Today’s guest blogger is Maureen Sharib, owner of phone sourcing company TechTrak, Inc. See the end of this post for more information about Maureen, including contact details.
The reason your recruiters/sourcers aren’t on the phones as much as you’d like them to be on the phones is the (cell) phones (most of them) are using aren’t call–friendly.
That’s right.
They’re designed to do all sorts of things but make telephone call after telephone call after telephone call?
Not so much.
In fact, making calls on cell phones is a trying activity that requires pushing way more buttons than making a call on an ordinary desk phone.
Let’s try.
Let’s use my pain-in-the-rear-end Samsung Galaxy 5 powered by Android (service provided by Verizon.)
To make a call I have to push the thing-a-ma-jig button at the bottom to light the screen, plug in a security code (because that’s activated now) and then press “OK”, find “Phone” on the face of the damn thing (which is no small trick sometimes as many of the screens appear and I have to figure how to make the right one appear), press “Phone” to get the dial pad, dial the number and press the phone symbol and hope the dang thing rings through (sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.)
“Who dreamed this torture trail up?” I ask.
This is supposed to be easy?
No wonder people don’t want to use these things to make calls – this is no mystery.
Vice versa my desk phone – I pick it up – I plug in some numbers and voila! The call goes through – easy-peasy – just about every time through my trusted landline.
Hardly ever – I can’t recall when even – does a call “drop” – get disconnected mid-conversation – versus the reality of that happening talking on a cell phone!
Not only does it go through – the call sounds clear as a bell – no fuzziness around the edges, no garbling, no biting off on the first syllables, no straining required to make out what’s being said.
My nerves aren’t frayed at the thought of the call being dropped at some critical juncture at any moment and my valuable investment of time being perhaps lost forever so I can relax into the call and know that I can concentrate all my energy into the conversation and none into the worry.
The “phones” today that many are relying on for “communication” are really being used as easy-to-carry-around computing devices – not as communication devices (except insofar as you consider texting/messaging “communicating”) and to expect them to serve dependably as such is expecting too much.
Doing away with the privacy and ease and clear-bell assuredness and connectivity that comes with landlines and desk phones for business purposes is a fool’s errand and those who think they can do voice-to-voice business on cell phones today mark themselves as second class citizens in commerce.
Can you hear me now?
One of the reasons your sourcers and recruiters (whatever it is you’re calling the team who are making the candidate calls these days) aren’t making the candidate calls in the numbers you want them to be making the candidate calls is because the phones they’re using to make the candidate calls aren’t easy to make the candidate calls on.
If you have them working remotely ask them what kinds of phones they’re using. If they don’t have landlines/desk phones it’s a good bet they’re using cell phones and if they’re using cell phones they’re running into the same awkward call technology I described above and it’s impacting your call numbers.
Have you thought of this and what are you prepared to do about it?
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I really appreciate that you took the time to read my post. I regularly write about phone sourcing and business development issues and trends. If you’d like to read more about the mysterious world of phone sourcing (it’s really not that mysterious!), Google my name and the word gatekeeper – lots of articles will come up for you that I’ve written over the years. It’ll be a good introduction for you to the subject!
Follow me on Twitter at @MaureenSharib and/or join my sourcing group on Facebook – Sourcers Unleashed.
Yes, I do (grudgingly) have a LinkedIn profile – send me an invite at maureen at techtrak.com – I’ll accept. I do post articles over there as well.
I own the phone sourcing/competitive sniffing firm TechTrak.com, Inc. that helps companies find and telephone contact candidates for their hard-to-place positions at fractional traditional recruiting costs.
You can always contact me at 513 646 7306.
I could not agree MORE Maureen….I think we are all sucked into this world too. I strongly dislike the cell-as-your-main-line (but 4 of my 6 recruiters do it, and due to a cruddy landline, I may be next!). I am dreading the switch myself. Old school phone…headset….leaving the dial open while you dial the next….priceless elements to success in recruiting. As a business owner, I think we should offer our remote employees a paid-for phone line (in our case, many have opted to use their cell but I have not said LET ME INSIST WE DO THIS). I may have that discussion this week. THANKS!
I use paid version of Skype – so much easier than either landline or cell phone and I get great reception (depends on your internet service, of course).
I appreciate you taking the time to comment! I feel this is an important issue in our business that isn’t getting enough attention and is one of the baselines to some of the problems we’re facing today!
Great post, Maureen! It’s not an aspect of sourcing that I had considered before, but I certainly appreciate your point. If we were manufacturing a product (which you could make the argument that we are), the lack of efficiency using a cell phone versus a traditional phone would make the quality assurance guys’ heads spin.