The US marines train with it, the Wolverine swears by it, and multinationals like IKEA and NIKE incorporate it into their employee engagement schemes.

It’s been proven to reduce stress, improve clarity of thought, boost productivity, lengthen attention spans, and regulate strong emotions. It makes you happier, calmer, and a better listener.

And as strange as it may sound, mindfulness is a recruiter’s best friend.

So what is mindfulness- and how will it help recruiters become top billers?

Mindfulness is being focussed on the present moment, without allowing distraction or strong emotion to hijack your concentration. Sounds deceptively simple, doesn’t it.

You might think that you already are ‘in the moment’ – after all, you’re living it, aren’t you? However, the average person has up to 80,000 thoughts a day, and spends up to 70% of their waking hours lost in thought.

Still think you’re in control of your mind?

Great recruiters are in control of their minds, and the results show in their billing numbers. Mediocre billers, meanwhile, are often at the mercy of their ‘monkey minds’- on some days, work goes great; on other days they’re riddled by self-doubt, stress, or easily distracted.

Mindfulness brings a consistency to your professional performance because it gives you the tools to find calm clarity, no matter what’s going on around you.

How mindfulness drives billing success

Mindfulness delivers mental clarity.

By concentrating only on the present moment, rather than allowing your mind to be swept up in mental narratives about what has already happened or what may happen in future, you’ll notice a new clarity of thought, and you’ll find that solutions to problems and innovative ideas come more easily to you.

It makes you a better detective.

Our ‘monkey minds’ are generally so obsessed with our own story, that we often miss really important clues about what’s going on around us. Perhaps you’ll miss that the candidate just contradicted their CV, the client looks disengaged during the pitch, or you jump in mid-meeting to say something that was actually covered 5 minutes ago and you didn’t notice. These are all consequences of not focussing on the moment and allowing your brain to skip around like a child after drinking too much red cordial.

Practicing mindfulness wins friends and influences people.

When you learn to devote all of your energy to the actual conversation at hand, the clients and candidates know you’re concentrating fully on them, and this translates to better client satisfaction and increased influence over candidate decisions.  You’ll also notice that you become much better at relating to others at networking events, because you’re not so caught up in your own message, and your own fears.

It gives you better judgement.

Often when someone is speaking, our brains get the initial gist of what they’re saying and then fills in the blanks, or starts impatiently thinking about what we’re going to say next. Mindfulness requires that you actively listen to the person, suspending judgement until they’re finished, which means you actually get a much better understanding of what they’re saying, rather than your brain’s half-baked interpretation!

It minimises self-criticism.

Being a recruiter is tough at times, with a lot of pressure and rejection built into the job.  Because mindfulness allows you to notice your emotions and calmly disengage from them before they spin into a doom spiral of negativity or worry, you’ll find that practicing mindfulness turns down the volume on the negative self-talk and allows you to get on with your job with calm confidence.

Mindfulness stops you from reacting without thinking

Mindfulness allows us to create a space of mental calmness between the stimulus and your response.  Our reactive ‘fight or flight’ reactions are there to protect us from harm: it’s the same survival instinct that has us running away from a sabre tooth tiger or fighting a rival tribe. The problem is that our brains can’t tell the difference between the threat posed by sabre tooth tiger, and the threat posed by a client getting angry at us.

For example, imagine a tricky client rings you angry about the candidate you placed with them not working out, and they’re threatening changing to another recruiter. You’re stressed, and your default reaction is to jump in, interrupt the client and defend yourself to the last. What you then have is two people operating in a state of high emotion—a scenario which rarely leads to a win-win situation.

Mindfulness allows you to immediately notice your stress response with a more detached interest, and put into motion techniques that will calm your body and mind down off its high state of alert, so you can arrive at a positive solution.

It makes you more productive.

A Harvard study showed that employees who practice mindfulness gained over an hour of productivity a week. How many calls can you make in an hour? Would you spend that hour building your talent pipeline? All of these steps translate to higher billing numbers. As this TED talk reveals, your brain in a positive state is 31% more productive than when negative, neutral or stressed.

How to be mindful at work

1. Notice your emotions.

Are you breathing more shallowly? Is your heart pounding?  Do you feel the heat of anger or embarrassment rising in your face? Has your brain gone blank under pressure? The very act of noticing will bring you into the moment and remind you to take steps to calm yourself.

2. Breathe.

Learn to take three deep breaths at stages throughout your day. Clear your mind and concentrate only on the inhale and exhale to bring yourself into the moment.  If you’re experiencing a strong stress reaction, you can actually force your body back into the parasympathetic nervous state (rest and digest) by following the 4-7-8 breathing technique for 2 minutes.

3. Concentrate fully on the person speaking.

When your brain starts to pipe in with a reaction, don’t let it overtake you, allow the person to finish. If the person pauses, don’t jump in straight away—you’ll often get the ‘real stuff’ if you let them continue and fill the silence.

4. Notice the world around you.

We’re so caught up in our mental narrative that we rarely actually notice what’s around us. Use your senses- the sights, the smells, the noises. Doing this a few times throughout the day will bring you firmly back into the moment.

