With a few shorts weeks, till Santa arrives, we thought it was time for some fun and about time we launched the GSR2R Christmas quiz for 2017.

Think you know everything there is to know about Christmas; both the obscure and obvious?

Then this quiz is for you.

What Does It Involve?

It’s straightforward to enter.

There are 12 questions to answer.

All you do is email your answers to the questions below to Claire@GSR2R.com

 
What Can I Win?

The correct answers will be placed in a hat and drawn at Mid-Day on Friday, December 15^th, and the prize is this gorgeous, indulgent Fortnum and Mason Champagne and Chocolate Gift Box.

Anything Else I Should Know?

Terms and conditions apply to this quiz.

-Prizes are not transferable for a cash alternative.

-The winning decision of GSR2R is final.

-Prizes will only be posted or delivered to [London residents].

-Only one entry per individual is allowed.

-The winning entry will have their prize posted to them within 24 hours of the announcement of the winner.

Here are those Questions:

Balsam, Douglas, Fraser and Noble are all types of what?

Who is the Patron Saint of Children?

What’s the name of the most famous reindeer?

Which song repeats the catchy lyrics, ‘pa rum pum pum pum’?

In Charles Dickins’ Christmas Carol which grumpy character says, ‘Bah Humbug’?

Which famous statue did France give to the United States of America in 1886 as a Christmas gift?

What was the name of the song that topped the Christmas charts as part of Live Aid?

If you were born on Christmas day, which star sign would you belong to?

How many doors of an advent calendar would you open before Christmas Day arrives?

As a family tradition in Sweden, millions of people settle down on Christmas Eve to watch which famous Walt Disney Character?

Which pantomime does Widow Twankey appear in?

What is Myrrh?

Good luck everyone!

Cheryl and The GSR2R Team

Constant improvement is key to developing your recruiting career in 2018. Continuing our two part series here are the final four essential steps to transform your billing success. 

1. Remember to play the long game.  

Your top candidate might accept another offer. But if you impress them they’ll likely come back to you throughout their career, and tell their network about your impressive skills along the way. In fact, you should check in now and then on that candidate just to see where they’re at. The best recruiters never, ever close a door on a future opportunity.  

2. Go the extra mile (even if you’re already doing a marathon) 

I’m sorry, I really am. You work so much already. But the way to a candidate’s heart is to approach them after hours when they’re not feeling worried about their boss overhearing the conversation, or when they’re really just wanting to sit down and eat a quick lunch as a break from a busy day. If you really want to be heard and understood, don’t put pressure on the candidate to listen to you when their minds are already full.  

Send an email asking them when and where suits them best to meet, and do your utmost to oblige. Also impress upon your client the importance of allowing candidates to interview at a time that doesn’t unduly inconvenience them, or more importantly, imperil their current job security.  

Other ways to impress a candidate’s socks off is to accompany them to the interview and introduce them to the hiring manager before departing. This will also impress the hiring manager as well as showing them you think the candidate is worth your trouble, which never hurts one bit! 

3. Review your client’s expectations regularly.  

You secured a client two years ago, and have come to view them as a staple part of your billing over time. But how long has it been since you thought about that first pitch meeting, when they told you exactly what they needed, and you promised them the world? 

A great recruiter schedules meetings with clients periodically to ensure that they are delivering on what they promised, and to find out about any new hiring challenges or opportunities the client is facing.  

It’s also an excellent opportunity to discuss again the qualities they prize in their recruits, why any of your past placements didn’t work out, and find out a little more about the company culture. This is also the time to advise them on any changing recruitment trends, and share all that specialist sector knowledge you’ve picked up along the way!  

With each and every client, you should keep detailed notes of your meetings and review client goals and wishes before starting recruiting for their current vacancy. Which leads to… 

4. Your ability to write a good job ad is possibly the most single important skill you have.  

Some of you just cringed and groaned. I could hear it from here. Many recruiters detest writing job specs. But just think- where would you be without them? How could you attract candidates without a stellar job advertisement, particularly in a skills-short market?  

