Best Recruiters from Laconia Associates Inc

Be a Best Recruiter

To most people, recruiting may seem simple. All we do is talk on the phone all day, right? If you’ve been in the industry for more than a minute you’re sure to hear that stereotypical remark. A common recruiter response is, “If it’s that easy, try it.” This challenge often results in the other person backing down. So what is it that makes some people shy away from recruiting? It is fear of the phone.

To be a successful recruiter, you must learn to work the phone effectively. Few people understand the power of a well-placed phone call. In a world dominated by web-based job boards and email, a live voice on the phone is refreshing to candidates.

Opportunity doesn’t knock, it calls. Great companies are built and economies are moved because the right people are recruited for the right jobs. When you place that call, you are opportunity. You are a recruiter. Your countless hours spent relentlessly dialing number after number have conditioned you to anticipate questions, counter objections and generate interest. So, get on the phone and learn to love dialing. Learn to love listening and talking to people. Feel the thrill of making things happen for candidates and the companies you represent. Think of yourself as the catalyst for launching a tremendously successful career for the person you are calling. Who knows? Someday they may even send you a bottle of champagne or a bouquet of flowers to thank you for that initial phone call.

So what does it take to become a great recruiter? Like any new activity, you have to practice, practice, and practice. The phone is no different. Seasoned recruiters, can you remember your first day? Suddenly, an object you have used since childhood looks different somehow. There’s a slight hesitation in dialing the numbers. The receiver feels cold against your ear. You can feel your heartbeat in your chest. The first ring, maybe they won’t answer; second ring, voice mail (c’mon voice mail); third ring, Hello! It’s show time. You stumble through your first call like Dan Quayle at a spelling bee. It’s now 8:05 am and that’s when it hits you - this is what recruiting is all about.

When it comes to motivating a hiring manager or internal recuiter to move on your submittal, remmember the catchy saying….”Time kills all deals”.One of the most frustrating things to a recruiter is the lag time between finding and submitting a good candidate and getting meaningful feedback through the screening process.

Think abut it : How often have you taken a request for talent and spent weeks doing the sourcing, pre-screening, preparing and presenting your candidate’s case? Now comes the exciting part, right? Your hiring manger or internal recruiter calls you right away, excited about your candidate and asks when they can come in for an interview. Yeah, right!

The problem is that it rarely goes like that. You usually end up waiting days or weeks for someone to follow up with you, share their excitement and invite the candidate in for an interview. Why is it that a busy HM or IR, that wants to fill their open position as quickly as possibly, takes so long to get back to you on a candidate?Could it be they are really not as impressed as you? Maybe they disagree that the candidate had a good case? Maybe they are really busy and needs some time to get this task completed? Perhaps the motivation to hire has slipped to the back burner. Or they just need a little push from a professionally aggressive recruiter.Here are some tips on speeding up the client screening process:

Verbally present your candidate to the HM or IR
There’s no substitute for the energy and enthusiasm that a good recruiter can add to the equation. Excitement can be contagious. Spark motivation in an HM/IR to set up an interview with a candidate.

Follow up within 24 hours of submission
Call to clarify your position and make your candidate’s case. After all, if you’re not excited about him/her, why should the HM/IR be?

Make sure to focus on the HM/IR needs, not your own
If you come across as desperate, selfish or uninformed, the deal will break.

Stay in constant contact with the candidate during this critical period
You can use the information you learn about them to expand your case and motivate the HM/IR to move on them.

Check a reference and use this positive information to get things moving
This is a powerful way to bring credible case material into the equation and can motivate the HM/IR to move on your candidate.

Keep the HM/IR updated of any changes in status of the candidate
If the candidate is progressing on another position, or on another company opportunity, let your HM/IR know the fuse is getting shorter.

Go for the “No”
This is a very effective technique to get a decision made. If you have tried all of the above and the HM/IR is still not moving on your candidate, you might try to “take away” the candidate by withdrawing them from the process. If the HM/IR tries to stop you, then they are truly interested. If they do not try to stop you, then perhaps they were not interested enough in the first place to move on the candidate. Either way, you will arrive at a final decision.

Time kills all deals
Good recruiters know this line and live it every day. If the candidates are not moving through the screening process in a timely manner, chances increase the deal will fall apart.

Remember that the most effective recruiters understand how their HM/IR thinks, how they work and what is going on in their business. They set expectations of the process and apply the right amount of persuasive energy without breaking the relationshipThe next time you submit a candidate for which you have made a good case, use these tips and watch the screening process time speed up! As said by Scott Beardsley, co-founder and vice president recruitment services.