5. Acknowledge your negative thoughts.

Make a tally of every single negative thought you have for one day- about yourself, clients, candidates, even your partner not doing the dishes. Chances are you’ll be astonished at the results, and this is the first step in noticing your own unhelpful thought patterns.

6. Practice gratefulness.

Yes, this one tends to cause a few eye rolls, but the act of writing down three things you’re grateful about each day causes you to be more mindful of the ‘good stuff’ in life. Watch this hilarious TED talk to find out more.

7. Meditate.

You don’t have to meditate to be mindful, but meditating for just 10 minutes a day is like taking your mindfulness practice to the metaphorical gym. There are a lot of apps like the wildly popular Headspace to get you started, while the sceptics among you might want to download the 10% Happier app, whose tagline is ‘Meditation for Fidgety Sceptics’, and was founded by an American newsreader who found meditation after having a panic attack on air in front of millions of viewers.

Still unconvinced and think mindfulness doesn’t sit well with your scepticism? Read this.

There’s a lot to learn (and unlearn) to become mindful. But starting today, you can be mindful where it matters and achieve billing success.

Company culture is the buzzword of our time. And no wonder: great company culture drives increased productivity and engagement, and attracts top new talent to your recruitment organisation.

But how important is the physical workspace in building this positive company culture?

Discussions of company culture and the physical workspace often overlap, as they combine to significantly impact how an employee feels when they walk in the door each day. In fact, some of the most well-known recommendations for improving company culture often revolve around making some changes to the physical space to make it operate better—both functionally and aesthetically. The office, in short, becomes a pleasant place to spend time and get work done.

Recruiters are often operating in a high pressure environment, and how they feel about their physical workplace will reflect in their billing numbers (and in the company’s bottom line.)

A Matter of Design- Things to Think About

Badly lit, cold, stuffy, impersonal offices can really knock the enthusiasm out of someone before they’ve even sat down at their desk. On the other hand, noisy open-plan offices may be wildly distracting for people trying to concentrate on cognitive tasks. As recruiters are often on the phone all day long, the noise level can be pretty intense and wearying in an open plan office with no places to escape to.

As a recruitment company, you also have to consider how your office looks to visitors. You’ll be welcoming a stream of candidates and clients through your doors, so it’s vital that they feel welcome and at ease in the space—and hopefully even impressed.

A Fine Balance

If you’re planning a workspace redesign, don’t let your sweeping architectural vision blur your logical thinking. Never forget what kind of team you need to run: if you’ve decided on an open-plan design to boost collaboration, but your employees also need quiet spaces to focus, adapt your plan to include both.

When planning your office redesign, consider the four work modes:

1. Focus

2. Collaborate

3. Learn

Ideally, your workspace should have spaces that encourage and balance all four of these work modes, while also putting a strong emphasis on beautiful meeting rooms to welcome clients and candidates.

Dampen the noise

If everyone’s on the phone all the time, consider noise-deadening carpets rather than stylish wooden floorboards or cold tiles. Sound-dampening should be a major priority in recruitment offices, and also nice meeting rooms and quiet spaces for important phone calls. When a recruiter is pitching a client, meeting a candidate, or troubleshooting a placement issue, the last thing they need is noise all around them raising the stress level.

In a comprehensive study on workplace design by Gensler, 77% of employees prefer quiet when they need to focus, and 69% of respondents were unhappy with the noise level at their workplace.

Ensure there’s space to collaborate

Yet collaboration matters too: an MIT study showed that 35% of variation in a team’s performance can be predicted merely by how many face-to-face interactions the team members have.

High-sided cubicles tend to be the worst of both worlds as they don’t significantly minimise noise but can make people feel isolated. If you want to use cubicles in your workspace, just make the cubicle walls low enough that people can see each other, but still have a nice private desk space.

The Little Things That Can Make a Difference

We get it. Recruitment companies can rarely justify running their office in a funky converted warehouse space in central London with beanbags, ping pong tables and an onsite café. You don’t have to bankrupt the business to make a significant difference to how the office feels.

A coat of fresh paint, an update of the staff room furniture, or a few bright paintings and funny daily quote might be all it takes to lighten the mood.

Music in the staffroom and communal spaces can also improve the atmosphere, with 77% of respondents in a Music Works campaign saying that they believe music at work improves morale.

A decent coffee machine and a quality supply of biscuits will never go underappreciated, while pizza day or afternoon drinks to celebrate meeting targets makes the workplace feel like a living, sociable place.

Light and Air Help Concentration and Happiness

Light is really important to the feel of a workplace— particularly in the long English winter when Vitamin D levels plummet. Optimise natural light, fix any gloomy or dim spaces with good lighting, and put some green plants in to brighten the space and filter the air. Speaking of which, poor air quality matters as it impacts concentration, so if your office is stuffy or damp, take steps to rectify it.

Consult the team before you make changes

Ask your employees about how they prefer to work, whether they find the noise level distracting currently, and whether they’d like quiet spaces or more collaboration space. Ask them if they could change one thing about the workplace, big or small, what would it be? Even if you only implement one or two requests, the team believes that you are genuinely committed to making their workplace better- thereby building that positive company culture you’re seeking!

