Top 100 Influencers in HR, Recruiting & Talent Acquisition

Top 100 v152 Hank Stringer

Posted on 19. Jan, 2010 by John Sumser in Blog, Top 100

By John Sumser

Hank Stringer has been in and around the Recruiting business for 31 years. In that time he’s seen all of the sides of the equation. He’s been in executive search, corporate recruiting, contract recruiting, CEO of a big league Recruiting Software company. If you poke at anyone with legs in recruiting, they’l know or know of Hank.

Hank tells a fantastic story about his first assignment. He dialed his way into the office of the CEO of a large Oil Company and was given a search for a “land man”. When the oil company /component/page,shop.cart/option,com_virtuemart/Itemid,36/vmcchk,1/”>cialis professional online leader finally had a chance to meet with Hank, Hank’s youth and inexperience became obvious. As he was being shown the door, Hank asked if he could cjeck back in a couple of weeks. The CEO was gracious enough to allow the earnest young recruiter a return visit.

When Hank got to the second meeting, he noticed a pile of resumes on the executive’s desk. Asking to see the top one on the pile, Hank began a recitation of the qualities and characteristics of the fellow’s /component/page,shop.cart/option,com_virtuemart/Itemid,36/vmcchk,1/”>cialis professional online resume. There were fifteen on the desk and Hank had talked with eight of them in the two weeks. While that was insufficient to get him the deal, it built a foundation for the rest of Hank’s career. The CEO was gracious as he showed Hank the door again.

You will never meet a better prepared, more enthusiastic, humble leader than Hank Stringer. What he got form that early encounter was a deep respect for graciousness. (It probably doesn’t hurt that he’s from Texas where gracious is a food group like Barbeque).

Hire.com was one of the bright shining stars of the first wave of Recruiting infrastructure compaies. While Hank had been poking around the edges of technology for years (He was a recruiter during the buildup at Dell), in 1996 he began in earnest. I can remeber an early visit to the company that was then called ‘World.hire’.

Over the course of the next decade, Hire.com became an unshakable part of the Recruiting landscape. The firm is resposnible for a number of ideas that still hold sway in the cyrrent crop of recruiting tools. In the end, Hire.com was purchased by Authoria (who recently acquired Peopleclick.)

Hank went on to author a book with Rusty Rueff (Talent Force). The book presents a systematic approach for making talent the key competitive discriminator in your company. The book, as you might imagine is propelling the second phase of Hank’s career.

Influence is a complex thing to pin down. Part popularity contest and part vision, the ability to wield influence does not come easily for every one. In Hank’s case, the exercise is easy.