How To Develop Your Recruiting Career In 2018 Part 2

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