The Sales Techniques That Top Recruiters Use

Being a recruitment consultant isn’t for the faint hearted. It is still a ‘selling’ role when all is said and done. As a consultant we first sell our services to clients and candidates and then we sell them to each other; confusing or what! Though many recruitment trainers don’t mention this, recruiting is a complex sales process.

Our clients and candidates are changing at an alarming rate. With the click of a mouse they can uncover endless amounts of information about; us, our company and our ethical reputation.

Here is some interesting data for you from Gartner a  research advisory firm; 90% of people research a potential connection or purchase online before they invest; either time or money.

Imagine the impact of that on the knowledge level that your clients and candidates can have about you and your recruiting service. Though the traditional ‘tell and sell’ style of recruiting is still being used by some recruiting firms, the truth is in today’s economy our ‘customers’ demand a different approach; one based around engagement and trust.

The good news is that engagement significantly impacts how much trust is created between recruiters and their clients and candidates. As trust is established the recruiting ‘sales process’ can then move on at a much faster rate.

Many of the more respected sales models currently in use, thankfully, embrace this concept. One of the most popular is Neil Rackham’s SPIN selling. The S.P.I.N. model is based on extensive research of some of the top salespeople in the world. The model and process was developed from research studies of 35,000 sales calls made by 10,000 sales people in 23 countries.

Solutions to problems

The concept is that people will only buy a solution to a problem that they have when they can appreciate the consequences of that problem.

For instance with a client it might be helping them appreciate that it is a better investment to use a recruiter than occupy valuable internal resources to attract candidates that would take them a long time to find. For a candidate it might be helping them think through the implications of staying where they are versus looking at the opportunity a career move might bring.

The job of the recruitment consultant is to uncover the key problems many of which your clients and candidates have not truly appreciated. You can find out more about how the model fits together in the spin selling book. To give you a flavour the model goes something like this:

1. Find out all relevant information related to the individual in other words the situation
2. By questioning uncover what problems the buyer may be having
3. Uncover the implications of those problems e.g. taking longer to fill a vacancy, poor quality candidates, being stuck in a company
4.Then relate this to the payoff of getting this problem fixed.

Great questions are the backbone of this process and are the fuel that makes this model so powerful. Questions asked in the right way build rapport, engagement and trust. The questioning sequence in the SPIN model taps directly into the psychology of the buying process. Here is a scary fact; as human beings we are driven by emotion when it comes to buying decisions. We then later justify our decisions with logic ( yes even when moving jobs).

You may already use a sales process like this; if not now might be the time to start. Our clients and candidates are changing and if we want to continue being successful recruiters we might need to too.

Till next time

Cheryl