Richard Milligan argues that recruiting success hinges on uncovering a candidate's personal why and showing how you'll help them achieve it. In the mortgage industry, where 40% of loan officers change firms annually and average tenure is 2.5 years, overpromising leads to churn. Every interaction should frame the opportunity around what the candidate actually wants.
Hey everybody, it's Richard Milligan here with Forsee Recruiting, and I wanted to share a conversation with you that I had earlier today with a recruiting leader. And it's a similar conversation that I have over and over again, and so I thought there's probably value for most of the recruiting leaders out there understanding the context of maybe what they're doing right or maybe what they're doing wrong. So a typical question that comes up when I'm talking with someone initially is, why am I not having success converting the people that I'm getting in front of. And so a lot of times people will say, I'm in front of— I've been in front of 5 or 7 or 9 or however many people over the past month or 2 months, and they're still in my pipeline, but I haven't been able to convert those people. The question that I always start with is, can you tell me the why, the reason that those people are actually in this business and what motivates them to be in this business? What motivates them to actually get out of bed in the morning and show up to work every day? Can you regurgitate the why for those people that are in your recruiting pipeline? And maybe 98 times out of 100, no exaggeration, most people will say, I don't really know what that is. And if you can't tell me very clearly the why around that individual that you're recruiting, then you really have a very slim chance of actually moving that person through your recruiting funnel, through your recruiting pipeline. The thing that I have found is this: when I go back to the success that I had, the, the level of success that I had and some of the reasons why I had it in recruiting, it was because I understood the importance of getting clarity around the why of the individual I was recruiting. Because the truth is this, if recruiting was to be boiled down to one single factor, it's this: if I believe that you will help me accomplish my why, my vision, my reason for being in this business, then it's only a matter of time until I join you. Now that is a large, you know, general General statement to be made there. But if you will boil your recruiting down to that one thing, that if I can understand the why of the individual I'm recruiting, and if I can legitimately say I can help you accomplish that dream, that vision, that reason why you're actually doing what you're doing, and I can help you accomplish it better than anybody else in this business, then it's only a matter of time until that individual joins you. Now we know that the average time that someone spends at a mortgage company within this industry is around 2.5 years. So that means that 4 out of 10 loan officers will change companies every single year. And so then if you get that basic principle, then the next principle is getting in front of those people and making sure you're staying in front of those people, right? And so it's identifying talent, staying in contact with talent, following up with talent. There's really 3 3 things, 3 basic behaviors around recruiting. That's it. Identifying talent, making contact with talent, and then following up with talent. And if you premise all that around figuring out the why of who you're recruiting and then helping them understand that you are all about helping them accomplish that why, then you'll be a successful recruiter. Now, with that said, a lot of people really struggle as leaders really following through With helping the people that they recruit to their umbrella, with helping them accomplish their why, with helping them accomplish their vision. So if you're not clear that you can actually help them accomplish that, please don't overpromise and underdeliver, because then you will, you will be part of that metric, the 4 out of 10, that will— that your branch, your umbrella, the people that you recruit will churn. Okay, so you really need to take a step in front of that and say, what am I going to do to help people accomplish their vision, to help them accomplish their why? And then as a leader who is authentic and real and wants to, you know, move people to this place where they can accomplish their dream, then when you can say you can legitimately do that, then recruiting simply is figuring out what their why is and how are you going to help them accomplish that. Now, with that said, that's really oversimplifying everything so you can understand the basic premise around recruiting. Beyond that, there's a lot of things in the peripheral that you need to be doing. I teach 4 stages to presenting. I teach storytelling, the importance of having anchor stories in your vision, your presentation. Teach how to storytell because there are basic principles within storytelling that you have to be good at in order to actually be a good recruiter. And so if I can help in any way, you can reach me. You can always find my calendar live at bookrichardnow.com. That's 3 words: book, Richard, now, You go to my calendar live there. And I hold webinars from time to time. In fact, I've got one that's going to be— I'm going to hold on Friday of this week. You can register for that, um, at the website, Richard— I'm sorry, recruitingissimple.com. 3 words, recruitingissimple.com. You can register for my webinar. I'd love to host you there. 90 minutes of high-level free content, lots of application. You will walk away from that webinar with over a dozen things that you can apply immediately as a recruiting leader. And again, recruiting leader, meaning inside the mortgage industry, Branch manager, area manager, regional manager, sales manager, vice president. There's over 200 titles inside the mortgage industry, so you may have a different title, but if you lead a team and then you also responsible for building and growing teams, then it's for you. Okay? So, um, have a great week. Happy Monday to you, and I look forward to talking to you soon. Thank you.
