| Recruiting is a lot like dating. Companies are only interested in candidates that won't work for them and people would prefer to work for firms that won't hire them. For all the talk about "competence" or "love" or even attractiveness or education, the only thing that really matters is social status. All people ever want is trade up. There are tricks to make this work; you can fool the other party (difficult and dangerous), you can fool yourself (easy and efficient, but kind of sad), or you can use different scales and engage in some kind of status exchange. The recruiter needs to be a part of this trade by having some inherent tangible value themselves, to make the whole thing believable; I bet if Larry Page had made the call himself the whole thing might have worked, maybe even without any serious money offered. But if the person on the other end of the line is a nobody the process is doomed from the start, because it signals there is no status on offer. On the other hand, sending a copy of a former deal sounds needy and insecure, like a guy a party bragging that he used to date a model once -- something George Costanza would say. Why should anyone care? Are you dating a model right now is what we want to know. |