Writing persuasive, engaging job advertisements is the core foundation skill of a recruiter, and the one from which all placements flow. Yet many recruiters aren’t nearly as good at it as they should be. 

It is your duty, to yourself and your client, to make your job specs sing. If they are dull as dishwater, poorly formatted, or (shock horror) riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, how can you expect a top candidate to care about what you’re saying? How can you expect them to take you and the client seriously?  

Even if the client provides a job spec, politely request to ‘do your magic’ on it so that it acts like catnip to candidates. And if you’ve got a job that you already know is going to be popular, do NOT skip this step—even though it will doubtless create more work for you. The right candidate will have a genuine heartfelt reaction to a job ad written right. You owe it to your client and yourself to make sure the right candidate sees it and experiences an excited intake of breath when they read it.  

So look back at your old job adverts. Which ones created an avalanche of good candidates, and which ones were met with the sound of crickets? Sure, the role itself matters, but often, the art of writing the job spec well will also make a huge difference.  

Until next time,  

Cheryl 

2018 is almost here, which means that recruiters all over the country are starting to think about what they could do better in the next 12 months. In this competitive environment, how do you plan to get ahead of the pack and make a name for yourself as a top biller?  

Constant improvement is key to developing your recruiting career in 2018. Over the next two posts I was to share  9 essential steps to transform your billing success. 

1. Leverage your candidate’s network.  

When a candidate turns down your client’s offer, you should immediately ask the candidate if they know anyone else in their network who might be interested in the role. You should also make it a habit to jump on LinkedIn with every top candidate and scour their connections for possible talent to build your talent pipeline.  

2. Leverage your client’s network.  

A savvy recruiter relentlessly mines every opportunity, and will be searching the client’s website and social media for mentions of their clients, for possible new leads. Also, make an unbreakable habit of asking your existing satisfied clients for referrals.  

3. Build your own network. 

Seminars, conferences, business breakfasts, online forums…get out there and make conversation! In order to be a sought-after recruiter, your name must carry professional currency in your sector, so get informed about recruitment trends and research the health and challenges facing your sector. The more you know, the more authority you have—with clients, with candidates, and with the movers and shakers you meet at industry events. The quickest way to build your name is to speak at events.  

4. Find out the candidate’s motivations.  

Whether an active or passive candidate, you’ll have a much better conversion rate if you take the time to learn the candidate’s actual motivations that will spur them to accept (or decline) a job.  

If they’re saving for a house, a higher salary may well tip the scales, even if the role isn’t perfect. A short commute might be the determining factor for a parent, while an incredible training program might be the ideal stepping stone for a hungry young graduate. For many Millennials, a great company culture and the opportunity to travel might help them overlook a smaller salary.  

Don’t just assume you know what drives them. Ask.  

And always, always be honest about both what the job offers, and what it requires. Never push a candidate to apply for a job that you suspect doesn’t really fit with their goals—you’ll only disappoint the candidate and waste the client’s time if they then reject an offer.  

5. Repeat after me: I WILL keep candidates in the loop in 2018.  

There is no quicker way to annoy a great candidate than to not keep them informed about the process of their application. We get it, you’re rushed off your feet, but an email update takes approximately one minute of your day.  

Even if you’ve heard nothing from the client as yet, just say that. The candidate will know that you haven’t forgotten them and are still dedicated to your success. If you do have feedback available from their interview process, be sure to share it with them, gently if necessary! 

Look out for part 2 soon. 

Until next time,

Cheryl 

The employment landscape is evolving at breakneck speed, and the best recruiters know that knowledge and adaptability are the keys to success, as they assist their clients to adapt to new trends, technology, and hiring challenges. 

