Richard Milligan argues most recruiters confuse tactics with systems. Without scheduled time and detailed workflows, identifying talent and following up remain scattered actions. He compares extreme recruiting success to a bodybuilder's regimen: every step planned, blocked, and repeated with discipline.
Hey everybody, it's Richard Milligan here with ForC Recruiting, and I'm coming to you today to talk about the importance of having a system inside your recruiting efforts. Now, I would dare say that most people believe they have a system when most people don't. Look, I can go back to the first 10 years I spent as a recruiting leader, and I thought I had a system because I understood the 3 basic principles inside recruiting: to identify talent, To make contact with talent and to follow up with talent. And because I understood those 3 principles and I was always activating on them, I thought I had a system. But ultimately, one day what I realized was I had a handful of tactics and I definitely didn't have on my calendar time blocked the items that I was going to accomplish, and therefore I was ultimately lacking a system. So around 2014, I went off the grid for almost 2 weeks. I took a good friend of mine with me, and in that season what we did was we really dissected every part of our recruiting efforts. And when I say dissected, this was more like a science experiment. And if you've ever done a science experiment and you can remember those days in high school where you had to dissect the frog, our effort around restructuring our recruiting system really looked similar to that. We were taking every little bitty piece of what we had done in the past and we were staging it as if it were a race, right? Because inside recruiting, it ultimately Ultimately is that we start at one place where we're trying to initiate contact with a recruit, and even before that, there's things that happen in front of that, right? Which are we need to do some research, figure out who they are, be prepared to warm the call up versus actually just making a cold call. But we always start at a specific place, and just like a race, things have to happen along the way before we ever get to the finish line. So here's the challenge. We understand in any business the importance of system. But I would dare say we've never gone to a place where we understand extreme structure. If a guy walks into your office today and he looks like he could win a bodybuilding competition, there's no doubt in your mind that that guy has extreme structure, right? Every bit of food he puts in his mouth, every bit of fluids that he drinks, how much he rests, what day he works out what, when does he work out, the vitamins, the minerals, the supplements, all of that has been perfected to a science. He's got extreme structure. But inside recruiting, while we understand that we're trying to motivate and move people from one place to another place, we've never ultimately gotten to a place where we have extreme structure around that. Where I would encourage you is this: extreme structure always and forever equals extreme success. So ask yourself this question: do I have extreme structure, or am I simply identifying the 3 basic behaviors? And if you're only identifying the 3 basic behaviors, you have to move To extreme structure. If I can help in any way, you can always see my calendar live at bookrichardnow.com. If you've enjoyed this video, you can see more videos like this at my website, 4crecruiting.com. And until we meet again, remember, your success inside recruiting is going to be dependent upon you having extreme structure.
