Along Came A Spider

I'm told that a spider intuitively knows the different vibrations of prey in its web. This means it will quickly pounce and secure a feed that happens into its web, but wont waste its energy on a leaf or rain or wind that might set the web a shaking.
This in essence is model recruitment.
And by that I mean most recruiters or headhunters are pretty good and not employing leaves and sticks, but one of my most pressing challanges I have come across is inspirin not just people to throw in their lot with me, but the right people to throw in their lot.
For me recruiting is a specialised form of performance management, specialised because the act of employing someone shoudl integrate them, or graft them straight into the existing development plan essentially they start with direction the same as the existing employee base does each day.
The specialisation is in doing a good development plan by inferring the data one collects as a matter of course with the existing employee base.
And that means pouncing on people with the right development potential and not wasting energy on dud prospects, people with limited and/or the wrong kind of growth potential for the organisation.

But one may say touche tohm you dickbrain, is the energy really wasted if you learn the vibrations through spending the energy on dud employees.
And I guess that would be were the second functional element of the spiders system comes in.
Stricktly speaking the answer is 'no' I do believe people have an intuitively good sense to judge things such as disingenuosness (that's gotta be the word of the day) or untrustworthiness or bullshit. So so long as interviewing a dud prospect doesn't result often in hiring a dud prospect i'd be happy.
The other side of the spiders system is the web itself. If you think about it the spider positions itself at the crossroads of the web the central transmission point. This creates the efficiency of hunting using a net (that transmits feedback) but it is essentially a preprepared tool. The Spider expends energy to create it, then is rewarded by the greater efficiency, so spending energy sending out 'feelers' or transmission lines, building a web that not only catches prey but allows for effective notification...
...do you hear what I'm saying? the web's functionality isn't that it is large, that's not the true efficiency gain, it's function is that it communicates rapidly whether the cooking is good so to speak. The spider sits in the right place, usually the middle of the web and then its reach and accuracy skyrocket.
That is the natural recruiting model. Both reach and accuracy, maximising opportunity whilst minimising risk.

The trick is where a spider seems to innately understand its objectives, recruiting is more abstract, a fly is a commodity, one fly is much the same as another. A recruiter for a call centre might for example work this way, it is looking for people with hands, and voices. Rather simple criteria, so picking up that vibration off the transmission lines is pretty simple.
Someone say looking for a designer with an ability to empathise with the target market is going to make our recruiter spider's job that much harder. Because it then needs to pick up a specific combination of these abstract ideas to make the hire.
Then the next day it has to look for something different.
My solution:

Most companies start with the position for which they are hiring and then look for someone who fits.
I think I would want to start with a person I want to hire then create/modify/select the position that best suits them.
And throughout such a process the risk of expending energy devising a development plan is reduced.
Once again we are dealing with a relatieve commodity, but this time it is talented people

I guess from here the next logical thing to actually nut out and create is the performance development process, which would tie recruiting and outplacement together nightly. Then I'll have my flowing rockpool to relax in.