Page 190 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

profile in IT recruitment. There wasn’t even anyone in the office
who understood the jargon.
Changing our area of operation was almost like starting all over
again. It was back to the Yellow Pages and cold-calling and using
every trick we knew to get our clients to give us the information
we needed to recruit successfully for them.
‘So where do you think your ideal IT manager is working now?
And which university did he go to? And which software packages
are absolutely vital to your organisation? Are you prepared to
train the right person in the specific software you use? So he
wouldn’t need previous knowledge, just demonstrable aptitude?’
The constant questioning opened up tiny opportunities, and,
once we had a relationship with the IT departments and IT
companies, we started to make contacts and create a name for
ourselves and things began to get easier. I sensed it was time to
hire again, and although everyone around me was telling me to
wait until the economy had strengthened, I knew that it was the
perfect time to attract great people. If I waited until everyone else
was hiring I would have competition. Observe the masses and do
the opposite. It had worked before for me and it was about to
work again.

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