>>2 Salary Scripts for Candidates

I recently led a class called, “End Game: the final critical stage in getting your candidates hired.” One of the things I discussed was providing your candidates with exact scripts for their interview process. The topic where this is most relevant is the question of salary. You want to be sure that your candidates memorize their answer to this employer question, “What are you looking for in terms of salary?”

Here are two possible answers (the first one I heard from Peter Leffkowitz):

• “Yes, money is one reason I’m here today, but more importantly, I am here about the opportunity. If you have an interest in me, I would like to entertain your strongest offer.”
• “I’m currently making ______; I would be in the market for a fair and reasonable increase on my salary.”

It is well worth your time to role-play this with your candidates. Before you offer them a script, ask how they were planning to answer that question. Chances are that their answer, and their delivery, will make you very nervous. Spend a few minutes with them so that their answer to this important question will sound crisp and confident.

>>You Don’t Have to Do “Your Best”

I once read a quote somewhere that went something like this:

“The axiom that says ‘Nothing avails but perfection’ can be spelled p-a-r-a-l-y-s-i-s.’ ”

Something we’ve all been bred to believe is that you must always “do your best.” In theory it sounds like a good thing to say to a child, but I’m not so sure it is always useful.

For instance, in my work with recruiters and owners, I have found that they spend way too much time beating up on themselves about all of the things they are not doing correctly on a regular basis. If this led to positive change, that would be fine. But this tendency often leads to “phone fear” and procrastination.

I’d like to suggest that you don’t have to always do “your best.” If you did your best every day, that would mean that you would need to make more calls today than ever before — and you would have to make even more tomorrow. These would need to be your “best” marketing calls ever and of course tomorrow, they would need to be even better.

You don’t have to make your “best” marketing call ever — just make the damn call. Then make another one. And another. Better to keep an even keel and do consistently good work than to get stressed out and hung up on always doing “your best.”