5 Ways to Shorten Time to Make Placements

Today’s guest blogger is Bill Benson with WilliamCharles Search Group located in Grand Rapids, MI. WilliamCharles is an executive search and professional recruiting firm specialized in finding managerial and executive talent in finance, HR, operations, sales/marketing as well as president/CEO roles. They have a concentration of clients in Michigan but they also work across the US. Bill is the chairman of the NPAworldwide Board of Directors.

Time kills deals in our business. Anything you can do to move things faster will help you win the battle against time.

1. Check and send references at the time of send out. By doing this you may overcome misperceptions during the interview and it will help sell the candidate.
2. When you send a resume to a client, anticipate their questions and answer along with providing their availability to interview. Ask if you can send a calendar invite. Think of this as collapsing steps in the process.
3. Close your candidate early. Get money out on the table early and often. Overtly make expectations clear from the start. Understand from the start what your candidate will accept. Equally important to make the sure the client is aligned. The numbers you are given at the onset of the search by the client are not necessarily what they will offer at the end. Never assume anything!
4. Market candidates to your clients. MPC (Most Placeable Candidate) marketing should be part of your approach to market. Every time you do this…you are creating the opportunity for an immediate send out. Set goals for MPC calls weekly. This forces you to always be asking questions to your client about their future needs and to always be anticipating their needs for the right candidates. Clients see this as value added if you are hitting the target.
5. Plan your day in advance. You will make more of the right calls by planning them out the evening before. You can either plan your day or let your day plan you. It is the incremental things that you get done that often make the difference.

The great thing about our business is that we have the opportunity to reinvent ourselves. We don’t have to buy new capital equipment or stock shelves with new inventory. We don’t rely on our looks, higher education degrees or access to large amounts of capital. We succeed or fail based on our attitude. Choose to be bigger than your problems or challenges. Choose to spend more time on the phone. Choose to work on quality job orders. Quote from Steven Covey, “We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.”