(By Terry Petra, CPC/CIPC)
Read "Timing is Everything for Recruiters, Part 1."
During the initial discussion with your client, at the point where you're qualifying the job order and establishing the hiring process, you need to emphasize the importance of timing. As a result, you might say the following:
"In order to achieve our objective, we need to properly measure each candidate against our agreed upon selection criteria. At the same time, we must build an interest in the candidate on wanting to work for your organization. After all, you cannot hire someone who does not want to work for your company. Does that seem reasonable?" (If "yes," proceed. If "no," find out why.)
"In this competitive hiring environment, the best outcomes are achieved when we can issue an offer at that critical point in time when the candidate's interest is at its peak and the evaluation process has been properly completed. To issue an offer at any other time, except when these two events simultaneously occur, could compromise the likelihood of a successful outcome. Can you appreciate the importance of this approach?" (If "yes," proceed. If "no," find out why.)
At this point in the discussion, it is imperative for you and your client to agree on a unified strategy for evaluation and interest building. You must accept joint responsibility for properly completing these most important steps in the hiring process. Anything that inhibits the timely accomplishment of these two steps must be eliminated from the process. Anything that enhances the effectiveness of the process should be included.
You are the most critical component in the entire process. It is your mandate to locate, evaluate, generate interest, and position qualified candidates within a properly structured hiring process. It is also your responsibility to establish the timeliness of that process. This must be accomplished at the front end, when you're qualifying the order.
By properly executing this strategy, you're working in the best interest of everyone involved, including yourself. However, it takes confidence to stand your ground. The ultimate qualifier may be to ask your client the following:
"Why would I agree to work within a process that is designed to compromise the likelihood of a positive outcome? That doesn't make sense for either of us."
Remember, once the process begins, timing is everything. As always, if you have questions or comments regarding this article, please let me know. I welcome your feedback.
(Terry Petra, a guest writer for the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog, is one of the recruiting industry's leading trainers and business consultants. A Certified Personnel Consultant since 1975 and a Certified International Personnel Consultant since 1989, Petra has extensive experience as a producer, manager, and trainer in all areas of professional search, including retainer, contingency, and contract, as well as clerical/office support and temporary. For more information about his services, visit his website or call 651-738-8561.)
(By Terry Petra, CPC/CIPC)
"As a general rule, you should assume that time is always against you when you're trying to make a deal--any kind of deal."
Robert J. Ringer, author
These words are as true today as they were when Mr. Ringer wrote them in his best-selling 1973 book, Winning Through Intimidation.
I receive calls daily from recruiters who want to know how they can get their clients to move with a greater sense of urgency throughout the hiring process. Companies have to move quickly if they hope to successfully compete for the most sought-after talent. As one recruiter stated, employers fit into one of two categories: "the quick . . . or the dead."
As important as it is to move with a sense of urgency, employee selection should not be undertaken at the expense of a properly focused evaluation process. If this occurs, the hiring process will be compromised and desired outcomes may not be achieved.
Nevertheless, timing is everything. If the hiring process moves too slowly, the candidate may lose interest or pursue other alternatives. On the other hand, if the hiring process moves too quickly, the candidate may not be ready to accept an offer and in fact, could turn it down because they feel pressured to make a premature decision.
Remember:
Your client cannot hire someone who does not want to accept their offer.
Therefore, a properly structured hiring process must accomplish a minimum of two objectives:
First, it must execute a balanced evaluation component that accurately measures the candidate's capability to do the job, willingness to do the job, and ability to positively interface with management, peers, and subordinates.
Second, it must build within the candidate a strong interest and willingness to become part of the organization.
The greatest likelihood of your client gaining an acceptance to their offer is for them to extend the offer at that point in the hiring process where the candidate's interest is at its peak. However, this should only be attempted if the evaluation component of the process has been completed.
(Terry Petra is one of the recruiting industry's leading trainers and business consultants. A Certified Personnel Consultant since 1975 and a Certified International Personnel Consultant since 1989, Petra has extensive experience as a producer, manager, and trainer in all areas of professional search, including retainer, contingency, and contract, as well as clerical/office support and temporary. For more information about his services, visit his website at www.TPetra.com or call 651-738-8561.)
(By MATT DEUTSCH)
According to recruiting industry trainer Jon Bartos of Trustaff Solutions, there are three questions that recruiters should ask themselves about a job order before accepting it and working on it:
- Is the company looking at internal candidates?
- Am I the only recruiter working this job order?
- If I find a dead-on candidate, am I 100% sure that the company will hire them?
“The problem is that some recruiters are focusing on bad job orders,” said Bartos. “They might be seeing a lot of activity, but they’re not seeing the kind of results they want, and that’s because they’re not working ‘A’ job orders.