Excellence is a Process: Establish “resilient” mentality - Establishing a mentality of resilience will begin with the leadership and permeate throughout the entire organization. During a crisis, this mentality can be very beneficial. Imagine everyone being able to make critical decisions when it counts because of shared vision of the way the business operates. There will be more success when there is less time spent flowing decisions through the normal chain of command.

Define operational parameters - Because flexibility is an integral part of resilience, it’s necessary for leaders to maintain an “adjustable” relationship with employees. Clearly articulate where the company is going (shared vision) and provide employees with “operational guidelines.” I, personally, am not in favor of “rules” because there are always exceptions and it seems to stifle creativity. Operational guidelines allow the team to use their creativity to overcome challenges while providing flexible limits.

Promote flexibility - Listen to different points of view. It happens to be a great way to deal with complainers and critics. Establish multi-functional teams or make lateral promotions. There is nothing more valuable when making a decision, than having the benefit of experience in multiple areas within the organization.

My last point, one of which I continue to remind myself, is that achieving excellence is a process not an event. Don’t look at “resilience” as a project with a start and finish. Think about it as building a culture over time and constantly improving and nurturing the environment, which will help ensure your company’s success. This is as told by Nick Tubach, Founder, CEO & President of a Recruitment Firm.

Stay connected - Working in a silo may appear to give you the focus you need (because you won’t be bothered). Unfortunately, it also disconnects you from all the other moving parts of the organization. Not to mention, being connected and integrated allows you to understand the impact that organizational departments have on the company’s overall success and how it can influence your function. So when it comes time to make decisions, don’t make them in a vacuum.
Develop strong camaraderie with coworkers - This will ensure that your “group” has your back. If I know I have someone to rely on, that might just be the support I need to help push me through tough times. On the other hand, if it seems that I can’t trust anyone or that I’m on my own, then I’d probably fail at the first sign of trouble or seek greener pastures.

Resilience is a quality that should be nurtured at the organizational as well as the individual level.

So let’s break it down…to identify that the organization is resilient.

Hire resilient talent - We want individuals (leaders) that prove they can bounce back if they’ve been dealt a bad hand. So let’s make sure to take this into account when we are hiring and, also, evaluating performance.

Nurture resilience - Once you find those leaders, it’s equally important that the organization nurtures their resilience. The best way to do that is by creating an environment in which those individuals are constantly surrounded by a group of strong people working together and in support of each other.

Monitoring “Cost Per Hire”- Cost Metrics in Recruiting

Measuring success is critical in recruiting. There are four general types of metrics on which to concentrate - cost, quality, quantity and time. This blog focuses on the costs of recruiting.

Possibly the most overused and least-understood metric in recruiting is “cost per hire” (CPH). At its core, CPH should be very simple, right? Identifying CPH can be as simple as noting how much an agency cost you for a hire - agency fee multiplied by the candidate’s salary - most likely one of the highest cost per hires your organization pays.

However, as with many simple things, the complexity lies in the details of the metric and its implementation. For example, Recruiters Network has a CPH calculator that concentrates on six factors while Tek Systems has a 33-factor CPH calculator. Which one is more accurate? Hopefully, this variation allows you to realize that “Cost per hire might just be the great unknown and misunderstood aspect of staffing (Monster.com).”

When you are calculating CPH, there are several things to remember:

First, what is the purpose of this data? It is nice to know that at one time in history, your CPH was X, but remember, it is a metric, and metrics are designed to be tracked over time. This means, whatever method you use to calculate CPH should be repeatable and should always measure a “before” and “after” cost, or a series of costs over time.

Second, your CPH should integrate with your overall recruiting strategy. What should your CPH be? You can spend too little. Keeping CPH extremely low minimizes the opportunity to interview great candidates and maximizes the likelihood of turnover. However, of course, you can pay too much by exclusively utilizing staffing agencies.

Finally, any measure of CPH should include three elements of “costs.”

DIRECT costs
INDIRECT costs
RISKS - noticeably absent from the recruiting literature

Numerator and Denominator of Cost Per Hire

Measuring an accurate “cost” in the cost per hire (CPH) metric must include three separate elements; direct costs, indirect costs and risk costs. Once the cost is established, the denominator of the metric, number of hires, is equally important, and how you define this number will affect the metric.

Direct Costs of Recruiting
These costs are relatively easy to quantify, but it’s often hard to find all of the elements, as they may be distributed throughout your organization’s accounting structure.