From learning about new hiring technology trends such as AI screening of candidates, to helping your clients nail their Employee Value Proposition to attract high performers, it’s never been so important for a recruiter to be ahead of the game.  

1. Artificial Intelligence has arrived! 

It’s a brave new world we live in, and recruiters are facing dramatic changes on the employment horizon driven by technology. One such change is the role Artificial Intelligence has to play in first- round screening of candidates.  

Some US companies have already adopted AI programs to determine suitable candidates from the applicant pool to put forward for personal interviews, thereby dispensing with the need for time consuming steps like manual reading of CVs and phone screening.  

This development automates some of the traditional work of a recruiter, which may well prove a double edged sword. On the one hand, it will free up a recruiter’s time for other work (always appreciated!), but may also tempt some clients to dispense or decrease their use of recruitment services over time.  

The ideal use of AI for recruiters is Augmented Intelligence, which means taking advantage of the time-saving tools of AI to make the human recruitment offering better. 

A savvy recruiter will therefore be preparing for the rise of AI and should be keen to utilise it, while also being ready to defend the traditional recruiter approach to clients, such as screening for potential and attitude, which is something that AI cannot replicate.  

2. Predictive analytics and big data are changing the way we hire. 

Predictive analytics is a rapidly growing trend in recruitment, and only set to get bigger in 2018. Big data can help recruiters identify and successfully target top talent, assist in building talent pipelines, reduce search time, and (most importantly), improve conversion ratios and predict the success of the candidate early on in the recruitment process.  

At this stage, HR analytics is still in its relative infancy, but the potential is endless. A talented recruiter will be tuned into developments in predictive analytics and be early adopters of this revolutionary use of data.  

3. Diversity hiring and non-discrimination are vital. 

The workforce is increasingly globalised and the skills shortage is intensifying, so top recruiters understand that their clients’ companies will benefit richly from diversity in the workplace.  

Diversity encompasses differences of race, religion, ethnicity and sexuality, and a recruiter can help increase their client’s diversity mix, while remaining extremely alert to any potentially discriminatory terms in hiring practices.  

On that note, companies and recruiters are beginning to utilise software that will red flag potentially discriminatory language or requirements in job specs and replace them with neutral words. 

4. The Employee Value Proposition has never been more critical.  

Top candidates are in a commanding position in the current skills shortage, meaning that companies must strive to attract them by creating an unbeatable Employee Value Proposition (EVP).  

An attractive combination of company values, culture, training programs and employee perks is often what drives candidates to choose one company over another, and as a recruiter, you’ve seen this play out countless times!  

This trend is getting ever stronger as more Millennials rise up the ranks of the workforce and become star performers, as Millennials rate culture and continuous learning as some of the most critical factors in their career decisions.  

Recruiters can assist their clients attract the top candidates by drilling down into what makes the company a great place to work at, and presenting this information in a way that excites candidates about the opportunity.  

Recruiters should also be extremely well informed about workplace culture trends driving candidate decision-making, and be ready to advise their clients on ways to improve their EVP if requested.  

With 2018 looming, there’s no better time to get ahead of the game and learn about the recruitment trends that might make or break your success as a recruiter in the coming 12 months.  

Until next time, 

Cheryl 

You’re a high performing recruiter who wants to make the shift to working from home. You know you’ll be more efficient and be able to produce high sales results away from all the distractions of the office.  

But how do you get your billing manager to agree?  

It’s time to put your legendary pitching skills to good use, and pitch your idea of working from home as a win-win proposition…and crucially, one where the company and billing manager cannot lose.  

Here’s an 11-step plan to state your case for working from home in 2018. 

1. Know where you stand right now. 

The first step is to check your contract to ascertain if work from home provisions have been mentioned.  

2. Know the data and use it to your advantage.  

Research indicates that people who work from home are between 35 and 40 percent more effective, due in large part to the removal of workplace distractions and conflict, elimination of commuting time, and reduction of sick time due to office-borne illnesses. Present the relevant statistics to your billing manager to back up your request.  

