So the candidate told you he is happy where he is in his career but also just admitted to you that there may be something better out there?

What next? How do you handle this critical conversation where the candidate seems to be on the fence so early in the process?

Remember, the moment they give you an objection, your job isn’t to overcome it. It’s to have built enough of an emotional bank account with them so that you now have the right to make a withdrawal from that relationship. And your withdrawal is the rebuttal itself and how you bring them along to a decision that they perceive will ultimately benefit them. Your primary job as a recruiter is to build a relationship of authenticity with this person, a complete stranger, so that they trust you at the beginning of the process and all the way through to its end, when you are telling them not to take that counteroffer that their boss, friend, and mentor will eventually give them to keep them on their team.

Most recruiters make the mistake of giving an objection immediately after the candidate displays some sort of concern or says he is happy where he is. They go right into how great the opportunity is, how fantastic the advancement potential is, without having enough of an emotional bank account to make a withdrawal from.

Here’s a phrase you can use to get them to open up to you, to share their concerns, and to tell you what would motivate them to go forward, and to do it in a way that isn’t duplicitous and manipulative, but genuine. Just say this:

Joe, what I’d like to do is find out more about you. I’d like to find out about where you have come from in the past in your career, what you are doing currently, and where you would like to go in the future. And if the direction you want to pursue is a place that my client can take you, then I’ll tell you everything about this opportunity and you can decide for yourself what you’d like to do. Whatever you want to do or pursue is fine with me.

This soft-sell approach relieves tension in the relationship by giving control back to the candidate. In my experience, the more I push people, the more they will either push back or run away (like not returning my calls, telling me they are going to send me a résumé and never doing it, or just falling off the ends of the earth). So instead of pushing them, I lead them. I let their internal desire guide the whole process, and I am just a facilitator helping them get to a place where they want to go but might not even know what that place is just yet.

What is the primary focus of this conversation? The candidate’s motivation. It’s all about the candidate. It’s not about the strength of your client’s opportunity or that person’s potential. It’s about giving the candidate control of his or her career. People want to be in control of their own careers, and the myth of candidate control has pushed many candidates into the abyss of “I don’t trust recruiters.” Many recruiters mistakenly think that “candidate control” is all about manipulating someone to do something that will culminate in a fee. Instead, your job is to find out where they want to go and then show them how your client’s opportunity will get them what they really want. Use the candidate’s intrinsic motivation as the energy that guides the whole process. If you do that, you’ll minimize fall-offs, decrease counteroffers, and have candidates as willing participants all the way through.

Scott Love is a recruiter who has created a big billing model of success that anyone can duplicate. His website has over 150 free articles, free tools, and free downloads that can help you bill more. Visit it at www.recruitingmastery.com. Copyright © 2007 Scott Love

I once had an employee who would peak into ecstasy whenever he made a successful cold-recruit call with the candidate agreeing to send in his resume. Then he would plummet to the depths of despair when the resume didn’t come in a few days later. And when it finally came in he would peak up again when the candidate showed signs of going forward. But when the client expressed concerns about interviewing, he would fall back down again. But he came back up when he overcame those concerns. It was up and down like this through the entire process and when he had his first deal fall apart, he nearly fell apart along with it.

The recruiting and search profession is the only business where you can experience every single human emotion in the course of an afternoon. The swings are just as great as the income potential in this industry and, if you’ve been in it for more than a month, then I know you have felt it. If you don’t manage it and if you don’t get control over it, then you’ll either go crazy, get sick, or abandon the business and all the rewards that come with it.

Here are four ways you can overcome this nerve-eating aspect of your job and keep both your sanity and dreams intact:

1) Understand what is really worth getting excited about.
-Is it when the candidate sends in a resume? No. That’s expected.
-Is it when the client agrees to interview the candidate? No, that just means you are doing your job.
-Is it when the interview goes well? Perhaps a little enthusiasm is good, but don’t go buy a boat just yet. You are only at the first step of deal infancy.
-Is it when the candidate gets an offer and says he or she is going to accept it? Definitely not. Yeah, you can feel some positive feelings about how it’s going forward but remember we still have the most dangerous part of the process to get through, the resignation and counteroffer.
-Is it when the candidate gives his resignation and turns down the counteroffer? No way. People have been known to change their minds at the last minute.
-Is it when the candidate shows up for work? Maybe. You can feel good about what you’ve done but the only time you should get really, really, really excited is after the guarantee period. Yes, that’s right. Even after the candidate starts and after you’ve been paid, the risk for the deal falling apart does exist. Go ahead and admit it and dole out the appropriate amount of enthusiasm and excitement, but restrain yourself because you can’t predict or control the future.
-I think what trips most rookies up in this area is that they really don’t know how fragile deals are and put all their hope and confidence in a place that can’t handle that weight of emotion.

2) Understand the concept of ratios and of probabilities.

From what I’ve seen in the industry, a common standard of interviews to placements is five to one. That means that for every five interviews that you set up between candidates and clients, you’ll close one deal. So that means if you have four things fall apart, you are on the right path.

Rejection is the same way. Most people are going to say ‘no,’ but we are looking for those few ‘yes’s’ out there to complete our business model. Remember that you can’t win every game and you’ve just got to accept the fact that most things fall apart in our world.

