How Are You Handling Those Candidate and Client Objections?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every candidate we put forward accepted the job, and every client was instantly delighted with our talent pipeline, our fees, and our performance on each placement? Alas, this is an impossible dream.

As a recruiter, you will always have to deal with objections-whether it’s a candidate unhappy with the company culture or salary package, or a client displeased with a placement fee increase or the standard of the candidate pool you have to offer.

The issue might start even earlier than that: with objections to your initial sales pitch. How many times do recruiters hear ‘I’m happy with my current recruiter’, ‘I’m not interested’, or ‘Email me, I’ll get back to you’.

The point is that it’s how you handle those objections that can turn your relationships with clients and candidates into a possible dream.

Objections as opportunity

Remember, clients and candidates are not making objections purely for the love of being difficult (and if they are you should definitely read our recent blog on ‘Clients You Should Fire’). Rather, they are registering their concerns so that you can give them more information/a better offer/a new strategy. In objections, there lies the golden opportunity to really make these important people happy, so remember to avoid taking the objections personally. And, crucially, to listen hard.

Prepare for objections

The best recruiters are always super-prepared, so let your objection-handling strategy be no different. You will want to start by considering all the possible objections you’ll face as a recruiter, beginning with your current crop of clients and candidates, but also using experience from your past, and envisioning objections that might come up in future. Watch how other recruiters deal with objections. Of course, most of these you’ll hear many times over in your career, so you can actually work out a rough script of how to best deal with them.

Treat it like a scientific exercise, and be dispassionate about your role in it (even if the thing they’re unhappy with is your personal performance.) By remaining calm, your brain will supply better responses— that are more about pleasing the customer than defending your ego.

Dealing with objections to your pitch

When it comes to getting the clients in the first place, there are some great strategies to counter really common objections such as the ones outlined earlier.

For example, if a prospect emails back with ‘I’m happy with my current recruiter’, don’t consider that door closed.  Send back a short and friendly email saying something like: ‘That’s great. As long as they have…(dot-point all the exceptional things about your offer here), then you’ve made a great choice. Let me know if there’s anything on that list that you’re not getting from them!’ Or, ‘Would you be willing to share their placement fees so that I can see if we can provide you with a better result?  This reframes the situation so that the client can see there might be a better offer out there.

If the client says they don’t have time to deal with taking on a new recruiter right now, ask them for a very small time commitment- ‘Would 10 minutes be possible? I’m sure I can save you time on your recruitment solutions in the long run so that you can be freed up to concentrate on other things.’

If they tell you to email and they’ll follow up- don’t fall for it! They won’t!! Try to find out when might be a good time to chat instead- in your email say that you’re going to call back at a specific time- or even better, give them a couple of times to choose between so that they feel it’s a more solid commitment on their part rather than a vague call that might happen in the future.

Don’t be defensive if someone says they’re not interested, instead, engage your inner curiosity and ask WHY they’re not interested.  ‘Thanks for getting back to me. I was hoping you might help me understand what makes potential customers say no? This is a question that may well furnish you with some really helpful answers about their company recruitment needs. And remember- if they responded to a cold email with ‘not interested’, you now probably have their phone number in their email signature… but proceed delicately, and don’t be pushy!

Preparation and practice makes perfect

Your ability to deal with objections successfully is something that improves astronomically with two things: preparation and practice.  So learn as many strategies as possible and practice as much as you can, and keep adding and refining to your script.

Any objections?

Until next time,

Cheryl