Why it matters

a. Studies show that workplaces which are designed to balance focussed and collaborative work are not only more productive, but they’re perceived by their employees and managers to be more creative and more innovative.

 
b. A nice workplace shows that you care about your employees. That initial, important gesture of creating a nice space for them to do their job is one of the foundation points of their opinion of your company, right from the first interview. The look and feel of your office space may be the deciding factor between the candidate choosing your company, or your competitor’s.

 
c. In these days of a talent shortage coupled with low engagement, recruitment companies cannot afford to have a badly designed or uninspired workspace if they hope to attract top talent and retain talent while impressing candidates and clients.

Having a thoughtfully designed workspace that facilitates both collaboration and focus can turn your recruitment team into a powerhouse. What can you do within your budget to make the office a better workspace and thereby build your positive culture?

As a recruiter, writing job advertisements is a big part of your role- but crafting an engaging and informative, concise (but yet thorough) job ad is not always easy.

What is all too easy, however, is falling into writing formulaic job adverts that are largely cut-and-paste jobs from the client’s company manual, and which overwhelmingly fail to attract good candidates.

In a candidate’s job market like we’re facing today, it’s more important than ever for your job ads to jump off the page and tell the candidate what they need to know to apply.

1. Keep it short and use plain English.

Sometimes reading job advertisements is heavy going, right from the hyperbolic or confusing job title right through to the final line. Job advertisements are generally chock-full of jargon and can put off all but the most dedicated reader. Keep things clear and simple, using plain English.

Don’t be shy of using short sentences and bullet points to keep thing easy to read.

2. Portray the job realistically

The role might involve some really great tasks and responsibilities, but they might be a tiny fraction of the day-to-day responsibilities involved in the job. Pick the top 5 tasks a person will be doing on a day to day basis, and then, if there are some other attractive elements involved, add in a ‘you’ll also be required to do  x and y  on occasion.’

That way you’re attracting good candidates without misleading them. Also, if the job is challenging, say so- there is literally no point attracting candidates to apply who will be scared off at the first hurdle.

3. Don’t get carried away with ‘Essential Skills’

Remember, essential skills you list, the more you’re narrowing the candidate pool. So many companies hand over a daunting list of ‘must haves’ for their dream candidates, but it’s important to remember that such ideal candidates are often a bit short on the ground.

In reality, the ideal candidate may not have 3 years experience, but 18 months and hunger to learn. Have a candid chat with the hiring manager to really nail down which skills are essential, and which ones are desirable.

4. Learn to attract (and deter)

When trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, it’s not enough to say ‘The role requires a hard working, professional and trustworthy person’. Everyone who is looking for a job is going to say they’re hardworking, professional and trustworthy if you ask them to! Instead, use language that creates a picture of the person you want, and sends out an early warning for those you’d prefer to stay away.

‘You’re a person who doesn’t mind working late when needed to get the job done’ or ‘we’re a really hardworking team who put in an endless effort to celebrate our results’ will work a charm to deter the ‘do as little as possible’ but hard workers won’t be put off by this. ‘You have brilliant references and can prove the results you got in your past roles’ will generally deter those with a chequered work history.

5. Talk about culture

The dream candidate will be the one that fits in with the culture as well as having the ability to do the job. Write something in there that makes the company seem human as if they’re reaching out and speaking to the candidate.

‘We’re a friendly, tight-knit team who are really looking forward to welcoming the newest member to join us, work really hard, and enjoy our Friday afternoon drinks/ football team/amazing staff parties.

Of course, if none of that is true and you’re actually a fairly formal and traditional workplace, then you should say something that reflects your true culture, like ‘We’re looking for someone who can contribute to a really professional outfit with a top industry reputation.’

6. Keep your company bio brief.

Sometimes these things are vast chunks of dull  text, ripped straight from the company website. Keep it to a few lines of engaging text- what the company does, how many employees they have, any well-known clients—basically, the kind of thing that will interest the candidate. If the person is interested in applying, they’ll go and do their own further research.

7. Mention salary and benefits.

Consider this, if you’re a job hunter, and you see one ad which talks about a good salary, gym membership and a generous incentive scheme, and then see another who mentions none of the above…which one is you going to be more attracted to? As a recruiter, you might need to sway your client’s opinion on this, so if you can find a competitor ad where they mention salary and benefits that might be a good place to start.

8. Mention the physical workplace.

It’s so easy to forget that when people are job-hunting, their mind is trying to come up with images of what it would be like to work there. Help them out to furnish this idea in their head. ‘We’re located in a beautiful heritage building in Bath/in a modern city office block surrounded by shops and cafes/right near a train station and with good parking.’

9. Be very clear about how and when they are to apply.

There might be an ‘apply now’ button on an online platform, but also consider including your email address for a personal touch.

Writing a great job spec is an art, and no recruiter can attain truly great billing numbers without mastering the craft.

Until next time

Cheryl and the GSR2R team

The recruitment landscape is changing, fast. Technology is changing the way we find candidates, manage our talent pool, and approach clients.

The business landscape across the UK is also altering rapidly, with increased automation, Brexit uncertainty, and economic forces meaning that every recruiter needs to keep on their toes if they’re going to remain relevant.

Recruitment, at its heart, is a sales job— one filled with passion for placing good candidates in great jobs with clients that you have a good rapport with. That’s the dream.

The way to make the dream a reality is to make your service irresistible to clients and candidates through powerful sales skills.

