30 years. That’s a long time for anything – but it was 30 years ago this week – that my resume was chosen for an interview, and I walked into Bernard Hodes Advertising, on Madison Avenue. This day put me on a path in what would turn into a lifetime career in Recruitment Marketing spanning to this week – 30 years.
As a matter of fact, I even met my wife Gayle Gerson at Hodes. Who knew that her first job in midtown – would lead us together on a path of 20 years of marriage (and counting!) – and two beautiful children?
A lot has changed in Recruitment Marketing during my time in this business. The internet itself was launched this month 30 years ago as well as a matter of fact. Back then at Hodes, we had a live receptionist, no voice mail, pagers were a must, and I had a huge and very noisy Oki Data printer on my desk – that spit out my insertion orders with tons of carbon paper in-between each of the 4 pages. My monitor was green text too. Remember those?
Now here we are in a world that’s connected to video meetings (science fiction back in ’91), print advertising that was our mainstay isn’t much of a factor these days – and programmatic recruitment marketing has taken over as the primary method of candidate outreach.
Job boards came and went, along with aggregators (remember HeadHunter.net and Simply Hired for example?) – but no matter what – my interest and desire to be a part of this crazy business never waned.
With that said – there are literally hundreds of people that have been a part of my journey that led me from – Bernard Hodes, to TMP Worldwide , to Recruitics, to Bayard Advertising to where I stand today – at my very own agency the The Gerson Agency, LLC a dream that had been long put off, until this year.
To all those who have helped me when I needed it, guided me when I was headed down the wrong path – or simply were there when I needed a friend – I very sincerely thank you!
Even though we’re all at different companies these days, I still appreciate what you did for me – and the impact you’ve had on my career.
