From: <***secure***@***redacted***.com>
Subject: New U.S. President
Hello. This is The Donald.
After 15 glorious years as President, I’m bored and ready to try something else. Thinking I might have a crack of heading up that IMF thingy. I hear there’s a lot of money in it.
Anyway, when I changed the constitution to let me remain President indefinitely, I didn’t realise that when I stepped down I’d have to choose my successor.
I’m going to need some help with this.
I heard that you’re good at recruiting, so if you could send me a few names that’d be great. I need someone with the right level of… covfefe.
***
From: <Transactional_Recruiter@RecruityMcRecruitFace.com>
Subject: Re: New U.S. President
Dear Mr. Donald
This is a great honour. Admittedly I don’t have much experience in recruiting the leader of the free world, but I’m willing to give it a go.
Based on your track record, I would guess that you’re looking for someone who is rude, has no political experience and is willing to say whatever is necessary to gain popularity, even it means making cruel comments to score cheap points.
Am I crazy or is this the perfect job for Jeremy Kyle?
I know he’s not American, but you can just say that you suspect he is and that you won’t believe otherwise until he produces a birth certificate. It’ll work like a charm.
What do you think?
Regards,
Mr. Transactional Recruiter
***
From: <***secure***@***redacted***.com>
Subject: Re: Re: New U.S. President
Boring!
***
From: <Consultative_Recruiter@i-intro.com>
Subject: Re: Re: Re: New US President
Dear Mr. Donald
Thank you for contacting us. I understand that you want to recruit your successor swiftly, but a position of this importance requires a careful, consultative approach.
And while I appreciate that you don’t believe retention to be an issue, now that you’ve created a totalitarian regime, it’s important not to underestimate the risk of uprisings.
At the very least, you should be appointing someone with experience in governance and who is good at pretending to care about people. In fact, we believe we can go one better and find someone who ACTUALLY cares.
We propose the following plan…
Headhunt Outside the Box
There’s an old adage that anyone who is capable of becoming leader of a country is totally unsuitable for the job. So, we’ll be focusing our search on people who aren’t interested in becoming President. This will include people who are already successful in other industries but could be persuaded to change track for the greater good.
Behavioural Testing for Exclusion
It would not be in your best interests to appoint someone too similar to yourself. People like a fresh start with fresh ideas. I’m not suggesting that your reign hasn’t been fruitful but this is a good opportunity to try something new.
To this end we’d like you to take a behavioural assessment to establish a benchmark of who we’re not looking for.
Benchmarking to Assist Decision-Making
Candidate assessment can generate a lot of information, so to ease the decision process we’ll make good use of benchmarking to analyse the shortlist.
We’ll rate the candidates on their key abilities and create a graph to make it easy to identify the frontrunners who should be called to interview.
Thank you again for this valuable opportunity. As mandated by the Anglo-American Loyalty Treaty of 2026 I wish you long life and prosperity.
Kind regards,
Mr. Consultative Recruiter
***
From: <***secure***@***redacted***.com>
Subject: Re: Re: New U.S. President
Ugh! So many words.
Forget it. I’ll just give the job to Eric.
***
I think this series of satirical articles has reached its natural conclusion 
While all is intended in good fun, the underlying message is that effective recruitment – especially for high-level roles – can’t be achieved by just pulling names out of an existing database and hoping that one of them can be shoehorned into the role.
Truly effective recruitment that produces high retention rates and provides real value requires…
1) Planning
Survey the decision-makers to understand their expectations, and talk to key stake-holders about their long-term plans for the business. It may that the problems they’re trying to address can’t be fixed by the type of person they’re aiming to hire. The client may be better served by helping them rework their recruitment plans.
2) Job Surveys
Carry out behavioural assessments on some of your client’s existing employees. The eventually successful candidate will need to have a profile that closely matches the existing style and culture.
3) Deep Search
You may already have a number of candidates in your database that fit the desired profile, but your client deserves a wider look. It may be that the best candidate for your client is already working for their competitor and isn’t actively looking for a new role. This is where head-hunting skills are invaluable.
4) Candidate Assessment
Video interviews, key competency questionnaires and psychometric testing should be a minimum requirement. It may also be valuable to meet the candidates face-to-face and speak to their references. Your goal as a consultative recruiter is not just to compile a shortlist, but to help your client identify the stars on that list so they can be interviewed first.
5) Measure and Improve
There’s no way of knowing if your recruitment is hitting the mark unless you track the progress of your placements. If the retention rate of your placements is lower than you would like, review steps 1-4 and identify areas in which you can improve.
***
It may be that you’re happy and profitable as a transactional recruiter and you believe this depth of service to be unnecessary. If this is the case, and you’re making it work, more power to you. I wish you well.
We’re both professionals and we can simply agree to disagree.
However, if you’re tired of slash-and-burn recruitment, where money rules and success is achieved through volume, I encourage you to consider making the transition to consultative recruitment.