1. Understand the Client’s Greatest Need

You need to know what their business need is. It’s will be more complex than ‘I need good people who’ll stick around’. You need to delve deeper. What makes a ‘good person’ to this employer? Who was their last great hiring success and what made them special?

Who was their last hiring disaster- and what made them disastrous? Have they got a well-rounded team, or do they have critical skills gaps and their talent all clustered in one department? Why do they think people don’t stick around, and how can you assist them retaining them? What is their core business goal, and how do the employees factor into that goal?

Above all, ask them how you can help. Only when you know this can you tailor your offering to them in a way that makes them sit up and listen.

2. Know the market, so the client or candidate feels that you understand their struggle.

It’s vital to know the trends in your sector (as well as in the wider workforce and economy). You need to have data at your fingertips- explaining the latest figures in employment trends, employee retention, and case studies of companies who succeed in engaging their employees.

There is nothing better than when you notice a client or top candidate nodding along with what you’re saying, or saying, ‘that’s interesting, I didn’t know that’. And that’s when you give them some options on how you can help. Helping, not selling, is how you separate yourself from the pack.

3. Build your Personal Brand

We’ve written very recently on how to develop your personal brand in order to stand out from the thousands of other UK recruiters. In short, get busy attending networking events, posting on social media and forums, planning meet-ups, creating content, and getting your name known as a specialist in a certain niche.

A personal brand is a powerful sales tool, as you’ll find that clients and candidates are not only funnelled towards you, but they’ll also give your advice greater weight.

4. Help them trust you.

You cannot make someone trust you, but you can certainly create the conditions for them too. By acting with integrity- even when that means steering them away from a candidate or role that you know isn’t right for them, you can gain a relationship that may well last your career and bring you placements for many years to come.

Avoid overt sales pitches and cut down on the clichés and inauthentic language! It’s so easy to fall into bad habits with language, and before long your speech and emails are littered with ‘I thought I’d just reach out and touch base to verbalise some of the life-changing opportunities…’argh. Stop. Be real, and your network will thank you for it.

5. Study up on human psychology.

This step cannot be skipped if you want to succeed as a recruiter. Understanding human psychology is at the core of good sales- it explains why the idea of scarcity pushes people towards the purchase, why most people are repulsed by the hard sell, and how you can use people’s love of talking about themselves to your endless advantage. And heaps, heaps more. Get reading!

6. Don’t waffle on, but take time when you need to.

People are busy, and good salespeople keep their pitches and meetings short and to the point—up to the point where the customer or client indicates a real desire to hear more. That’s when you expand and show off the full range of your services and expertise. The days of salespeople engaging in endless chit-chat to even begin the deal are gone- the same verbose approach in today’s multi-channel workplace will probably just deter a busy client.

7. Get very, very good at teleconferencing and email

Face to face meetings are increasingly rare, and it’s undoubtedly harder to build an authentic bond over the telephone or email. Even teleconferencing doesn’t have the same human impact. So you need to get incredibly good at communicating over these channels.

Use the best teleconferencing tools you can, while emails should be short and punchy, with plenty of white space, no clichés, bullet points where it helps, and finish up with a call to action.

8. Listen like your career depended on it. (It does)

It doesn’t matter if you’re talking to a potential client, a candidate, or a crashingly dull person you got cornered with at a conference. Your listening skills are what will drive a prospect to walk away thinking: ‘That recruiter’s solid.

Actually listened to what I was saying! Unlike my current recruiter, can’t get a word in edgewise with them. I might use/recommend this person in future…’ Not only that, but your listening skills will furnish you with a barrage of useful information about what your candidates and clients want from you. Tell your ego to get out of the way and become a better listener.

9. Know how what you do every day reflects in your billing numbers.

If you haven’t already, you need to break down your working week, attributing your actions towards your quota. Find out where you waste time and cut the fat, where your most productive hours are, and how your talent pipeline is translating into placements over time.

In a changing world, your career as a recruiter depends on improving your sales skills. Start today.

Until next time,

Cheryl

The GSR2R Easter quiz 2017 is Now Live!

Test your skills on this Easter themed anagram and you could be taking home not 1 but a whole
selection of Hotel Chocolate Easter Eggs.

Tempted, then email Louise@gsr2r.com with your answer, or call 020 3889 1670.

Here it is.

BERNYTAUSNE

All correct entries will be placed in a hat and the winner drawn at 4pm on Wednesday April 12^th.

Conditions apply. If you are in central London we will hand deliver the egg to you before the end of today? If not, you will need to come and collect it.

Being likeable at work has the power to transform your career prospects, your relationships with colleagues and clients, and your ability to attract and influence candidates.

As a recruiter, likeability matters a great deal, and impacts on your success in pitching clients, placing candidates, and wooing passive candidates. It also greatly affects how well you work with managers and teammates, as well as how you network in the wider recruiting field. In fact, it’s hard to overstate just how much your ‘likeability factor’ can impact on your career and happiness as a recruiter.

Yet traditionally, ‘likeability’ is an aspect of our lives that we tend to assert very little control over, as we often assume that likeability is a born trait: a fairly fixed part of our personalities.

