I Am the Experience

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed recruiting.

That is hard for me to admit.

I never stopped making calls.

I never stopped building relationships.

I never stopped caring about the people I was recruiting.

But somewhere along the way, I began to feel like I was standing outside the actual experience.

I would find the candidate.

Make the call.

Build the relationship.

Create the opportunity.

Then hand everything over so the real conversations could begin.

The candidate would meet with leadership.

Strategy would be discussed.

Decisions would be made.

Offers would be built.

And sometimes I would hear about it after the fact.

I was involved.

But I wasn’t really part of it.

When that happens long enough, it does something to you.

You start to believe that recruiting is simply making calls and putting meetings on calendars.

You become the person who delivers someone to the experience instead of someone who helps create it.

Without realizing it, you begin to shrink your own role.

You say things like:

“I’m just the recruiter.”

“I’ll let the business take it from here.”

“My job is to get the meeting.”

I have said versions of all three.

Then I came to Cornerstone.

My experience here has completely changed my energy around recruiting.

I started meeting candidates in person again.

I was included in the meetings.

I became part of strategic conversations about markets, leaders, teams, and what we were actually trying to build.

My voice was heard.

I was involved in developing offers.

I was trusted to help manage the entire relationship instead of being asked to disappear once the introduction was made.

I became a full-desk recruiter again.

And I remembered how much I love this work.

Not just finding people.

Not just making the calls.

Building something.

Sitting across the table from a candidate and watching the conversation change when they realize a new future may actually be possible.

Listening to leaders explain their vision and helping them put that vision into words that another person can believe in.

Working through the difficult parts of an offer.

Having the honest conversations when something doesn’t feel right.

Staying involved long enough to see an initial cold call become a real relationship.

That is recruiting.

At least, that is the kind of recruiting I want to do.

I was listening to a Dharma talk recently, and the teacher introduced the idea:

I am the experience.

I kept thinking about that line.

Especially as a recruiter.

For years, I had seen myself as someone standing outside the experience.

Someone helping other people get to it.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that isn’t true.

The first call is not something that happens before the experience begins.

The first call is the experience.

The trust we build is the experience.

The questions we ask are the experience.

Our preparation is the experience.

Our honesty when an opportunity isn’t right is the experience.

The way we communicate, follow through, and make someone feel is the experience.

Before a candidate meets the leader, understands the company, or sees the opportunity, they experience us.

We are not standing outside pointing toward something meaningful.

We are already part of it.

I am not saying recruiters are the entire experience.

We aren’t.

This is not about making ourselves the center of everything.

It is about recognizing that we have a real place in the work.

Because too many recruiters don’t feel that way.

They feel disconnected.

They feel like order takers.

They feel like they are measured entirely by hires while being left out of many of the conversations that determine whether those hires ever happen.

They are handed a job description, given access to a database, and told to go find people.

Then everyone wonders why they struggle to speak about the opportunity with conviction.

A recruiter cannot confidently invite someone into an experience they don’t believe they are part of.

Companies and leaders have a responsibility here.

If you want your recruiters to represent your vision, bring them into it.

Give them context.

Let them hear how decisions are made.

Help them understand the business beyond the open position.

Invite them into the meetings.

Listen when they tell you what they are hearing in the market.

Trust the relationship they have built with the candidate.

Keep them involved when it is time to create the offer and close the deal.

Treat them like partners in the growth of the business, because that is what great recruiters are.

But this cannot all be placed on leadership.

This is an inside job too.

There have been times when I was kept outside.

There have also been times when I accepted being outside.

Times when I waited for someone to invite me into a conversation instead of confidently explaining why I needed to be there.

Times when I minimized what I knew.

Times when I acted like my role ended at the introduction because that felt safer than claiming ownership of what happened next.

We cannot wait for someone else to convince us that we matter.

We have to train our minds to believe it.

Then we have to act like it.

Learn the business.

Understand the market.

Know the leaders you support.

Ask to be included in the meeting.

Stay involved after the introduction.

Offer your perspective.

Help build the offer.

Have the uncomfortable conversation.

Take responsibility for communication and momentum.

Follow the relationship all the way through.

Not because we need control.

Because we care about the outcome.

That kind of confidence does not always come naturally.

Especially when you have spent years being treated like the person who simply fills the top of the funnel.

But confidence can be practiced.

Belonging can be practiced.

Ownership can be practiced.

We can stop telling ourselves that the important work happens after our part is finished.

Our part is important.

Our jobs matter.

A lot.

A recruiter can change the direction of someone’s career.

We can introduce a person to a leader who sees something in them that their current company no longer sees.

We can help someone rediscover their confidence after a difficult few years.

We can help a leader find the person who changes an entire market.

We can create a conversation that improves a family’s future.

None of that is small.

It may begin with a cold call, but it does not end there.

If you are a recruiter who feels beaten down right now, I understand.

If you feel overlooked, disconnected, or unsure whether the work you do actually matters, I have been there.

Maybe your company needs to do a better job of bringing you inside.

But maybe you also need to stop waiting at the edge of the experience.

Raise your hand.

Ask to be included.

Learn more.

Speak up.

Trust what you know.

Own the relationship you created.

You are not just the recruiter.

You are not simply setting up the experience for everyone else.

You are part of the strategy.

You are part of the relationship.

You are part of the outcome.

You are valuable.

Your work matters.

You are the experience.