3. Consider a mixed arrangement to begin.   

You might suggest a soft start, such as working 3 days at the office, 2 days from home. Before you go into the discussion with your manager, figure out which days would be more beneficial spent at home, which may depend on which days team meetings are scheduled.  

If you produce data showing that your days at home are more productive over time, you may be able to use this data to lobby to transition to full time work from home. Of course, you might find that 3 and 2 is a really nice combination! 

4. Pitch it as an experiment with a time scale.  

Agree to a week or month-long trial of the working from home arrangement, and then be sure to deliver some fantastic results. As your billing manager adjusts and realises that your work is not being affected (and crucially, that his or hers isn’t either), your move will hopefully become permanent.  

5. Make it clear that this ‘experiment’ is tied to your billing numbers.  

If your performance lags, make it clear that you’ll return to the workplace, no questions asked. 

6. Consider sweetening the deal. 

This is particularly useful if you’re experiencing resistance to the idea but are really determined to persuade your manager. Would you sacrifice this year’s pay increase or another perk for the opportunity to work from home? 

7. Explain why you want to work from home from a purely work perspective.  

This is not the time to talk about your brand new puppy being lonely at home alone, or how remote work fits in better with your kids’ school schedule.  

You need to focus on what will resonate with the billing manager: you need to make it clear how your choice to work from home will result in better billings. So focus on things like finding it difficult to concentrate and make pitches in a noisy office, or that the long commute is diminishing your performance.  

8. Make sure it doesn’t make your manager’s job any harder.  

Offer to come in for meetings and whenever required. Ensure that everybody is aware of your working arrangements/hours/days off to prevent confusion, and be extremely alert to emails or calls coming in from the office so you’re not inconveniencing people who would typically have just wandered over to your desk to ask a question.  

9. Put the manager’s mind at ease. 

If you meet with any resistance from a manager worried you might not work as hard without oversight, offer to time track your activities using programs like Trello or even Hubstaff, which takes regular snapshots of your screen to show what you’re working on. Also agree to a strict reporting schedule so that they know you’re taking your obligations seriously. 

10. Don’t push your billing manager to decide straight away.  

As a recruiter, you’ll understand they need time to think about the costs and benefits, and potentially speak to senior management or HR.  

11. Don’t mess it up!   

Remember that you’re not only trialling working from home for yourself, but for everyone else in your team who might like to have flexible work arrangements in future! Make your manager see that working from home can deliver superb results.  

Until next time, 

Cheryl 

Carrying on from the ideas in part 1 of this post I want to finish with four more guaranteed ways to help your candidates improve their confidence. 

1. Assess their body language.  

When you do the mock interview, assess their non-verbal communication style. Do they talk too fast or too softly? Wave their hands around too much or not enough? Look at the way they sit in the chair, and give them some tips on posture, handshake, and maintaining an appropriate level of eye contact. Direct them to some resources about body language tips for interviews. 

2. Provide all the company info you have. 

You should have already done your homework on matters of company culture, the specifics of the role, and average salary parameters. Share as much as you see fit with the candidate, before telling them to go home and thoroughly research the company’s website and social media pages. Also tell them to do their homework on the sector if they really want to impress.  

3. Prepare body and mind. 

Advise the candidate to do some exercise on the morning of the interview to expend any nervous energy and get the endorphins flowing.  

Another trick to get the stress response under control is to engage in breathing exercises. There’s an abundance of meditation apps such as Headspace that candidates can use to  calm their mind, or you can tell them about the 4-7-8 breathing technique, which is clinically proven to force the body’s nervous system back into its parasympathetic state, that is the ‘rest and digest’ rather than ‘fight or flight’. 

Try it with a racing heart and you’ll soon see the effect yourself! 