‘That person is just naturally likeable’ we might think jealously, when we notice a colleague interacting effortlessly with peers, charming clients and candidates, and getting handed promotions and the best leads by management.

You might think: ‘I couldn’t do that, I’m not naturally that good with people’.

But what if you realised that your own likeability is massively up to you influence?

There’s a reason why the book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ has sold millions of copies: it showed us that we could make other people like us and respect us by following clear steps.

Here are some key tips to drastically improve your likeability at work.

1. Identify what truly matters to clients and candidates.

If you can learn this and enact it, your billing numbers will skyrocket. When you’re pitching a client, ask searching questions to identify what their core business need is when it comes to recruitment. Ask them what keeps them up at night about their staff, and whether they think they have the people they need to take their business into the future. What is their biggest problem in their workforce? Then modify your pitch to fill that need.

When you’re talking to candidates, ask searching questions about what they want. What’s their dream job? What kind of culture makes them happy? What tasks in their last job gave them their greatest sense of flow and satisfaction? What don’t they like? What is their key motivator- and what are their ultimate goals? If you ask these questions and show that you’re genuinely interested in helping them fulfil those goals, you will find that candidates will listen to your judgement more, and will return to you through their career.

Takeaway: Your power to influence rises dramatically the more you ask, and the more you listen.

2. Be a person of your word.

If you say you’re going to follow up on the outcome of a candidate’s interview by Friday, do so. If you promise to have CVs to the hiring manager by 5pm, be sure to do that. If you promise your manager an updated candidate database by Monday, have it done- even if you have to work all day Sunday to do it. There is nothing more undermining to your working reputation and trustworthiness than failing to live up to your promises.

Takeaway: Everyone wants to work with people they can rely on. It is hard to like people who let us down, so improving your reliability will improve your likeability.

3. Don’t get involved in workplace gossip.

It can be so very tempting to join in on sessions where people are complaining are gossiping about someone you feel negatively towards, but doing so is a disaster waiting to happen. If you struggle a bit with your likeability, you might think that joining in with the group might improve your popularity, but in fact they’ll probably just assume you talk about them the same way behind their backs. And of course, you might find that the person being talked about finds out what you said, and then you’re even in more trouble!

Takeaway: People who don’t talk about others behind their backs are more trusted, and colleagues feel safer around them. It can take willpower to hold back, but it will pay rewards.

4. Talk about yourself less.

Most people like talking about themselves, we get it! But savvy recruiters take this principle and turn it on its head. Instead of talking to colleagues/candidates/clients about your last holiday or the antics of your crazy cat, turn your attention outwards, and start asking them and about their own hobbies, pets, children, holidays and sports teams. You’ll be amazed at what you learn, but you’ll also be amazed at how well-disposed people are to you when you show interest in them and their lives.

Takeaway: People like talking about themselves. Use that to your advantage, and you’ll find your relationships improve dramatically.

5. Sweat the small stuff.

Unconventional advice, yes, but when it comes to things like saying hello in the mornings, offering to help someone fix the photocopier, or going for a casual drink after work- these things matter hugely! These everyday courtesies and kindnesses are the glue that binds a team together, so make an effort. And always display good manners and personal hygiene!

Takeaway: The more you reach out, the more people will reach out to you. It just takes a bit of faith to get started. 

6. Smile.

Not everyone has a brilliant sense of humour, and that’s absolutely fine. But a colleague who never smiles is making it extremely difficult for people to like him or her. Don’t let that be you.

Takeaway: Just smile.

If you want to become a top biller, improve your work relationships, or gain recognition from management this year, you can make positive inroads by working through these steps to become the most likeable recruiter in your agency.

Good luck!

Until next time,

Cheryl and the GSR2R team

Do you want to stand out from the crowd of recruiters in a competitive market? Do you want to attract top-level talent, including those elusive passive candidates who are quite happy in their current role?

If the answer is yes (and I’d be worried if it were no), you really need to be developing your personal brand.

A powerful personal brand is a thing that sets you apart, and never has it been more important to cultivate your brand than right now. In the current candidate’s job market, and with thousands of new recruiters joining the UK marketplace each year, you must stand out as a recruiter, or you will fail.

What is a personal brand?

A personal brand is much like a company one. Done well, it immediately conjures up an image of what a person excels in. Done badly, it does the very opposite- the very sight or mention of a person can conjure up a negative association.

James Caan is a very obvious example of someone with a positive personal brand- one of innovation, charisma, leadership, and self-made wealth. His powerful personal brand works in a complementary fashion with his company brands, and this is no accident at all. Caan works extremely hard at cultivating and building on his brand, through an intense strategy of social media, interviews, advice columns and books.

Why’s it so important for recruiters to have a strong personal brand?

1. A strong personal brand allows you to build up a thriving relationship between you and your candidates and clients.

2. Candidates will trust a recruiter that has an attractive personal brand, meaning that you have more power to influence them towards roles and companies. According to a Workit Daily survey, professsionals are 70% more likely to apply for a job if they know the recruiter!

3. A personal brand allows you to increase your reach. For example, a strong presence on social media gains followers, who might be passive candidates who only followed you because you post interesting articles in their industry, but are now seeing your job posts too.

4. It allows you to establish yourself as an expert in a particular field, and become known as one of the go-to recruiters.

What is your brand right now?

