A Boston Technical Recruiters Blog

How do you build a relationship in one phone call? It’s a challenge. My approach is very simple. I fundamentally value the time of the candidate I am calling. I greatly resent wasting people’s time with useless questions and selling tactics. I get straight to the point. Sometimes this makes my calls rather short, other times I can spend10-15 minutes on the phone with the candidate.

So what’s my goal? I want to make the candidate laugh. If the candidate is interested in speaking with me, I might get right into the thick of things or I might talk about the weather. Living in Boston provides me with an incredible array of weather conversation topics. I can usually joke about how bad it is and how much I miss the sunshine. (Even now it’s dark and gloomy outside). I want to make a connection that is natural, I don’t force it. Sometimes I compliment the candidate on their expertise, sometimes I get them to talk to me about their career, but not in a dry chronological manner, more in a philosophical way. I’ve had several people tell me; “You’re funny, not like other recruiters”.

In the world of recruiting consultants building relationships is difficult because if the candidate is on the job board, he has potentially dozens of other recruiters calling him. Building a relationship takes time, while the recruiting cycle of a consulting candidate can be as short as 24 hours. One drawback of this kind of recruiting is that while we speak with thousands of people, we build relationships with a few. National recruiting is even harder because the recruiter never meets the candidate. Passive candidates often want permanent jobs and thus are hard to recruit for contract opportunities.

So just be yourself, don’t pretend to know all the answers. Try not to waste people’s time. Qualify your candidate before you call him. And don’t ask senior people basic questions. Don’t ask a Java architect what OOD is. Don’t ask a Network Engineer if he has experience with TCP/IP. You’ll sound ignorant. It’s hard at first, but know your req before you call to build a relationship.

Good Luck!

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Yes. Reference checks are completely irrelevant and often misleading. I ran a reference check on a candidate and the manager had nothing but praise for the candidate. The candidate got the job and was fired on the first day. It was nice that I could tell my manager I did the reference to cover myself, but I could have made it up since it proved irrelevant.

Smart candidates will prep their references and will not give out the names of people they did not get along with. That’s common sense. No one can get a long with everyone; somebody will assuredly dislike you for something or other. But you can be certain that a reference will have positive things to say about you.

Candidates often do not want to give out references at first contact because many believe (rightly) that the recruiter will use that reference to make a sales call. I never make my candidates give me references on the first call, rather if I am required to; I wait until I have an interview. That way you have more of a give and take relationship with the candidate and there is more trust between you.

Recruiting firms offer reference checks as a service to their clients. To legally do a reference check, you must have written permission to do so. If the manager bad mouths a candidate, that company could be in for a defamation or business interference (tortuous interference) lawsuit. This is one reason why many large companies have a policy against giving any references other then Start date, end date, and re-hire status, and even that they give out with great care.

Thus, with savvy candidates and weary former mangers a reference check is a largely perfunctory exercise that does not glean any new information about the candidate nor is it a very effective device in forecasting future performance and is therefore irrelevant.

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I receive a newsletter from Barbara J. Bruno, CPC, CTS, President Good as Gold Training of http://www.goodasgoldtraining.com/ I thought this particular news letter was very good:

This is an issue recruiters consistently face…why am I not successful when I’m working really hard? There is a harsh reality in our profession – hard work DOES NOT guarantee success.

This is a career not a 9:00 – 5:00 pm job. However, it’s not the recruiter who works the hardest that wins…it’s the recruiter who works the smartest!

Have you ever wondered why Big Biller’s often don’t make half the calls you do – but they produce and earn much more? They have learned the secret of “SMELLING MONEY.” Each day they arrive to work and focus on the activities closest to the money “FIRST.” It’s not about the number of calls you make each day.

It IS about the RESULTS you achieve, on a daily basis. Here are some tips to help you work SMART!

TIP #1 Write down the six things closest to the money every evening before you leave the office. Those become your top six priorities the following day.

TIP #2 Make your #1 focus – BOOKING SEND OUTS! My definition of a send out is an interview between a candidate and a decision maker (phone or face to face). When you arrive to work as yourself on a daily basis. “WHERE IS MY SEND OUT TODAY?” Another piece of advice “WHEN IN DOUBT, SEND THEM OUT!” Too often we screen out candidates our clients would hire!

