When I first started recruiting and working with candidates, I remember thinking how it was almost impossible to make a placement. I thought, almost every time I got a new job order from a company, the requirements they had for their job opening were overwhelming.

When I combined all the variables in the ideal candidate’s required experience, it seemed to be too daunting of a task. Evidently, I didn’t believe it was easy, and the results showed.

I wasn’t making a lot of placements the first 3 years of my career. I didn’t feel like I was making an impact in companies or the candidates’ lives. I felt I wasn’t reaching enough people. I was trying to make money for my business but it wasn’t working out how I had planned.

I started to really dive deep into my psychology of what I was really trying to accomplish in my career. I decided to ask myself, “Was I asking myself the right questions when I was recruiting?”

It was then that I realized what I was really thinking about when I started recruiting. I was thinking about making a placement to make money for myself and my company.

I decided I needed a shift in my perspective and my thinking. I asked myself why I started working in recruiting. I wanted to help people.

Shortly after, I came to the realization that making a placement was so much bigger than the compensation my company was paid for placing an Executive candidate; it was really all about the impact I was making in others’ lives.

I started to understand that when I placed a candidate at a company, I’m impacting hundreds, if not, thousands of lives. Please, let me explain.

When I place the right person at the right company, I’m impacting that person’s life, that person’s family, that company’s hiring managers, that company’s hiring managers’ families, that company’s workers, that company’s workers’ families, that company’s customers, that company’s customers’ families, and lastly, myself, my company, my family, and my company’s families.

Many of these people I will never know and I will never get a chance to talk with yet I wish the best for them all. Somehow, my efforts and best intentions help their lives in some small way.

When I see it from this 10,000-foot view point, I can see that the impact is so much bigger than making a placement for myself or my company.

When I had this epiphany and I changed my point of view that I was impacting the greater good of thousands of people, my entire business changed. Most importantly, my entire psychology of why I was in this business changed.

Intention was everything. The law of attraction was coming into play in every activity, every call, every send out, every thought, and every word I spoke with both my candidates and my clients. From that day forward, I understood what it meant to have true integrity and virtue in my business.

For me, self-integrity and self-virtue means ALWAYS having the best intentions for the greater good. The greater good of the candidate. The greater good of the company I’m working with. The greater good of business’s success, and ultimately the greater good of everyone involved.
I know this because I’ve lived it.

I was taught from a young age that my reputation, my word, and my integrity were everything. If you don’t build solid foundations of trust and honesty, how can you build a good business, a good company, a good reputation?

I intend to live my personal life the way I was raised with the values I was given. Why should my business be any different?

When I started having the greatest good of intentions in my interactions with clients and candidates, I started seeing results. It took some time. I was building trust and momentum. I was building a foundation for people to enjoy working with me. I was building strong communication, and I was building unshakable relationships.

Building these relationships weren’t always easy. It often took me saying the tough things to my candidates. I told them the truth about the real benefits but also the real challenges and negatives to the opportunity. I would disclose everything to be transparent.

I started being up front about why they shouldn’t pursue the job if it didn’t offer enough money, or it wasn’t the right company culture for them, or it wasn’t a good fit for their family goals. It sometimes took me being the “bad guy” and telling a company’s hiring authority why the candidate wasn’t going to be right for them.

These things weren’t easy but they were the right thing to do. My intention was pure. I wanted what was best for everyone involved.

When I started having these tough conversations about difficult topics, I started realizing what it means to have integrity. It might have killed some short-term deals but it built long-term trust.

As time went on, I started seeing how it was impacting my business. Within a few years, my candidates and customers started coming back quite often. They trusted, with sincerity, that I was going to do my best to help them. They knew I was going to be honest with them and do the right thing.

That’s when I started seeing a lot more placements. That’s when I started to see my business take off. That’s when I started seeing the real results of many repeat customers and repeat candidates.

And to this day, when I start to worry about how I need to make a placement to pay for my business expenses or when I get concerned during down economic times, I remind myself what my intention really is. I remind myself why I’m really a top talent job coach and executive recruiter.

I remind myself of the power of having the best intentions and how it transforms the lives of thousands of other people in the process.