There’s good news and bad news.

We all already have a personal brand- it’s what people immediately think of when they see our name on an email or hear our name come up in conversation. It’s what you excel at and are known for – but this can also work in the other direction, as your defining characteristic, your ‘brand’, might be something negative!

For example, you might be a recruiter who is known for having a massive network in the oil and gas sector, you might be considered a brilliant pitcher, or you might be known as the company expert on recruitment trends.

Alternatively, you might be known as a recruiter whose talent pipeline is poor, or someone who struggles to meet billing targets.

Whatever your brand is, it needs attention in order to improve it (perhaps even revolutionise it) and gets it working for you in a way that returns results.

The 4-Step Approach to Building an Impressive Personal Recruiter Brand

Step 1: Figure out what your brand is now.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says that ‘Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.’ So what do you think that is? Ask around for honest feedback on what your colleagues think your defining strength is. Be brave: ask what your defining weakness is too.

Step 2: Consider what you want your brand to be.

You don’t have to continue with what your brand is right now. Figure out your niche.  As a recruiter, you wear many hats, and you have to be competent at a wide range of skills- from pitching and candidate interviews, to talent planning, networking and studying up on your sector. We’re not suggesting for a second that you let any of those skills slide, but rather that you hone in and build your reputation in one specific talent that you have.

Note: Make sure it’s something that you enjoy. After all, there’s little point being known to be good at something that you can’t see being a long-term passion!

Step 3: Plan your offensive.

What skills will you need to build on to become known as the ‘go-to’ person in your sector? How will you cultivate your brand? Create a battle plan that has your large goal broken down into smaller mini-goals, with a clear schedule.

Step 4: Get known.

Launch a social media blitz. Blog. Comment on industry forums. Post interesting articles on facebook and twitter. Study up and arm yourself with fascinating, up-to-date information about your sector and wider recruitment trends. Attend conferences, or even better: speak at conferences. Network strategically, always being sure to reference your brand specialism to advertise your dominance in that. (for example, ‘I specialise in succession planning in X sector’). Make sure your LinkedIn profile is powerful, and that it makes your unique selling point abundantly clear.

As a recruiter, you are constantly meeting new people in your daily work, so you have an incredible, enviable opportunity to shape your brand every day, starting today.

Until next time,

Cheryl

With spring around the corner, now is a great time to look back on your goals for this year and evaluate where your career is heading. For those recruiters who were feeling undervalued at work last year and vowed to turn that around in 2017, it’s time to ask the all-important question:

Have you succeeded yet? Or are your efforts to be valued still falling on deaf ears?

If you’re feeling undervalued by your recruitment company,  it’s time to run through this checklist to critically assess if they truly value you, or whether it’s time to move on to a company that will.

6 signs you are valued at work

1. You’re brought in on important discussions, and your opinion is sought out.

2. You know the company goals and exactly how your role helps to reach them.

3. Management values your time and makes an effort to provide flexible working arrangements if requested, and actively try to fulfill your requests.

4. You’re offered training and coaching, and you receive constructive feedback about your performance.

5. There’s talk of your future in the company, and you’re asked about your aspirations.

6. You are given chances to shine, whether it’s an exciting client lead or opportunities to attend or present at conferences.

9 signs you are NOT valued at work

1. You don’t remember the last time you were offered training or coaching.

2. You’re not brought in on news that matters to the company. No-one confides in you about the direction of the company, or your role in reaching key goals.

3. No-one has asked you about your career aspirations.

4. You have not been mentioned for the promotion track, and your attempts to raise the topic have been rebuffed.

5. You aren’t given any exciting client or candidate leads.

6. Your salary has plateaued and there are no incentives for improvement.

7. You are rarely thanked or praised, you feel dislocated from management and that you aren’t being noticed.

8. Your good work is rarely noticed, but your mistakes are seized upon.

9. When you ask for a small thing such as a personal day, it’s as if you’ve asked for the earth.

Why don’t they value you?

Here are some possibilities to consider. Which scenario you think applies to you can be instructive in what your future moves should be.

1. They don’t consider you a star performer that needs to be retained at all costs.

Ouch. It can be a sobering exercise to confront the ‘fact’ that your company doesn’t consider you one of  their star performers, but generally this will only confirm what you already know.

2. Your performance and/ or attitude need improvement.

The harder part of this challenge comes with assessing whether your own performance/attitude has contributed to being undervalued.

If you think that your performance or attitude could do with some work, then good on you!  It takes real guts to acknowledge when you’ve contributed to a problem, and this shows just the right attitude you need to get better at your job. We’ve written many articles on improving your billing numbers and attitude at work, so scroll back through our blog posts to formulate your plan to improve.

Remember, employers want to see people who work hard and have a positive attitude- it’s not all about billing numbers.

3. You’re in a struggling sector.

Another possibility is that you might have been given a poor-performing portfolio in a struggling sector, so you feel your poor billing numbers aren’t really your fault. This can be frustrating when your managers aren’t acknowledging that you’re working as hard as you can, but it’s not translating into placements due to factors outside your control.

4. Your company has a terrible culture.

Perhaps it’s not personal: your company simply doesn’t have a culture of learning and nurturing their employees.  In this case they’re not undervaluing you specifically— they just undervalue all of their employees! This scenario is less offensive from a personal perspective, but even worse for your career as things are extremely unlikely to change.