Finally, direct your candidate to watch the Amy Cuddy TED talk on ‘power posing’ as a way of building confidence right before interviews. A candidate should spend the final minutes before interview locked away in a bathroom with their hands on their hips and similar strong postures, as these poses trigger the brain to release testosterone and cortisol, the confidence boosting hormones.  

4. Allow preparation to build confidence. 

There comes a time when a candidate has thoroughly researched the company, prepared loose answers for questions, done their meditation/deep breathing, and checked out the interview panel on LinkedIn.  

And then a funny thing happens.  

After all the tension of research and preparation, a thoroughly prepared person wakes on the day and thinks. Ok, I’m ready. I’m still nervous, but I’m sick of waiting. I know more about the company and interview panel that they could possibly expect, and I have answers prepared to a wide range of questions. Let’s get this done.  

As a recruiter, you need to help your candidate get to this point. 

For you, interviews are part of the everyday of your working life, and it can be all too easy to forget how panicked a great candidate can become in interview situations. It’s your goal to connect with their fears and show you understand them, before giving them a clear roadmap to navigate the interview with confidence.  

Until next time,  

Cheryl 

As a recruiter, you’re always pleased to deliver the news to a candidate that they’ve been selected for an interview. However, busy recruiters often fail to take the time to prepare their candidates for interview by sufficiently building their confidence. 

Unprepared, unconfident candidates are rarely successful, which means of course that recruiters who skip the step of building their candidate’s confidence are often unsuccessful too! 

Remember that not only is your placement fee hanging in the balance, but your reputation as a recruiter as well. Your responsibility to the candidate, client and yourself, is to ensure that your candidate walks into that interview feeling thoroughly prepared and with their head held high. 

This is such an important topic we have covered this in two parts. You can find part 2 here.

1. The Basics 

A candidate’s mind is often overflowing with stressful ‘what ifs’ of all the things that could go wrong in the interview. Most of these disastrous imaginings are hugely unnecessary, like ‘What if I’m dressed wrong’, or ‘What if I get the time wrong and miss my interview’, or ‘What if I forget the hiring manager’s name’?   

Your role as a recruiter is to build confidence by completely removing these kinds of ‘admin’ worries. Be sure to have all the details ready for them about the interview. Send them a clear email detailing time and place, required dress code, the people on the panel, contact details, and what kind of interview format they’ll be facing (behavioural/unstructured etc).  

Go through a pre-interview checklist, such as telling them to practice or plan the route so there’s no delay on the day, and preparing their outfit several days ahead so they can check for stains on collars, hems that need mending, or shoes that need polishing. All of these steps create space in the mind to concentrate on what really matters. 

2. Begin Operation Preparation! 

The key to confidence isn’t motivational speeches or listening to the right podcast. It’s preparation, pure and simple. And here’s where you can help—you know interviews back to front! 

Take the time to run through possible questions they’ll face, and host a mini mock interview to gauge their pressure points, where they waffle on or talk too fast, and where they need a bit more detail and precise examples. Tell them to aim their answers at around the 2 minute mark, and advise them to practice more at home.  

Common sticking points might be explaining why they left their last job, what their 5 year plan is, or what they believe their biggest strengths and weaknesses to be. Also ask them to prepare a loose answer to the question ‘Why do you want to work here’, as it’s almost a dead cert they’ll be asked it.  

Proof matters. You must impress upon the candidate the importance of providing specific examples of times they’ve succeeded, preferably with quantifiable results to back up their claims.  

Tell them to let their human side show. So many candidates get so caught up in trying to present as the ‘perfect’ candidate, that they don’t come across as real, fun, enthusiastic people that the hiring manager will want to work with. A genuine smile and a laugh goes a long way to creating rapport.  

Make sure they know it’s ok to take a minute to think about their answers! People often feel panicked and the need to fill the silence instantly in this kind of situation, but counsel them to take a deep breath and collecting their thoughts before answering. And tell them not to be shy about asking for clarification or to repeat the question. 

