What??
Did that make sense to you? Maybe you at least picked up that it was about poker, but even if you play poker regularly, you would have to be pretty well engulfed in the poker community to really understand what I am saying above without re-reading it a few times slowly.
As an avid poker player, I often times find myself talking to more recreational players who want to chat about the game. I learned quickly, that if I am to have any hope of them understanding me, I need to be careful about the terms I use and avoid too much poker-ese and speak in very different terms than I would with poker regulars or professionals. I would speak much different still, to someone who doesn’t play poker at all (if for some reason that person wanted to talk about poker, which I can’t imagine why?).
There is an infinite number of other examples of how language can be unique to a specific activity or profession. Think about talking to a doctor about medicine or a rabid sports fan about baseball. Every area of expertise has its own language.
It recently struck me how much this idea applies to recruiting as well.
I used poker in my example, because like recruiting, most people think that they know poker when in fact they don’t. Similarly, many business-people think that they know recruiting, but in fact, they probably don’t understand the language of recruiting as well as they think. This is especially true if you’re a third-party recruiter when you’re dealing with prospective clients (yes, I realize that there are exceptions and some clients will speak the recruiting language and definitely get it, but in my experience those are certainly exceptions).
This wouldn’t be much of a problem, but, just like casual poker players, clients have an ego (in this, I’m not willing to admit that there is an exception, because there isn’t) and they won’t tell you what they don’t understand. Instead, they’ll just make an assumption or guess what they think you mean and continue on. It’s just like when I’m talking to a casual poker player and he nods knowingly as I say, “and he donks right into me” when they have no idea that “donking” means betting into the raiser.
Over my decade of experience in this business I’ve had clients confuse contingent search with retained, “bill rate” with “pay rate,” and “reference check” with “credit check” (that one was a doozy!). Not to mention the number of times that “temp-to-hire,” “contract-to-hire,” “temp,” “contract,” “direct-hire,” etc. have turned out to mean very different things to my client, to my candidate and to me!
And this is just for the recruiting jargon in our business. If you specialize like I do, think about what kind of technical terms you use daily. I focus in accounting and if I’m dealing with HR, I need to be very keenly aware of when and how I use accounting or finance terms. This then becomes a balancing act of sorts, as speaking the language of your candidates and direct-manager clients is critical to your success. I sometimes find myself toggling between the language I use depending on if I’m working with HR or the direct manager.
I’ve become more adept over the years at recognizing that the language I use every day as a recruiter, doesn’t always resonate with my audience. And of course, it’s by no fault of their own. My HR client, has no reason to know all the accounting jargon, nor does my client really need to understand how to speak with my fellow recruiters in my office. However, recognizing the disconnect in language has allowed me to gain better clarity and understanding.
Some common recruiting terms and phrases that you probably think are clear but that I’ve learned may need more clarification or perhaps should be stricken from the recruiter’s vocabulary completely are:
- contingent
- contract
- consultant
- management resource
- permanent
I’d like to hear your stories. What other “recruiting-ese” words have caused confusion or misunderstanding for you?