Stop pitching jobs and start asking candidates what they actually want. Deep research into the company and role, combined with genuine listening, builds trust and leads to more placements. Reach out multiple times across different channels and be available on their schedule.
Chapters
A lot of recruiters, and I've been very mindful of this over the years, go in and they start selling to somebody. Oh, I've got the greatest job in the world and da da da. Whereas I don't do that. Whether I found that person on one of the back of the job boards, whether they've applied for a job, whether they've messaged me on LinkedIn, I do not sell a job. I listen first. What is your situation? What are your frustrations? What is the things you love about your job? What are the things you'd hate? If you could hand carve that next job, What would it look like to you? What would it need you to do to enjoy Mondays? So once you have that information, you're in a position of power because if they say they hate new business and I've got a new business role, I'm not going to tell them about it. If they say, well, hang half this role and it's exactly what I've got and it's right for them in their personal circumstance, then I'll tell them about the job and the detail I go in that I know about my clients is like I work there. You know, it's not a job spec that I'm reading off. I've been down, I've visited the site, I've understood the management structure, I've understood the opportunities, I've understood what that role gives to that person. It's about finding all the different elements that can work at the minute and making sure you've got access to all the job boards, LinkedIn, getting all of those web crawlers and everything and getting everyone into a long list, making sure that you've got the facility to email everyone to say something, text them, phone them, because you've probably got 5 or 7 touchpoints before you get hold of somebody at the moment. Yeah. So anything that makes your life easier be available to talk to people out of hours because ultimately they don't need that job right now. This is on their terms, not on your terms. And when you do, build a relationship with people. You know, I've told some woman that I've placed today that my kids have got these debit cards at 11 years old— go Henry— that they can use in shops because she's a mum that's going to go, that's going to make her life easier. If you befriend people and they understand, you know, that I'm a working mum myself, they're less likely to ghost you. Even those people that have let me down and not took jobs, they will come back to me because I've built a relationship. I think the people that make recruitment transactional, they're the people that are struggling to get those people over the line at the moment because you have to build relationships.
The Recruitment Mentors podcast is proudly sponsored by Vincere and the award-winning Sourcebreaker.