“Even if recruiters work an ‘average’ search, the chance of them filling it is not 50/50,” said Bartos. “They probably have a 10% chance of filling it. Today, it’s all about the quality of the job order. The volume has to go up, up, up. A starving recruiter will work just about anything. That’s why the [marketing call] volume has to go up, so you’ll have the choice of working on something good.”
Are these three questions that you ask before accepting a job order? Are they valid questions that help to qualify the order? Will you be asking these questions the next time you’re presented with a job order?
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Jon Bartos, a leading trainer for the recruiting industry, provides recruiting tips and recruiting strategies at his “Talent Wins” website, located at www.JonBartos.com. Be sure to check out his library of free information and strategies for recruiters.
(By MATT DEUTSCH)
According to recruiting tips shared by industry trainer Jon Bartos of Trustaff Solutions, there are two things that recruiters should be doing right now:
- Increasing their call volume
- Being very selective about which job orders to work
Bartos indicated that these two actions should be centered upon both quantity and quality, specifically making a lot of marketing calls and then making sure the job orders that recruiters do choose are of very high quality.
“It’s about getting on the phone, making connections, and qualifying everything you get,” said Bartos. “The economy is slowly creeping back, so recruiters have to increase their marketing calls and their recruiting calls.”
Bartos indicated that recruiters should make these calls with the goal of securing as many job orders as they can. Then they’ll have a number from which to choose and won’t have to be forced to work an order that could go nowhere.
“You have to be very choosy about what you work on,” said Bartos. “You should only work on the ‘A’ search assignments, the ones that are qualified.”
What’s been your experience? Do you agree with these two recruiting tips? Is it difficult to be selective when it comes to taking job orders? What's your firm's policy regarding which ones to take and which ones to not?
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Jon Bartos is a leading trainer for the recruiting and staffing industry. Visit his “Talent Wins” website at www.JonBartos.com, and be sure to check out his library of free information and recruiting tips for recruiters.
(By BARB BRUNO, CPC/CTS)
The phrase, “I’m so stressed out!” could describe our clients, candidates, co-workers, family members, and often ourselves!
As a recruiter, you have the challenge of human beings who talk back on both sides of your sale. They’ve been known to delay decisions and change their minds, as you’ve discovered during your initial recruiter training.
You will never hear me say that we are in an easy profession. However, it is one of the most gratifying. You can’t deal with the stress level of your candidates, clients, and co-workers if you’re stressed out. Learn how to reduce your stress level, and you will increase your production and income.
TIP #1—Plan
You’ve probably heard about the importance of planning, but has that motivated you to become a consistent planner? You either plan for success, or you’re planning for failure. It’s amazing how less stressful it is to arrive at work knowing your priorities for the day and the outgoing calls you will complete!
Think of how many times you forgot to do something important because the "urgent things" wiped out your day. If I can’t convince you to fill out an entire planner, beginning today, write down your top six priorities closest to the money and commit to those actions before you leave your office. This one tip will lower your stress level.
TIP #2—Realize That “Stuff Happens”
You cannot control what happens throughout your day, but you have 100% control over how you choose to react. Often, not reacting is the best decision. No one can make you feel a certain way . . . unless you give them permission. I was a single parent for 15 years, and I found it very empowering when I realized I could control how I reacted to things!
TIP #3—Write Things Down
Write down a list of the things that are causing stress in your life and allow yourself 30 minutes to worry. Read the list, worry as much as humanly possible, and then put the list away. Cross off issues that are resolved, and add new ones as they occur.
Recently, I had one of my clients tell me about a book she gives to each of her children. The book is titled, What I Won’t Do When I’m a Parent. She plans to give this book to her children, when they eventually become parents.
What a great idea! What if you had a book titled, What I Wouldn’t Do If I Was a Client or Candidate? It’s very therapeutic when you write things down.
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Barb Bruno, CPC/CTS, a guest writer for the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog, is one of the most trusted speakers, trainers, and experts in the staffing and recruiting profession. If you'd like to contact Bruno to schedule a free demo of her "Top Producer Tutor" Web-based recruiter training course, call 219.663.9609 or send an email to support@staffingandrecruiting.com.
(By MARK DEMAREE)
Sure, there are millions of job seekers in the marketplace right now. Obviously, those people don’t have to be recruited for an open position as much as, say, a passive candidate who really isn’t looking for a new opportunity.
However, as any recruiter will tell you, many companies are looking for those hard-to-find passive candidates with the superstar skill set and potential to contribute considerably to the company’s bottom line.