Should you stay or should you go now?

When making the decision if you should move employers, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do you think you could improve your performance and attitude at work?

If your answer is yes, consider the next question.

If your answer is no, then it’s time to go a job-hunting…

2. Do you think your managers and colleagues will recognise and get behind your new efforts?

If yes, then consider staying and launching your new ‘hard work and charm’ offensive. However, remember that it can be exceedingly difficult to change people’s existing opinions of you, so it may be worthwhile to start afresh with a new company so you can dazzle them right from the word go.

If no, you know where the exit is…

3. Have you learnt everything you wanted to from this role?

If yes, then it’s time to move on to a new challenge anyway!

If no, consider the following:

1. How long will it take to get the skills and experience you wanted to get from this role?

2. Can you hold out with the company long enough to get the skills without feeling miserable and put upon?

3. Can you get those same skills and experience in a role with another company?

Generally, when employees feel undervalued for sustained periods of time, it’s an excellent sign that it’s time to move companies. A word of warning though… if you find yourself undervalued at the next company as well, it’s probably time to consider whether your performance or attitude is at the root of your troubles.

Good luck!

Until next time,

Cheryl

The world of recruiting has rarely been so competitive. With over 4500 recruitment start-ups joining the UK market in 2016 alone and a major skills shortage making top talent scarce, recruiters have to be smarter, faster, and more skilled than ever to get ahead.

Here are some common problems for recruiters (and how to overcome them).

1. Problem: A lack of good candidates.

Top candidates are hired within a shockingly quick time frame ( last week I know one candidate went from brief to decision in 72 hours) so you need to be lightning fast and devilishly effective when acting on leads. Outdated, overly narrow, or inefficient recruiting techniques will seriously hurt your chances of attracting the type of talent you need to place in order to succeed.

Solution: Hone your talent mapping and time management skills, streamline your processes, network like crazy, and get data on your side. Are you using the LinkedIn Talent Pool to locate geographic clusters of available talent? Do you have the best technology available, and have you ensured your database isn’t riddled with outdated information? Are you networking in every spare moment?

Are you connecting with the upcoming hot candidates to funnel them into your talent pool? Have you put serious attention into improving your job-spec writing skills? Do you sparkle on social media?

2. Problem: Fierce competition.
You’re far from the only choice for recruitment solutions. Not only do you have to compete with a horde of other hungry recruiters (with thousands more companies joining the market each year), but you’re also up against job boards, social media, advertising, RPO’s, and internal recruiters you need to please and work with.

Solution: Prove why and how your services outstrip the rest. Use case studies, referrals, and social proof to impress clients, and be very clear about the limitations of the rival recruitment techniques—as well as how you can utilise some of those tools (such as social media, LinkedIn search, and job-boards) to create multi-pronged recruitment strategy which delivers .

3. Problem: Your brand is weak.

Perhaps your company brand is failing to stand out in the sea of recruitment companies. Or perhaps it’s deeper than that- it’s your personal brand as a recruiter than needs some work to make candidates and prospective clients notice you.

Solution: It’s time to network like crazy, build your social media platform, publish some hard-hitting blogs, comment on recruitment forums and get yourself known. How can you hitch your name to something special, and make your own star rise? Consider speaking gigs in your recruitment field, running seminars for this year’s crop of grads, and doing a huge blitz on growing your client leads.

4. Problem: Your client isn’t sharing enough information for you to do your job.
Whether it’s giving zero feedback about unsuccessful applicants or not giving sufficient information in the first place to write a great job description, this is a gnarly, frustrating situation that you must learn to manage with skill and diplomacy.

Solution: Ask the hiring manager searching questions about the role and the company culture, and what kind of person they imagine succeeding in the role. (You’ll soon get a picture of what they value in candidates.) If they’re still not forthcoming about details of the role, it’s quite possible the hiring manager doesn’t actually have the in-depth knowledge you need, so ask permission to contact the direct manager or the outgoing employee to find out specifics.

5. Problem: The client’s expectations are unrealistic.

Whether the salary’s too low or the company just doesn’t have the prestige to attract really high quality candidates they’re hoping for, you need to frame this one very delicately.
Solution: Always explain your concerns backed with data that shows why they’re not competing in recruiting top talent. Use data tools like LinkedIn Talent Pool to show them how few skilled candidates exist in the area, and display industry salary benchmarks and rival job ads if the offered salary is too low.

Your job here is to gently guide them towards either lowering their expectations or offering a more attractive package (and in some cases, both.)

6. Problem: Your passive candidates are cheating on you.
You’ve expended significant effort to source and reach out to a top passive candidate, and you’ve treated them to a lovely lunch. You were charming and persuasive, and they’ve agreed to an interview. You’re thrilled.

Yet your passive candidate has almost certainly walked away from that lunch thinking ‘Well that was interesting. But if I’m going to interview for that role, I may as well see what else is out there. What was my last recruiter’s name? She was great. I should also call…’ Your chances of placing this top-calibre candidate are shrinking by the second.

