When I was hired at my university job, I went to a friend of mine who is a high school choral director and asked him what I could do to begin the process of recruiting by establishing relationships with high school choir directors. His advice was powerful, and I’ve used it to this day. And it works.
Basically he said “don’t ask them to do something…don’t ask to go to their school and work with their kids (not yet anyway), don’t come up with some new festival that they will need to get kids out of school and onto a bus and get no sleep monitoring bedrooms, don’t cut to the chase and ask them who all their best kids are. None of that. Just take them out for a beer, or coffee, and listen. Don’t tell them what to do, don’t show them how smart you are, and don’t pontificate. Just listen. Ask them about what they do, how they do it, and let them talk. They almost never get to talk to colleagues, and so any opportunity to talk show with someone who understands is wonderful. The other stuff will come.”
I took that advice to heart and it has served me incredibly well. How do you open the doors to other directors or singers?
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