People - Elements of direct costs include the cost of your internal recruiting staff, your contract recruiters and any outside assistance you may have from other recruiting providers. Also included in this category are recruiting leadership costs, such as the director of recruiting and whatever management you may have.
Process - Analysis of your recruiting process will provide other direct costs. Look at sourcing, screening and selection as sub-processes with costs. For example, agencies are a direct process cost in the “sourcing” area. Other “sourcing” costs are employee referral bonuses, networking events, advertising costs, etc.

Screening costs can include any interview travel and entertainment, and don’t forget about screening tests or guides (Myers-Briggs, Lominger, etc).

Selection costs are background checks, drug screens, relocation, printing welcome packets, etc. H1B Visa costs can be included here, or in the sourcing category.

Tools -These are items like your applicant tracking system, any job board subscriptions you may have and the cost of creating and monitoring metrics. Don’t forget about document management costs and your telecommunications costs - both of these can become pretty big with the amount of resumes and phone calls that are part of recruiting.

Indirect Costs of Recruiting
Indirect costs can be divided into sub-categories, too. Personally, I use process costs, opportunity costs and intangible costs.

Process costs include hiring managers that spend too much time reviewing resumes instead of performing their “managing” job. Again, remember to track “before” and “after” costs, as there will always be some indirect costs spent.
Opportunity costs can be huge. How much did it cost your organization NOT to have that person performing that job? In high-value sales, the opportunity cost for an un-filled sales position can reach into the millions. However, the trick with all indirect costs, but especially opportunity costs, is to make sure you are comparing similar numbers. You cannot compare a dollar of lost revenue to a wasted hour of time - one is revenue, while the other is operating expense. It is always better to drop all costs down to the “profit” line when making comparisons.
Intangible costs include costs related to employee efficiency and cultural fit, among others. How much does it cost your organization to have a poor cultural fit? Did that manager really spend that long counseling that employee? How much can the organization gain from a more productive employee? Tough questions, but ones you should consider.

Finally, the indirect costs of recruiting should be separated out from the direct costs simply because someone could argue that “they are not real” (even though they most certainly are). In this manner, you can add or subtract costs depending on your audience. After all, it is very important that your numbers be credible.

Risks of Recruiting
Risks are not necessarily costs, but can greatly contribute to the “cost of hiring.” Risks cannot be compared with direct or indirect costs because they are probabilistic - they may or may not occur. While you will spend money on a job board and your managers will spend too much time reviewing resumes, you may or may not incur a penalty for EEOC or OFCCP violations. However, if that does happen, it typically dwarfs other costs. You would be foolish to ignore risk costs.

We won’t focus on risks, except to note that you should make every effort to identify and control them, as they are a very real potential cost of recruiting, especially if you ignore the “process” part above.

The Denominator - Number of Hires
Finally, once you have figured out your “cost,” you need to know how many “hires” you actually made. This seems simple, but I have seen many clients that don’t know the answer to this question. Make it a point to diligently track this number - it is critical.

You can split the number of hires into specific groups in order to calculate and track different CPH. For example, costs for different position tiers (executive, professional or hourly staff) or for different position profiles (remember the CPH of that un-filled high-value sales position). It all depends on what is important to your organization, and what integrates with your recruitment strategy the best.

You may also want to consider if the number of hires is the right denominator. Should you consider the work your recruiting team was forced to do on requisitions that closed prior to a hire being made as part of the costs? Some cutting-edge recruiting providers are measuring the “cost to submit the candidate that eventually gets hired.” You get the point - there are many ways to peel this onion.

Final Note
If you care about the costs of recruiting, and you should, you ought to give how and what you measure around costs some serious thought. Think about getting some professional assistance with your analysis. It will pay for itself many times over.

After all of this analyzing, I’m going to invest in the cost of a cold one at my local networking establishment!

Feed it Forward

For third-party recruiters, maintaining beneficial relationships with hiring managers improves the chances of making a quality hire and creates an open arena for shared knowledge and effective teamwork. When it comes to closing the deal, the candidate’s opinion of the interview process could be the deal-killer.

After a scheduled interview with a potential employer, it’s best for recruiters to get the candidate’s feedback within one hour. This gives us information fresh on the candidate’s mind and a chance to clarify any misconceptions they may have developed during the process. Misconceptions can lead to deal-killers if given time to settle in.

Using a standardized interview feedback form, you can get immediate, meaningful feedback that helps clarify your candidate’s interest after each interview and learn more about the position, hiring manager and the company.