Finding those candidates is just the first step in the process. Successfully recruiting those candidates is where the real work is done. Recruiters must sell the candidate on the opportunity if they want to more fully satisfy their client’s needs.
But exactly how easy—or difficult—is it to recruit those types of candidates? Well, we conducted a recruiter poll to find out the answer to that question.
We presented our poll by posing the following question to the Preferred Member recruiters of Top Echelon Network:
Overall, how easy or difficult is it right now to recruit passive, qualified candidates?
We presented a choice of six answers, which are listed below, along with the percentage of recruiters that chose each one:
- Very easy—1.3%
- Somewhat easy—2.6%
- Neither easy nor difficult—15.4%
- Somewhat difficult—48.7%
- Very difficult—23.1%
- My problem is finding qualified candidates—9.0%
As you can see, nearly half of recruiters (48.7%) indicated that recruiting passive candidates is “somewhat difficult,” and another 23.1% stated that it's “very difficult.”
Put those answers together, and 71.8% of recruiters believe that recruiting such candidates is difficult to some degree. Not only that, but another 9% of poll participants chose, “My problem is finding qualified candidates” as their answer.
In other words, they’re experiencing trouble with the first step of the process, finding passive candidates, to say nothing of the second step of the process, recruiting those candidates.
What’s been YOUR experience? Is recruiting passive candidates difficult right now? If so, why do you believe that is?
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(Mark Demaree, the President of Top Echelon, is a regular contributor to the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog.)
Connect with Mark on LinkedIn.
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(By MATT DEUTSCH)
Of all the social media and networking tools that exist, LinkedIn is definitely the one that recruiters use the most. After all, it’s touted as the “professional social media network,” and tens of millions of job seekers are registered with the site.
Many recruiters view LinkedIn as a “self-cleaning” database of talent, because users are constantly updating their information in hopes of landing a new job.
But what if the talent that’s in LinkedIn isn’t necessarily the best talent? Blasphemy, you say? Well, according to recruiting industry trainer Doug Beabout of The Douglas Howard Group, some of the very best job seekers—including passive candidates—are de-activating their accounts on LinkedIn.
“There’s been a huge change in LinkedIn’s population during the past two years,” said Beabout. “It's changed from a group of professionals, most of them employed and seeking networking opportunities, to a watering hole for the unemployed. I’ve had at least a dozen candidates tell me that they’re not on Linkedin anymore.”
And why are these candidates no longer on LinkedIn?
“They’re being attacked by recruiters on a daily basis,” said Beabout. “They’re being contacted by as many as 12 to 15 recruiters a day, and they just got tired of dealing with that.”
According to Beabout, recruiters who rely too much on social media sites like LinkedIn may be creating an imbalance on their recruiting desk, one that could negatively impact their overall production.
“If you’re going to use social media, you do it at the risk of neglecting what’s going on in the rest of society,” said Beabout. “Smart phones are great things. I have an iPhone, but it doesn’t make me any money . . . unless I use it as a phone. But if I’m just tweeting and IM-ing all day, that’s not going to get me anywhere.”
What are your thoughts? Have you spoken with candidates who have taken themselves off LinkedIn? How much time do you spend on Linkedin during a typical day? Do you think recruiters are using social media too much? And how much is too much?
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(Matt Deutsch, the Communications Coordinator at Top Echelon, is a regular contributor to the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog.)
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn.
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(By MATT DEUTSCH)
Recruiting is a rather flexible profession, for a number of different reasons. It can also be maddeningly unpredictable, and we addressed both of these characteristics in a recent recruiter poll.
The amount of money that recruiters bill can vary from year to year. In fact, it usually does vary. In addition, the amount of time that recruiters work can also vary from year to year.
As a result, a recruiter could conceivably work more one year, but bill the exact same amount that they did the previous year . . . when they were working less.
With that in mind, we decided to see where recruiters are on the unpredictability-meter, and as I mentioned, we did so by conducting a poll of the Top Echelon Network Membership.
Below is the question that we posed in this poll:
Which of the following best describes your recruiting desk as opposed to a year ago?
The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of recruiters who selected each one:
- I'm working more, but billing the same—15.2%
- I'm working more and billing more—19.0%
- I'm working less, but billing the same—6.3%
- I'm working less, but billing more—12.7%
- I'm working the same and billing the same—22.8%
- None of the above—24.1%
A little over 15% of poll participants indicated that they're "working more, but billing the same." In addition, a full 19% of recruiters stated that they're "working more and billing more." Add that up, and 34% of recruiters are working more this year than they were in 2012.