Ask the candidate to prepare some questions to ask at the end. They don’t need to ask about the minutiae of the job, instead asking good questions about culture, everyday responsibilities, and career progression that shows they’re in it for the long haul.  

Tell them they can take a notebook into the interview with a few very brief notes, in case they get stuck. If they lose track of their thoughts due to panic or just want a refresher, they will get huge confidence from knowing they have a cheat sheet in their hands. And generally the hiring panel will be impressed with the candidate’s level of preparation.  

Until next time,  

Cheryl 

For many roles, the first step of the interview process is conducted by phone or over Skype. Phone interviews have a way of many unnerving candidates, but it’s entirely vital that your candidates are polished, confident, and engaging on the phone to get through to the next round of interviews. 

Therefore, if your candidate is nervous, talks too fast, or just fails to make an impact during the phone interview, the hiring manager may discount your great candidate as someone who naturally doesn’t come across well on the phone. 

Unfortunately, poor phone interview performance isn’t something that hiring managers in today’s market will look past. 

Which is why your candidates can benefit from coaching to ace their telephone interviews. Even people highly comfortable being interviewed over the phone will probably get a few useful tips! 

1. If the hiring manager calls unexpectedly…reschedule the call.  

If a candidate is even mildly distracted because they’re working on a project, walking home from work on a noisy street, or having to hide in the office hallway, so their manager doesn’t suspect they’re interviewing, they are not in the right mind-frame to perform at their best.  

Candidates need to be in an optimum environment and be prepared for the call, so reassure them that the hiring will understand if they need to reschedule for later in the day if they’ve called without notice.  

2. Coach the candidate to speak slowly and calmly- and smile! 

Phone interviews aren’t ideal. Humans rely a great deal on body language to assess: 

a. How we feel about what someone is saying:  

b. Do we believe them?  

c. Do we trust them?  

d. Do we like them?  

In fact, research from UCLA indicates that only 7% of how someone feels about what we are saying is based on the words we use; 7%!!!  

A further 55% is based on body language, which is also ruled out over the phone (unless you’re on Skype or facetime; more on that later), leaving the heavy lifting of phone interviews (38%) up to the candidate’s voice.  

The tone, pitch, and volume of the candidate’s voice matters enormously in a phone interview, which is why you need to coach the candidate to speak slowly and calmly, at the right volume. A practice interview over the phone may well be required.  

Smiling also ‘shows’ in the voice, so insist that the candidate answers the call with a smile.  

3. Assess how they come across on Skype/facetime. 

Even when communicating by Skype with the cameras activated, research indicates that candidates lose some of their natural body language in this setting and don’t come across as well as candidates interviewing face to face. The camera position messes with eye contact, facial expressions are harder to spot, and people don’t tend to use hand gestures as much.  

Run a practice phone interview with the candidate to assess whether they come across naturally on screen, and encourage them to use their hands while talking and look at the camera, not people’s faces.  

Also, ensure their camera is close enough to their face to pick up facial expressions clearly, and that it is positioned as close to eye level as possible. 

4. Impress upon them the importance of creating a professional environment. 

Dress for success, as they say. Candidates must take a phone interview while dressed as they would for a real interview, sitting with a straight back at an uncluttered desk, in a quiet room.  

Even if the hiring manager can’t see them, it’s hard for someone to feel like a top candidate if he or she is dressed in their pyjamas, or sitting in a noisy café with someone’s screaming baby next to them. 

Their phone must be off or on silent, call waiting should be turned off and any laptops put on mute. Their CV and any preparation should be right next to them on the desk.  

Tell the candidate to have a working pen and paper ready to jot down notes- tapping on a laptop to take notes will be distracting for the person on the phone- particularly if it’s a Skype call.  

5. Remind them that phone interviews are preliminary. 

Phone interviews will generally be a stepping stone to the face-to-face interview. Candidates should understand this process, and answer questions concisely rather than in long-form with lots of detail.  

