If you’re a recruiter, then you probably want to be a good recruiter. However, this blog post is not about how you can become a good recruiter. That’s because we’ve already covered how to be a great recruiter with this blog post.
Instead, we’re going to address how badly you want to be a good recruiter. In other words, this post is all about desire.
The desire to be a good recruiter
Desire is extremely important. That’s because nothing happens without desire. For example, you got out of bed this morning because you had a desire to get out of bed. If you didn’t have a desire to get out of bed, then you would not have done so. OR if your desire to stay in bed was greater than your desire to get out of bed, then you would have still stayed in bed.
It’s the same when it comes to the desire to be a good recruiter. If you don’t have the desire to be a good recruiter, then you won’t become one. OR if your desire to be an okay recruiter is greater than your desire to be a good recruiter, then you’ll just be an okay recruiter. (With average to less than average billings.)
And really, billings are the ultimate indicator of how good you are as a recruiter. The better you are, the better your billings. This is the case regardless of whether you’re a recruiter working for an agency or the owner of the agency. If you work a desk, then your billings tell the story of that desk.
Recruiter billings and . . . weight loss?
I have yet another example. You’ve probably heard weight-loss commercials on the radio. You might even have heard one with the slogan of “How bad do you want to look good?” A sensible question, especially if you heard it at the end of spring or the beginning of summer.
While you might not automatically draw a correlation between losing weight and increasing your billings, they are similar. That’s because they both require desire and motivation in order to make it happen. The more desire and motivation you have, the better your chances of success. It’s a rather simple equation.
So once again, it all comes down to desire. How badly do you want to be a good recruiter and continually increase your billings on a year-over-year basis? Or to put it another way:
“How bad do you want to be good?”
Although only YOU can fully answer that question, we’re going to help you to reach a satisfactory conclusion. And to help us do that, we’re going to draw upon the wisdom Terry Petra, one of the recruiting industry’s leading trainers and business consultants. 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.
Competence + confidence = attitude
According to Petra, he asks questions like the following of recruiters, consultants, managers, and their staff:
- Do you want to be good badly enough to do those things that are necessary to achieve consistent, long-term success?
- Do you want to be good badly enough to do those things that will allow you to build a valuable and rewarding career?
According to Petra, “want power” leads to willpower, and willpower is the foundation for success.
“In my role as a trainer and consultant to our industry, I have witnessed this principle at work hundreds of times,” said Petra. “Those practitioners who want to be successful badly enough develop the necessary willpower to achieve it. In no area does this become more apparent than in the area of individual and personal development.”
Petra added that successful recruiters, consultants, and managers do not stop at learning and applying the basics. Instead, they’re always developing their skills to higher levels of effectiveness.
“They realize that by continually building their skills, they will be continually building their competence,” said Petra. “This is important because competence leads to confidence, and confidence is a critical element of attitude. Having the right attitude is vitally important to achieving success.”
Questions for being a good recruiter
Asking the right questions is also vitally important to achieving success. And that’s why we have nine questions, courtesy of Petra, that will help you to determine how badly you want to be a good recruiter. Those nine questions are as follows:
- Are you willing to set aside a minimum of one hour, three days per week (outside of normal business hours) to build your skills through reading, tape review, role playing, or discussion on subjects directly related to the operation of your business?
- Are you willing to join and actively participate in at least two associations or business groups that are directly related to your specialty or service sector?
- Are you willing to seek out and develop a mentoring relationship with business professionals who have earned your respect?
- Are you willing to seek out and develop personal, mutually beneficial relationships with successful professionals within your area of specialization?
- Are you willing to continually focus your effort and activity on achieving results rather than engaging in pleasing processes?
- Are you willing to “just say no” to job orders, candidates, and recruits that do not match your “criteria for doing business”?
- Are you willing to accept the fact that you’re in an intrusive business where nothing of real value is created unless you create it?
- Are you willing to be personally accountable for your actions and outcomes, whatever they may be?
- Are you willing to accept how extraordinary you can really be and then to incorporate this awareness into your attitude and personality?
You may have noticed that all of the questions start the same way: “Are you willing . . .?” Nothing happens unless you are willing to make sure it happens. Nothing happens unless you have the desire to make it happen.
Search professionals who have enjoyed the marvelous benefits of a long, successful, fulfilling, and rewarding career in our industry would answer a resounding “YES!” to most of these questions. How about you?
How bad do YOU want to be a good recruiter?
From good to great with recruiter training!
Being good is just the starting point for an independent, third-party recruiter or search consultant. The next step, of course, is to become . . . great! And yes, you can read the blog post to which we linked above. However, in light of the nine questions we just posed, you may need to take more extreme measures. You may need to engage in recruiter training. And we can help!
Top Echelon offers a FREE monthly webinar as part of its Recruiter Coaching Series. After the webinars are over, we post the recorded version of the webinars in our Recruiter Training Library. These webinars touch upon a variety of recruiter-related topics. These topics deal with both candidates and clients. As always, our goal with these webinars (and corresponding videos) is to help recruiters make more placements.
In addition to training and webinars, Top Echelon offers other recruitment solutions. These solutions include the following:
- Big Biller recruiting software
- Top Echelon split network
For more information about Top Echelon and the products and services that it offers, visit the Top Echelon website by clicking here.