9 Sales Skills Every Recruiter Must Master

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