In many cases, it will be a member of the recruiting team calling rather than the ultimate decision-maker, meaning the candidate needs to come across well on the phone and confirm that they’re worth having a more prolonged, in-person conversation with.  

In the same vein, candidates should be made aware that there are some questions that shouldn’t be asked at this stage, such as questions about salary and benefits.  

6. Tell them to practice and prepare.  

You can (and should) give them some coaching over the phone, but you’re a busy recruiter, with little time. We get it! Encourage them to practice with a friend or family member over the phone, and get the friend to record it so the candidate can listen.  

Also, make sure they’ve done their company research, so they’re not caught flat-footed on the day, and tell them to prepare some answers to likely questions such as ‘why do you want to work for the company’? Also, ask them to practice matching their skills to meet the job description.  

Phone interviews have their challenges, which is why you need to prepare all of your candidates to set them up for success. 

Until next time

Cheryl 

As a recruiter, we’re so accustomed to the process of rejection that we can sometimes lose sight of the emotional punch that rejection often delivers to our candidates.  

While we understand that (more often than not) the candidate probably didn’t do anything particularly wrong in the interview and it just came down to someone who fits the role or company culture better, the candidate can often take a knockback immensely personally, seeing it as ‘proof’ of their failure and lack of ability.  

And on occasions where the candidate did have a problematic interview that exposed some deficiencies in their skill level or interview performance, your input is what can develop the candidate towards success in their next attempt. 

As a recruiter, your job is to make sure the candidate is in a positive mindset and ready for the next opportunity, rather than feeling dejected and unenthusiastic about risking rejection again.  

Which is why the best recruiters are adept at helping candidates handle interview rejection.  

Here’s a 5 step plan to debrief the candidate, support and develop them, and encourage them to apply for new roles.  

1. Get all available feedback from the hiring manager.  

When a candidate is unsuccessful, busy hiring managers might try and skip over the step of filling you in on why your candidate was not successful. Don’t allow them to brush you off: your primary focus must be getting all possible feedback about the candidate’s interview performance- the good, the bad, and the ugly. Make sure they give it to you straight.

If the hiring manager doesn’t really remember the candidate too well, that’s something to think about as well- why is your candidate failing to make an impression either way?  

2. Debrief the candidate. 

If the feedback you’ve received is not favourable, go gently. Package the input in a way that is constructive and supportive, particularly if your candidate is not taking the rejection well.  

However, there is little point in avoiding issues that have come up: if your candidate wasn’t appropriately dressed, or mumbled and didn’t make eye contact, they need to know. Otherwise, they’ll just make the same mistakes in their next interview; they’ll never get the job… and you’ll never get your placement fee.  

3. Make a plan for their development. 

Typical reasons why the candidate doesn’t secure the role is because their skill level isn’t quite up to scratch, their nerves got in the way, or they didn’t provide clear examples of their past successes in a way that the employer could see as relevant to the role on offer. 

If the feedback you receive is that the candidate missed out because they weren’t as qualified as another candidate, that’s a clear path to discussing what steps the candidate can take to fill that skill gap, or perhaps to revise their job search to reflect their current capabilities better.  

You can also coach them to better combat nerves, as well as help them scour their job history for relevant strengths they may have missed.  

4. Explain that rejection is not personal.  

As a recruiter, you can take a guess at what’s going on in the hiring manager’s head. You see it all the time. 

Perhaps they took a particularly liking to another candidate; there was a skill someone else had that the company really needed, they just didn’t bond with your candidate in a significant way, or didn’t feel they’d fit with the culture.  

NONE of these is the candidate’s fault, and it’s your job to the point that out, loud and clear. A handy way of snapping a candidate out of the doldrums is to tell them about other incredible candidates who have been rejected in the past to go on to secure a killer role.  