What then? Do we just document the feedback and store it away? No!

The next, and most important, step is to “Feed it Forward.” This is the practice of getting in touch with hiring managers (HM, or your designated contact) after each of a candidate’s interview steps and providing them with critical insight about the candidate’s overall experience. Because an HM often uses hiring staff to conduct interviews, they don’t always get to hear a candidate’s opinion of the process.

The process of “Feeding it Forward:”

Provides the HM with insight about the interview experience from the candidate’s point of view. Good feedback can reinforce the steps the interviewer is doing to impress candidates, and negative feedback can determine which adjustments to the interviewing style and behaviors need to be changed. For example, interviewers might take more time to carefully plan for the next interview if a recruiter tells them that a candidate thought the interviewer was unprepared, which can be a turn-off.

Also, candidate feedback will help managers understand how well their interviewers are doing in terms of “selling” candidates. Quality feedback will allow them to locate breakdowns in their process, which carelessly lead to withdrawal or rejection of quality talent.

Gives the HM an idea of a candidate’s interest in the position, helping to close the deal or determine the roadblocks to a decision.

Provides clarity. If we “Feed it Forward” that the candidate was not overly excited about the interview, it can help the HM decide whether to end the process or try harder to impress the candidate. Either way, you will get action.

Begins the closing process. Once we “Feed it Forward” that a candidate was really impressed and wants the job, it “warms up” the HM towards closure. Hiring managers often favor candidates who want the job, rather than ones that come across aloof or show only a mild interest.

Motivates the interviewer to provide their feedback. As recruiters, we wait days on end for feedback from an interviewer! One sure way to get them to connect with us sooner is to tell them you want to share feedback from the candidate. This technique almost always motivates them to get back to you sooner. Interviewers usually want to know what the candidate thought of them.

For these reasons, among others, the “Feed it Forward” process serves a role in getting a commitment between the two parties. As we all know, time kills all deals, and using the “Feed it Forward” approach to motivate an interviewer to connect with you is, by far, the most beneficial. So, the next time you get some great (or not so great) candidate feedback after an interview, make sure to “Feed it Forward” and watch your interview-to-hire ratio soar!

The last phase of our S4 Methodology is the selection phase. While there are multiple subsets within the phase, the most important is negotiation of the salary and terms of the offer.

Recruiters know that negotiation starts with the candidate’s initial engagement in phase one. But in that phase it’s too early to get specific about what a candidate will accept, in terms of an offer. It’s the beginning of a long and complicated process that ends in the selection phase.

Final negotiations are used to get a clear understanding of a candidate’s expectations concerning an offer. Basically, what would it take for a candidate to accept an offer? To get this understanding use the trial-close technique. This technique attempts to answer three questions.

The Trial-Close Process

To illustrate, let’s assume that a candidate is making $50,000 and told a recruiter they would not consider a move for less. The recruiter should ask:

1. What would the candidate turn down? Ask the candidate, “If the company offered you Rs.25,000 do I have your permission to turn it down?”

Nine out of ten times the candidate will laugh or, at least, loosen up as you begin to discuss the delicate subject. From there, work your way up until the candidate says, “I’d have to think about it.” Now you are making progress because you have a clear understanding of what they would turn down and what they would begin to consider.

2. What would the candidate say “yes” to? Ask the candidate, “If the company offered you Rs.100,000 do I have your permission to accept on your behalf?”

Using a humorous approach generates a response similar to, “Hell yeah!” From there, work your way down until the candidate says, “I’d have to think about it.” You are making more progress now because you have defined the high and low parameters a candidate would consider or accept.

3. What would the candidate have to think about, and what would be some of the factors involved in their “thinking?” Ask the candidate, “Now that we know what you would say yes or no to, what would be some of the factors to making a decision within the high/low range?”

Factors to consider: Would the candidate compare it to other offers? Would they rather not go through the ordeal of a job change? Are they anticipating a counter offer? Would they keep looking until they found something better and if so, for how long?

This will give you a clear picture of what will happen if an offer is made in the high/low range.

Recruiters now have all the data they need to provide hiring managers with valuable information, which helps lead to an offer candidate will accept or, at least, consider. If hiring managers make an offer they know the candidate would accept, chances are high the deal will close. If hiring managers make an offer in the low range, chances are high the deal will not close. If hiring managers consider what the candidate has to “think about,” there is a chance the deal will close. How much of a chance? That depends on the skills of the recruiter! Remember, closing does not happen from trial and error - but starts with the trial-close..