But, Bill Vick used his persuasive powers to get Harry to reveal some of his best practices that anyone can copy — to some extent. Meaning, you can benefit from certain techniques even if they will never take you as far as they will a really talented person.

You’ll note that Harry has an endearing trick in his self-presentation. He tells you the truth in his boasts but then he pulls them away.

For instance, even as he tell us that he knows his market better than anyone, he also claims that “I’m a great marketer not a great recruiter” and “It’s debatable how smart I am.” That keeps you from getting too jealous and hating him and it gives you the feeling that “Even I can do it, too.”

1. Specialize in a specific business sector

Candidates want someone who takes a non-transactional approach to recruiting. They’d rather work with you if you are not there for this one job order alone but work on many projects in the same field. Then they have a reason to build a long term relationship with you.

2. Know Your Niche Well

The Marketing Headhunter places e-commerce types, “people who know how to make money on the internet.”

His key to success? He knows a lot about marketing — and marketers find it refreshing to work with someone who speaks their lingo and knows how they think. That’s his differentiator.

He says that he sees himself as the of e-commerce recruiting. He’s never played the game but he watches it from the press box level and can tell a good story based on that overview.

3. Make Sure the Job is a good fit for the candidate

Harry makes a point of seeing a job opportunity in terms of the fun, money and career potential it holds for a candidate.

He calls the formula “Fun, Future and Finance”. Making sure that a job offers something on all three bases and being able to explain this to a candidate is the key to building good relationships.

4. Satisfy Your Clients

Nobody wants to pay the recruiter. So you want to place candidates who are so good that your fee is lost in the value they create. (Harry says that his candidates are very impressive).

5. Only measure what you can control

For instance: Calls per day. Time on the phone.

6. Maintain a high profile in your target niche

It is important to brand yourself online as one of the go-to guys in a specific field. Use social media like blogging to make your presence felt.

At Recruitfest, Dennis Smith promoted the idea of setting up a social network which would attract all of the people in his niche of wireless communications. Then he could be the Community Manager, a term he took from Susan Burns the day before.

I said, “Hey, David Perry’s sitting right here. There was just an article about him in The Wall Street Journal that described him impersonating waiters and skulking around basements to get the names he needs.

“Is he going to bribe a janitor to get the number of somebody’s private washroom and then put that guy on Ning? How dumb is that?

“What’s more,” I said, “Harry Joiner, the Marketing Headhunter, just appeared on The Recruiting Animal Show, telling us how he blocked another recruiter from accessing one of this star candidates on LinkedIn.

Now, he tells Bill Vick that he has started a LinkedIn group so that all of his best candidates can see eachother. I don’t know the details but I’ll bet he won’t let the competition in. All the same, once the information is made somewhat public, it’s going to be leaked by some of the members. And how can that be good for Harry?

He can see that. You can tell in the video. But he shrugs his shoulders and says, “Changing is going to cause less pain that not changing.” Sure, Harry. Good luck.