CLOSE-UP: ON THE CAMPAIGN COUCH ... WITH JB.(Column)

Q: I'm fed up paying 20 per cent headhunter fees for someone to sift through CVs of people who have returned from travelling, join us and then push off after less than a year. I know it's not just my agency as friends also have this complaint. Isn't there a better way to recruit staff?

A: Oh yes, there certainly is. In fact, I'd be hard put to think of a worse way to recruit staff. What we have at the moment is a closed-circuit system, rather like a central heating system, in which the same limited number of individuals circulates endlessly and airlessly. As with any such system, of course, some evaporation takes place (death, defection, emigration, expulsion) so occasional topping-up is necessary.

We top up from only two sources: universities and art schools. This ensures that the only new recruits welcomed by the advertising trade are those with absolutely no experience of anything likely to be of the smallest value to our clients. What training they receive comes from previous generations of novices, thus making sure that the purity of agency ignorance is never contaminated by contact with the real world.

Headhunters never search outside this system; and if they did, you'd reject their recommendations on the grounds that those outside the system have no experience. The opposite, of course, is true: the only people with no experience are those within the system.

You should be on the lookout for dissatisfied barristers, management consultants, newspaper people and theatrical agents. You should be on the lookout for those who have already shown that they can write and think and draw.

Under no circumstances should you hire clones of clients; clients have enough clones of their own already and will not thank you for presenting them with more when they visit your agency.

Look for individuality, diversity, eccentricity, inventiveness and brilliance. Look outside the system where the experience is.