In today’s world, business keeps moving faster and faster. Staying current with technology is a challenge in and of itself. So, who has time to analyze the past?
Bill Benson, Chair of NPAworldwide’s Board of Directors, believes in taking time at the end of the year to take inventory on what is going well and what could be going better. A recruitment firm owner needs to ask themselves what are they expecting next year. Let’s assume that your competition is improving and business may be tougher to get in 2020. Thinking this way forces you improve your game.
- Get back to basics! Conduct a self-audit to make sure that you are continuing to do the little things right – small details can make a big difference! Look at your processes for interviewing candidates, presenting candidates to clients, prepping candidates for interviews, reference checking, qualifying candidates and clients. Ask the hard questions of your clients and candidates in order to further qualify Interest levels. This is a good time of year to ferret out any bad habits.
- Use social media to help stay more connected to your clients. You don’t need to be a social media maven to use technology to your advantage. Skip Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and focus on Linked In. “Like” your clients on linked In. Set Google alerts for your clients to stay informed when they are in the news. This insight will give you angles and opportunities to communicate and even pitch a candidate. Share articles that you believe are informative to your client personas.
- Start dating your clients again. We often can get busy focused on current assignments and fail to stay more connected to long standing clients. Understand you have competitors that you didn’t know exist that are calling on them. Take them to lunch over the holidays or call them to simply see how they are doing. You build trust with your clients by showing this type of interest.
- Schedule follow-up calls. Use your calendar system to give yourself reminders to make calls. An Example: Set a 30, 90, 180 and 360 phone call reminder with your placed candidates. Why? If a problem exists… some early intervention might avert a fall off! This follow up also shows you care as much as you hoped they believed when you placed them in the first place. These people are your best referral sources. Set similar call reminders with your clients, referral sources and key NPA partners. Set a 12 month out call every time you take a job order. Do this whether you fill the position or not. It might be a cyclical need and your 12 month out follow up call might hit at exactly the right time. You will more likely hit your call goal if you have a rolling list of these phone calls popping into your calendar every day. Anything you can do to structure your day will give you positive results.
- Stay focused! Let’s face it…most of us have attention or focus issues! Block your time into hourly segments of “focused time” to work jobs and stay on the phone. Start each day with a list of calls and 2-3 jobs where to place your focused time. Set goals that help you track daily progress. Daily planning and phone discipline are still the top predictors of success in our business.
- Training. Use a training platform to help you “sharpen the saw.” This is Stephen Covey’s Habit number 7. At WilliamCharles Search Group we use Next Level Exchange. Also look for webinars and other training material.
Finally, always remember that when you go back to the start of the placement (way back to when you received the job order) and take it all apart, you find things that could have been done better. Good luck to all recruiters in the New Year!