I see that lack of self confidence and lack of opinions are not issues that afflict you.

Your central thesis appears to be that many (at least 16 out of 37) of the preferred supplier list (PSL) that you inherited were in your opinion not networking and therefore were poor recruiters. I cannot dispute that bottom line; you may (or may not) have inherited a lousy PSL, but for such an apparently capable person I found your evidence in support of your thesis disappointingly thin.

Your contention appears to be along the lines of ‘I have loads of contacts on LinkedIn, anybody who isn’t using LinkedIn actively cannot be a good networker’. LinkedIn is good and, catalyzed by your piece, I even updated my own profile before writing this response. But networking doesn’t equal LinkedIn; there are other ways. Here are just a few:

• Meeting people for a coffee/meal.
• Phoning people up for a chat (maybe their details are in my contact management system).
• Going to industry events and functions.

And LinkedIn isn’t the only web based networking tool - there are plenty of others.

Maybe some of those on your PSL are able to add value in ways other than trawling through the low hanging fruit of LinkedIn. I’d suggest a good way of finding out would be to invite them for a coffee and give them five minutes to talk about their USPs — if they struggle then I’d consider that strong evidence to remove them from your PSL.

Tim Latham, founder, Prefio