5. Ask them what they learned.  

Sometimes a candidate can feel like an unsuccessful interview was a waste of their time. But there’s always something that was learned, even if it’s just a matter of having more interview experience under their belt or the opportunity to know a bit more about the company or industry.  

When a candidate starts to see the interview as learning opportunities, they begin to lose that unhelpful focus of ‘win or lose’ that makes them feel like job-hunting is an emotional rollercoaster. Each interview they go to with this learning mindset, the better they become at interviewing.  

Also, don’t forget to impress upon a candidate that sometimes, if you don’t get the job it’s because the hiring manager doesn’t feel you’re a good fit for the company culture or the team. Ask them, do they really want to work somewhere that an insider suspects they won’t fit into? 

Your role as a recruiter is to source information, debrief the candidate, and make a decisive plan for any improvements in their CV or interview performance. Above all, it is to reframe what the candidate interprets as a failure as a learning opportunity and to help them move on and tackle the next interview with positivity.  

Until next time,  

Cheryl 

Most recruiters are working in sectors facing skills shortages, so the recession-era days of assuming your candidates will accept any good role you offer them are well and truly over!  

Recruitment is a constantly-changing business, adapting not only to economic fluctuations, but also to swiftly evolving technology and employment regulation. The way recruiters worked 10 or 20 years ago is scarcely recognisable to the recruitment processes of today, and these sweeping changes can only be expected to continue right through your recruitment career. 

All of this change means that recruiters have to be more flexible than ever. Here are some ways you develop your flexibility to adapt to the changing recruitment landscape and succeed in all markets. 

1. Master social media. (Even the platforms you may think are inane.) 

You may privately think that Snapchat is bizarre, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use any social media platform that’s relevant to your audience to increase your recruitment reach. A ‘stick in the mud’ recruiter who refuses to properly utilise technologies will find themselves left behind.  

Find someone who loves social media platforms and get them to show you why they love them, and how they can be used at their maximum effectiveness for recruitment purposes. You may well find you start loving them too- and you definitely will when you see your talent pipeline growing! 

2. Develop your emotional intelligence.

Recruitment is a career about people: their businesses, their career dreams, their frustrations. That’s why people with high emotional intelligence excel in recruitment, as they’re good at not only reading other people’s emotions and building strong and empathetic relationships, but they’re also good at managing their own emotions in pressure situations.  

There are many ways to grow your emotional intelligence, from learning to reframe problems as challenges, to writing your feelings down, and learning to observe strong emotions in your body when they arise. 

3. Always have a plan B ready.

Flexibility is much easier when you’ve already given some thought to what might happen if your first (and second) course of action falls through. When that ‘sure thing’ candidate rejects the offer, or that big ticket client moves to another recruiter, you won’t need to panic, as you’ll have another candidate or client in the pipeline. Some people look very flexible and adaptable, but often it’s just that they’ve given prior thought to alternatives and have done strong groundwork.  

4. Be strategic about how you work.

So much time is wasted on what we call ‘low pay off activities’- and time is not something recruiters have the luxury of wasting! It can be a great exercise to log absolutely everything you do at work for a week and start noticing where time slips away and where your biggest pay offs are.  

Also, this exercise tends to show you how important it is to structure your time to allow you to be more flexible. For example, you may be hugely underestimating how long your emails take to wrangle, and wasting lots of time on unimportant tasks. Once you recognise the inefficiencies, you can fix them- creating a more realistic schedule where you to have time to react positively when you need to change tack. 

Keep building your knowledge. 

The more you know, the more flexible you’ll become. Keep learning about your sector, stay abreast of recruitment and economic trends, and check out successful sales books and webinars to learn new strategies to improve your pitch and grow your leads. All of this information will make you more skilled at your job, more highly attuned to the market, and more adaptable when circumstances change. All of these things will translate to higher billing numbers throughout your career.  

The clever recruiter, is the flexible recruiter. Are you a clever recruiter?  

Until next time,  

Cheryl