked him to share some of his thoughts for the blog. 

Troy Billings
General Manager
Fulcrum Consulting
Chicago, IL

Global market experience:          Europe, Latin America
Years of recruiting experience:   11+
Types of recruiting done:            Executive, Retained, Contingency, Corporate, Consulting

Troy is currently the General Manager of Fulcrum Consulting in Chicago.  Fulcrum Consulting provides Management Consulting Services to large companies in business and IT strategy, operational improvement, and IT/Financial staffing services.  Troy has responsibility for growing the presence and capabilities of Fulcrum Consulting and engages with large corporations as a management consultant in the areas of business and technology strategy, sales and recruiting management and operational improvement.

Prior to joining Fulcrum Consulting, Troy’s recruiting roles included: Sr. Manager of Recruiting Technology and Processes with Sara Lee Corporation, Strategic Human Capital Consultant with General Mills, Recruiting Manager of Tech Central, Inc. and Technical Recruiter with Computer Horizons Corporation.

Troy holds a Bachelors Degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Mini Masters in Software Design and Development from the University of St. Thomas.  He graduated Valedictorian of his high school class.   Troy speaks five languages: English, Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese.  He has worked professional assignments in Italy, Spain and Bolivia.

Q & A with Troy Billings

1.      Troy, before we get started, please tell us what you do in your current position at Fulcrum Consulting.  I am General Manager for Fulcrum Consulting in Chicago, IL.  We are a full service national management consulting; IT professional services, financial staffing and managed services/outsourcing solutions firm.

2.      What was your first recruiting job?  How were things different than today’s market?    My first staffing position was pre-Y2K as a technical recruiter with the now defunct Computer Horizons Corp.  In those days, COBOL programmers were making hundreds of dollars an hour, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) were just taking hold, and recruiters cold-called off of paper mailing lists.  Like the industrial revolution which globally transformed socioeconomic and cultural conditions forever, I’ve enjoyed the unique opportunity of witnessing the world’s first ever e-revolution: the sequential bursting of the dichotomous mainframe (pre-Y2K) and dot-com (1998-2001) bubbles leading to a more homeostatic post-bubble e-commerce era where information, people, and nations are literally now only separated by a simple mouse click! 

3.      What do you like most about your recruiting work?  (1) The thrill of hunting for exceptional talent in a tight labor market; (2) delivering quality candidates who exceed hiring manager expectations; and (3) helping people - particularly the under or unemployed - attain rewarding work which fosters professional growth and financial prosperity.

4.      What do you think is the greatest challenge facing recruiters today?   The greatest challenge is a recruiter’s greatest opportunity: an ever tightening labor market wherein the demand for labor far exceeds and will continue to exceed supply.

5.      In your view, what skills and attributes make for a great recruiter?  First and foremost, impeccable integrity, values-driven ethics, and a desire to make the world a better place.  Next, in no particular order but with equal importance:  humble patience; nose-to-the-grindstone tenacity; gracious humility balanced with God-centered self-confidence; overflowing optimism offset by periodic splashes-in-the-face reality checks;  detail orientation; attentive listening; proactive cold calling; referral based sourcing; technology savvy; relationship building; mutual trust and respect; data mining; real-time contact management; win-win business approach; and results orientation.   

6.      What key skills could any recruiter hone to become better?  Master the art of referral based sourcing and creative Internet sourcing strategies such as: spidering, x-raying, flip search, harvesting, peelback, peer search, Boolean logic, keywords, and field search commands.  Refine the crafts of exploratory questioning and attentive listening.  Tap into target market virtual discussion forums, professional networks, and online communities.  Excel in contact data management and long term relationship building. Harness the power of productivity enhancing electronic applicant tracking.  Embrace the value of Key Performance Indicators to track measurable benchmarks through quantifiable reporting. 

7.      What books, blogs, educational and training resources do you recommend to recruiters?
Books:   Conceptual Selling (original book by Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman - latest version cited here);   SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham; Getting Things Done by David Allen and The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins  Blogs:   www.recruitingimpact.com (Yeh, right but thanks for that!)  Education/Training:  AIRS

8.      How has the proliferation of Web 2.O (social networking/media) affected your job and/or recruiting efforts?   In a nutshell, it provides a greater name generation source for leads and referrals.