Solution: You need to ensure this candidate is interviewed FAST, and that they are treated to a very good interview experience. Brief the hiring manager on what the candidate is looking for, encourage a friendly conversational style interview over a more formal interrogation, and encourage the company to get a senior executive to drop by and meet the candidate. Above all, make sure the candidate isn’t messed around—the company must also be ready to make a quick decision and be transparent about opportunities and expectations.

7. Problem: A rapidly changing recruitment landscape.

For successful recruiters, ‘every day’s a school day’, and those that don’t keep pace with the changes will fail to make placements and secure new clients.

Solution: Average skills will get you nowhere in today’s market, so it’s your responsibility to hone your pitches, study up on recruitment trends and best practices, and study your industry until you become the office expert, and become a lean, mean, recruiting machine!

There are some significant challenges for today’s recruiters, but as in all markets, there are exciting opportunities for growth too.

Until next time,

Cheryl

Let’s get one thing straight. This article is not about convincing your manager to agree to a reduction in official working hours, or to allow you the flexibility of working from home. For most of us, sadly, that’s not going to happen.  But a better work-life balance is possible for every single one of us (even in high-pressure recruitment roles) because it’s about acting on the things that you can control.

What a good work-life balance does is cut down on unnecessary hours at work. It’s removing those late nights in the office working on pitches with bleary eyes, those depressing packet sandwiches at your desk at lunchtime. It’s about working better, so that you can hit targets faster and spend more time at home/with friends/climbing mountains.

The first rule to billing success is that you need to put you first.

It may surprise you to hear that I’m going to tell you to take more breaks, get out of the office at lunchtime, and schedule time in your day where you’re not thinking about work. That doesn’t seem like an obvious way to cut down on hours at work: surely all this time not working will just mean the work will pile up, and that you’ll end up not meeting targets and disappointing clients? Arggh! Surely ‘slacking off’ will hurt rather than help your billing numbers?

Counter-intuitively, the answer to that is no. Done right, bringing balance back into your workday will turn you into a powerhouse of productivity, focus, and creativity.

How to Do Less, and Get More Done

1. Take more mini-breaks.

If you’re like a lot of recruiters, you struggle to focus at times. You’re mentally exhausted, that’s why. Our brains are like muscles: use them and they get stronger, but they will never be so strong that they can run at full speed all day. Take at least one 10 minute break per hour. Drop the task and concentrate on something else during this break, whether a basic, non-cognitive task, talking a walk to the tea-room, or chatting with a colleague.

2. Figure out what time of day you’re at your mental peak, and run with it.

For the majority adults this uber-productive time will be late morning, so schedule your most important ‘thinking’ tasks for that time of day, whether that’s writing pitches or calling that disgruntled client to get them back onside. When the 3 o’clock slump hits, that’s a good time to do your admin, answer non-urgent emails, and add details to your database.

3. Get away from that desk!

Lunches at your desk are a bad, bad idea. You think you’re getting more done, but you’re just setting yourself up for a fall. Doing lots of hours doesn’t mean you’re getting more done— it often means the opposite. Leave the office for lunch, and preferably take a little walk to a green, natural space. You’ll feel much more energised when you return- and you’ll probably have a couple of good ideas pop into your head while you’re out, because your brain has time to process things.

4. Get enough sleep.

Recruiters often say they don’t have time for 8 hours sleep. They argue that once they get home from a long day and cook dinner, it’s just a TV programme or two and it’s already midnight. The reasoning goes that they need time to wind down after work- or life just wouldn’t be worth living, right? However, if you sleep 8 hours at night and then follow the rest of the tips in this article, you’ll be more productive and finish work earlier.

5. Stop frittering away brainpower on stuff that doesn’t really matter.

That non-urgent admin work you just spent an hour on? The four articles you just read on recruitment trends when one decent source would have done? Unfortunately you’ve just put yourself on the back foot for the whole day- and for precious little gain. You should always be able to identify if a task moves you forward in a significant way, and allocate your effort accordingly.

6. Limit the distractions.

Is that facebook open on your computer?  Is that an email to your mum? How many tabs do you need open on your computer at once? How can you think with all these competing things going on? Turns out, you can’t. Humans can’t focus properly and IQ and productivity drops when faced with multiple distractions.  Our brains are designed for one task at a time, so honour your biology and regain your single focus. Close down all irrelevant programs and media (return to them on your mini-breaks!)

7. Plan your week better.

The key is scheduling: you should know exactly when you’re going to do something, and roughly how long it should take. Write your to-do list the day before. Of course there’ll be unscheduled calls and exciting client leads that you must jump on immediately- that’s the nature of recruitment, but even these uncontrollables should be factored into your weekly plan somewhere. A worthwhile exercise is to track all of your activities for a whole week- you’ll soon see not only what you spend your time on, but also where you’re wasting it.

Seriously, just do it. The benefits to mood and clarity of mind (not to mention health) are extraordinary.

Deciding to have a better work life balance doesn’t mean you magically walk away from your desk  5pm, shutting off your work phone and skipping off to the pub with no adverse consequences. That kind of careless approach will cost you—in performance, in reputation, and in billing numbers.

A good work life balance requires good planning and even better time management. When done right, this balanced approach allows you to work more strategically, more productively…and more happily.  And yes, you’ll be able to finish work earlier and skip off to the pub.

Until next time,

Cheryl