On the other side of the spectrum, 6.3% of participants indicated that they're "working less, but billing the same," and 12.7% chose "I'm working less, but billing more" as their answer. As for those who are experiencing no change? Over 22% stated that they're "working the same and billing the same."
What about YOU? Is this year different than last year? If so, how much different is it? Are you working more . . . or less? And how have your billings been affected?
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(Matt Deutsch, the Communications Coordinator at Top Echelon, is a regular contributor to the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog.)
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn.
Follow Matt on Twitter.
Join Top Echelon on Facebook.
(By MATT DEUTSCH)
What’s the number-one thing that recruiters should be focused on right now . . . and the number-one question they should be asking hiring authorities?
According to recruiting industry trainer Jon Bartos of Trustaff Solutions, that one thing is qualifying their job orders to the nth degree. Why is that?
Because that’s the best way to find out just how much urgency is tied to the job order. If there’s not much urgency tied to it—or if the company wants to take its sweet time finding a candidate—that all adds up to a lot of work and no end in sight to the hiring process.
“The biggest thing that recruiters need to do right now is really qualify their search assignments,” said Bartos. “There should be a thorough understanding of the hiring process and also of the specific characteristics that a candidate must have in order for the company to pull the trigger.”
Bartos indicated that the best way to gauge the urgency tied to a job order is to ask this question:
“By what date do you want to have somebody on board?”
“I just had a good example of that [recently],” said Bartos. “I asked a client that does not typically move very fast when they want to have a candidate on board, and they said the middle of next year. They indicated that it would take that long to find the perfect candidate. By asking that question, I now know exactly what to expect.”
According to Bartos, asking more questions—and the right questions—when qualifying job orders is crucial for recruiters.
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Jon Bartos is a leading trainer for the recruiting industry. Visit his “Talent Wins” website at www.jonbartos.com, and be sure to check out his library of free information for recruiters.
(By GARY STAUBLE)
I often get questions from recruiters regarding how many calls they should make. This is a tricky question, as the answer is directly related to the results that are generated by those calls. There is no simple answer to this question because it varies by niche and the experience of the recruiter. However, the range of 40-75 calls per day will apply to most recruiters.
A seasoned recruiter may only need to make 40 calls per day because their calls are returned and they have deep client relationships. Their average call may last 10 minutes or more. A rookie recruiter, on the other hand, may get weak results while making 100 calls per day because each call lasts 90 seconds and they get very few call backs.
I've always believed that there's value in tracking calls daily. If you're like most recruiters, you'll do this by hand. In my case, I use a very low-tech method: sticky notes. Each morning, I simply take a sticky note and paste it on my desk near the phone. I write in two categories: calls and conversations.
Under "calls," I enter a hash mark for each attempt that ends with voicemail. For "conversations," I enter a hash mark for calls that end in a business conversation. If I get disconnected or put through to the wrong department, that doesn't count as a call. Sourcing calls that do not lead to a sourced name also do not count as a call.
A better way to track call activity is by using call tracking software. From a management perspective, this is a no-brainer. The best management techniques are those where a good system does the managing and the manager acts like a coach. By using call tracking software, the program is collecting the raw numbers and holding your staff accountable.
It also helps to keep them focused on one of the most important variables in recruiter success: time on the phone. By using software, you'll be able to see how many minutes each recruiter spent on the phone, how many calls were made, and what the average time per call was. This information can be used for coaching and training purposes.
For instance, if two recruiters have been with you for six months apiece and one has an average call time of two minutes while the other's is seven minutes, you can make some assumptions from this data. Perhaps the one with the shorter average call is making very weak presentations and people want to get off the phone with them in a hurry. Perhaps they sound too "salesy" or are not prepared.
Then again, if the person with the longer call average is under-producing as a recruiter, perhaps they're staying on the phone too long with the wrong people and wasting time. The data gives you the raw numbers, and then it's your job to use those numbers to dig and coach so that you and your staff can improve.
Tracking calls is a valuable activity, and it's something that I've done throughout my career. However, it's less valuable than tracking the results of those calls. If you're getting "B" results with 35 calls, trying to hit 100 calls may be a waste of time for you.
Below are three results-based numbers that recruiters should be tracking:
- Number of recruiting calls per day: Enough to surface three viable candidates that you can interview internally.
- Number of marketing calls: Enough to generate two "A-level" searches per week.
- Number of sendouts: One per day is a good goal to shoot for, as you will end up with 20 or more new sendouts per month.
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Gary Stauble, a guest writer for the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog, is the principal consultant for The Recruiting Lab, a coaching company that assists firm owners and solo recruiters in generating more profit in less time. For more information or to schedule a complimentary coaching session, visit www.therecruitinglab.com or call 408.849.4756.
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