9.      Any predictions for how Social Networking sites such as (FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, others) will factor in the long haul. They will compete and grow.  Some will become prominent and dominate their space while others will fade.

10.     What impact will Social Networking have on the future of recruiting?  Social Networking will always enhance lead-generation, but what you do with and how you manage those leads ultimately determines ROI.

11.     Do you have any insights or predictions regarding the future for recruiters and what we need to do to prepare?  I expect the field of recruiting to grow; but only the fittest will survive in the face of stiff competition.  A persevering work ethic, wellspring of enthusiasm, and the synergic nexus of relationship building and productivity enhancing technology will be the single most critical success factors.

That’s a wrap Troy.  Thank you.  I wish you the very best of continued success and I look forward to future conversations regarding the recruiting and staffing industry.

The Minnesota Recruiters Spring 2008 (un)Conference was held on Friday, May 9th in the theatre at the Best Buy corporate headquarters in Richfield, MN.  The free event was “sold out” with 220 pre-registered attendees and a waiting list.  Actual attendance will appear on the Minnesota Recruiters Network blog in a day or two. 

Plenty of post-event information will appear on the network blog over the next couple of days, so I won’t cover details of the event itself in this post other than to say it was well worth attending.  Instead, I’d like to bring some attention to the remarkable efforts of a rising star in the Twin Cities recruiting community and a group of people dedicated to supporting his efforts from the very beginning.

Paul Debettignies

Paul Debettignies (pronounced “de-bettingz”/aka MN Headhunter) is a recruiter, blogger, social media aficionado and social networking star.  With more than 10 years of experience as a technical (IT) recruiter, Paul is currently a one-man-band recruiter with Nerd Search, a firm he incorporated in 2006.  But that’s just his day job. 

In May of 2005 Paul started his blog MN Headhunter.  In December of 2007 MN Headhunter was nominated by Recruitingblogs.com for “Best Third Party Recruiting Blog of 2007” (for the third straight year).  Last summer, as his blog continued to grow in popularity within the local and national recruiting community, Paul and a couple of other local bloggers, Steven Rothberg and Josh Kahn first discussed the (un)Conference idea.  Their meeting took place over some enormous burritos at a Chipotle just around the corner from where the fourth (un)Conference event just took place. 

The Minnesota Recruiters Network was born.  Paul’s efforts in building the Minnesota Recruiters Network (including the development of a web presence on a social networking platform) combined with his planning and promoting of the (un)Conference events have produced extraordinary results in less than a year.  As of today, 372 members appear on the Minnesota Recruiters Network roster. 

The Minnesota Recruiters Network has three key elements that provide events, networking portals and content:

1. (un) Conferences – four have been held so far and more are planned

2. Topical Sessions – the first of these was held on April 4, 2008 with Jason Alba, founder of JibberJobber.com and author of “I’m on LinkedIn, Now What???”.

3. MinnesotaRecruiters.com – a social network and blogging platform for recruiters on Ning with 372 members as of this posting

The co-founders and volunteers directly supporting Paul’s efforts from the beginning include: Don Ramer, Steven Rothberg, Josh Kahn, Nicole St. Martin, and Toby Dayton.  Paul Debettignies is credited by this distinguished group of industry professionals as being the driving force behind the effort.  In Josh Kahn’s words, “He won’t admit to it or take credit, but he’s the guy”.

Local recruiting-related businesses have shown a strong interest in the rapid growth of the Minnesota Recruiters Network and the (un)Conferences.  Sponsors of the (un)Conferences providing the support necessary to produce high quality events at no cost to attendees have included:  Arbita, Job Dig, Oberon, Jobs2Web and LinkUp. 

Paul Debettignies’ impact in the Twin Cities has received national industry attention for some time now.  He has been featured or written about by some of the highest profile recruiting industry thought leaders in the country.   Jason Davis (founder of Recruiting.com and RecruitingBlogs.com) recently recognized Paul in his May 1, 2008 blog post.  Jason’s post about sums it.

And he’s just getting started.