Back in 2020 during the pandemic, business conditions changed rapidly for recruiters. From a screeching halt to hiring to a rapid change in attitudes about work, anyone who works a recruitment desk has had to adapt to new ways of working. We started offering a monthly webinar series to offer free training to NPAworldwide members, which has been wildly popular and continues to offer great value. Earlier this month, Barb Bruno from Good As Gold Training offered a session on subtle tweaks to business development tactics. This was a really dynamic presentation, full of practical, no-nonsense advice. I’d like to share some of my favorite tidbits:
What Clients and Candidates Think About Recruiters
Barb has been a recruitment and staffing trainer for many years, and she is now also offering training and coaching services to clients and job seekers. Here are some of the generalizations she has consistently heard about recruiters from those groups:
- Recruiters don’t care about them. Clients, particularly, have said too many recruiters view them only as a revenue source.
- Both groups hate to be pitched. Clients are tired of lazy recruitment pitches that come in as soon as a job ad is launched. Candidates are tired of pitches from recruiters they’ve never spoken to, who don’t know anything about the candidate, their career goals, and whether they’re even open to a conversation.
- Recruiters are “all the same” — recruiters say they are different everyone else, but their differentiation statements are all the same.
What does this mean for business development?
First, good recruiters must focus on building strong partnerships and relationships with both clients and candidates. If the only time you talk to your clients is when you’re pitching for business, they’re not interested in working with you. Candidates believe recruiters will help them get a job. You must educate candidates about how you work AND also let them know when you can’t help them.
Second, stop with the cold call pitches to everyone. There is plenty of information about clients freely available. Every call should be warm and informed in Barb’s words. Stop with the generic InMails to candidates and stop with the over-zealous job pitches before you even know the first thing about someone’s career goals.
Third, know and share your personal brand. Your brand is your track record of success, so you have to know where and how you’re successful and be prepared to tell that story to both prospective clients and candidates. This is critical for success at each recruitment desk.
Use Revenue Modeling to Focus Your Marketing
This was the most practical part of Barb’s webinar for me. Barb’s suggestion is to go back through two years of PLACEMENTS (not all jobs, just the ones you actually filled) and determine:
- Industry
- Job title
- Fee percentage
- Guarantee offered
- Location
- Length of interview process
- Size of company
- Payment history
- Fall-off percentage
From this exercise, you should have a very good idea of exactly WHERE you are successful. Use this data to develop a list of prospective clients. Use this data to create your brand and develop a niche—there are “riches in niches” according to Barb. You may be surprised to find there are only a handful of job titles that you are consistently placing, or a specific industry, or a specific company size. Use this data to replicate past successes. Devote 85% of your marketing efforts to business opportunities that match your data points.
Here are a couple of other business development tips for your recruitment desk:
- Use reference checks as an opportunity to create marketing presentations
- Marketing candidates to prospective clients is still effective when done well
- Consider a client referral program with your existing clients
- Use your OOO (out of office) message for marketing every time you are investing in professional development to let your clients know you are working hard to serve them better.
Happy prospecting!