TIP #3 Starting immediately – STOP putting ASAP, immediately or Yesterday on your job orders. Get a SPECIFIC TARGET DATE to fill from your client and now you KNOW which orders are the “hottest!”

TIP #4 Never work off a resume. A resume is a picture of who someone is and has been. It doesn’t tell you who they want to be. You don’t have answers that will help you close your candidate, on an offer.

TIP #5 Get your paperwork filled out in advance. You don’t want to waste a candidate’s time or your time with a thorough interview, if you will not be able to place this candidate. In direct placement, clients require skills, stability and experience. If those do not exist, you should conduct a courtesy interview. Some of the benefits of paperwork in advance: • Application is more detailed • Candidate is not “rushed” • Entire time is spent interviewing vs. filling out paperwork • You can determine if you will conduct a courtesy interview or a full interview • This tests the level of interest of the Candidate.

TIP #6 Learn something personal about your Clients as often as possible. Your goal should be to become their trusted advisor.

TIP #7 Update your clients every Friday on the Status of their Job Orders. This will help build rapport with your clients and will fine tune the specs on their job orders throughout the process. Even if you do not fill their job order, they know you have been working on their behalf.

TIP #8 Mirror past placements. If you write similar job orders to those that have been filled in your office over the past year, chances are…there are candidates already in your database. These are the candidates who surfaced after the placement was made.

TIP #9 Talk to 20 new people each day. It is important to upgrade your clients and attract new talent on a very consistent basis.

TIP #10 Have some fun as your working. People like to work with people they enjoy. If you sound frustrated or irritated, it will prevent you from success. Let your personality shine through on your conversations.

TIP #11 Make sure every third contact with either a client or candidate is a phone call vs. an e-mail. It’s important to be high tech AND high touch! Recruiting is a RELATIONSHIP BASED profession.

TIP #12 This is probably the most important! You need to KNOW YOUR PERSONAL NUMBERS and STATS to know exactly what RESULTS you need to achieve on a daily basis to consistently hit your goals. Recruiting is a SALES profession, which is a numbers game. Numbers don’t lie! When you know your numbers, you can predict your income! Implement any of these twelve tips and you will be on your way to working SMARTER!

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Cragislist.org is probably one of the most underused recruiting tools out there and it’s a good thing it is. I realized the usefulness of CL long before I became a recruiter, but most of the companies I have worked for have been painfully slow at adapting CL as a valuable recruiting tool. CL used to be free, so it was even easier for a new recruiter to reap enormous returns using a tool that no one else in the company used. Although in the Boston market, CL now charge $25/post, this is still insignificant to Monster’s $400/post.

 So how do you use craigslist most effectively? Let me show you:

1. Create an account. An account is free and will allow you to track your ads. This will also allow you to preserve your job descriptions and easily repost ads next time you have a similar position.
2. Edit the Job Description. If the job description given to you by your client is 5 pages long, cut it down to a paragraph or two. Most people won’t read the whole description, nor will most candidates have the whole skill set, you will be missing out on many candidates if you don’t edit the job postings.
3. Read the post. Make sure you are not giving away your client in the post. Good sales guys regularly comb through all job board posts searching for careless recruiters who will post information about their client; even a posting that mentions the industry and the city can mean a phone call to your client from competitors. If you mention the name, you let the wolf in the goat house.
4. Know your categories. Discover what jobs get the most replies in what categories. I know that posting a really obscure skill set on CL (Salaselogix, Tivoli) will probably not yield many results, while posting an ad for “Help Desk”, I will be inundated with qualified professionals.
5. Free Posts. Know where to post for free. Boston charges, but Worcester doesn’t. Most candidates will commute from the cities around Worcester to Boston.
6. Cross post. Even though CL looks down on this and you agree not to do it; you still ought to. Change small things about your ad and post to two or three categories. This is easier if it’s free. Also post in free categories such as Gig’s. You never know who is lurking there.
7. Search in the Resumes! There are some very talented people who post their resumes on CL and lot’s of recruiters who don’t know about them. Search other city sites for candidates who may be willing to relocate.
8. Managers! If you are a manager and your recruiters are not regularly using Craigslist, you are crippling their candidate pipelines. Promote Craigslist use!

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