We recently hosted a panel discussion focused on recruitment tips to survive and thrive during a challenging economy. The panelists consisted of NPAworldwide members with a wide variety of perspectives and who’ve been in business long enough to have gone through multiple economic cycles. Here are just a few of the tidbits that came out of that discussion.
- Fish where the fish are. You may need to look for “market adjacent” opportunities to help you through a cycle. If you’ve been working tech roles in a particular industry, consider non-tech roles within your existing clients or tech roles in a different industry.
- Others on the panel suggested that now is the time to hug your existing clients harder – invest more in relationships and providing value. Maybe now is a good time to help them develop a talent acquisition strategy so they’re ready to move quickly when hiring opens back up. They may not be hiring now, but you want to be top-of-mind when hiring resumes.
- Look for good-fit clients in your business development efforts. For small-to-medium recruitment firms, large clients may not be your best clients right now. Look for small-to-medium businesses that don’t have an in-house recruitment function—and maybe don’t have an in-house HR function—that need to hire and know they cannot do it without help. That is where you can demonstrate strong value and build long-term strategic relationships.
- Get creative with how to help your clients. Can you offer contract staffing to help them fill critical roles when their direct-hire budgets have been frozen? There are many good back-office providers that help recruiters do this. Can you sell parts of your recruitment project on an hourly or project basis? Focus on things you can do efficiently that will save them time and wasted effort.
- Build a repeatable process of KPIs that you know are time-tested, successful, and can be measured. This can keep you focused on the right activities instead of falling into a trap of being busy but not producing revenue. Get back to basics like focusing on calls and send outs, because recruitment is still about 1:1 conversations and sales. Do you have a network of recruitment professionals that you can benchmark? This will help you know if your metrics are headed in the right direction.
- Automate your marketing efforts and really focus on building your brand. If you’re a solopreneur, you ARE your brand – how do you want to position yourself in the market? This is not the time to shrink away from investing in marketing.
- Stay positive and motivated. It’s hard, but this group of experienced pros was unanimous in their belief that the tough times will end, and you’d better be ready to take advantage of the pent-up demand.
One of the great benefits of NPAworldwide membership is the peer knowledge, like these recruitment tips, that members freely share with each other. If you’re not part of a formal network, do you have an informal network or a group of accountability partners that you can lean on for support?