Also, if you start seeing weird things happen, it’s a good sign. It means you have enough activity to see screwy things materialize on your desk. When it starts getting weird, it means you are starting to get good experience.

3) Manage your emotions.
There’s a concept in the last seven years that has caught on in the business world known as emotional intelligence. This means that you know how to manage your emotions and positively influence the emotions of other people. It starts with knowing how to keep your emotions in a managed state so you don’t spin out of control and turn into a self-destructive mess.

Start with getting a journal. Start writing your feelings and frustrations, triumphs and tragedies, dreams and disappointments. This will get those emotions to the surface where you can actually deal with them. If you stuff them you will get sick or go crazy.

For myself, I write in my journal every few days about all the good and bad stuff happening at work and in my personal life. It gives me perspective and allows me to sift through the events of my life so I can draw strength and renewal from them, instead of letting them control me. It brings me to a place of mastery and contentment, where I can look at things from a perspective that is healthy and objective, rather than reacting based on emotion. Sometimes it might take me a few days to process through an upsetting event, but my journal helps me through it. Journaling is also a great decision-making tool because you can really process through situations and end up choosing the best course of action.

4) Start an exercise program.
When I was a midshipman at the Naval Academy, one of the coaches told us to break a sweat everyday. Spending four years in an environment of structured adversity where stress was deliberately orchestrated, I learned that you have to manage it from a state of peak performance, otherwise you crack. So frequent workouts became a habit a long time ago and have helped me in the stressful job of recruiting.

If you exercise, you are fresh. Our bodies have a way of healing themselves through adversity. If you cut your skin, the scar tissue grows stronger. If you break a bone, the point where the bone broke heals stronger. When you exercise and tear muscles down, they heal and build strength and mass. If you expend energy on the treadmill, you get it back several times over. (Check with your physician if you’ve never exercised, of course.) If you don’t belong to a gym, invest thirty bucks a month in your health. You’d be amazed how exercise removes stress and puts energy back in to your life.

Remember, recruiting is a game of probabilities and you never have complete control over the outcome. But you do have complete control over how you respond to situations, and by responding from a position of strength you can get an edge over them and build your own personal resilience.

Scott Love is a recruiter who has created a big billing model of success that anyone can duplicate. His website has over 150 free articles, tools and downloads that can help you bill more. Visit it at www.recruitingmastery.com. Copyright © 2006 Scott Love

When I was 24 years old, I was a leadership trainer as a young a naval officer. I taught Deming management methods (Total Quality Management) to thousands of officers and sailors in Norfolk, Virginia. W. Edwards Deming, one of the pioneers of contemporary management thought and a business legend in Japan, said that all managers must commit to continuous improvement. Everything can always get better, no matter how good it already is.

Success in executive search is dependent upon getting the right knowledge and applying it in the right sequence with the right frequency, the right amount of intensity, and positive intention. But unless you are taking ownership of your own training, you’ll never figure out how to improve. You’ll never get better. When it comes to continuous performance improve-ment, training must be a core competency.

I’ll never forget the time I heard Brian Tracy, my favorite sales trainer, say that leading performers of sales organizations all have one thing in common: they buy their own books and CDs, pay their own way to conventions and meetings, and invest regularly in their own personal development. In other words, they take full ownership of their results and are always actively looking to improve their performance.

His words challenged me to see how much I could pour into my little gray brain about the business. I would seek out industry seminars and attended every one I could find. I would fly to go to see Peter Leffkowitz, Danny Cahill, Charles Wadlow, Gene Rice and Jeff Cohen, Tony and Barb Bruno, Doug Beabout, and many other great trainers. I purchased every video by Steve Finkel and Tony Byrne, read every book by Bill Radin, and got my hands on everything I could find related to our wacky industry. I became a sponge for knowledge and wanted to soak up as much industry-related material as I could.

Here are eight ideas that will help you integrate this model of success into your desk:

1. Commit to continuous and never-ending improvement. There is a risk in doing this because when you take this step, you are telling the world that you don’t know it all. This requires a healthy self-confidence level without the fragile and over-inflated ego. Impossible for a few in our business who let their egos take over their hearts and attach their self-worth to how much they make. But if you develop a healthy sense of selfworth and can admit you can still learn something, then, you are beginning your journey to greatness.

2. Identify those variables which determine success and are the predictors leading up to it. What constitutes success in your office? Figure it out and get it on paper. Interviews, offers, acceptances, fees, billings, number of clients, etc.

3. Begin to measure the appropriate ratios between the variables that count. Anything that is measured generally improves over time.

4. Set a budget of what you intend to invest in training. Perhaps you can make this a percentage of your monthly income or quarterly revenue. For every dollar you invest in training, you should expect to get at least ten dollars back. Start with one percent of your revenue or income, then, go to two percent, then three percent each month. Remember that the more you invest in your own personal and professional development, the more you will get back from it.

5. Attend meetings with others who are on the same path that you are on. Join a group or meet regularly with other colleagues who are top producers. Because the search business is so intense and depends so much on nuance and subtleties, it’s imperative that you plug in with a group of people who can support you and where you can support them.

6. Set training goals for yourself for the year, and break them down into weekly goals. How many CDs do you want to listen to? Which ones? Which books do you wish to read? Anytime you see a book you want to read, buy it and keep it in a stack to go through when you have the time. Go to the bookstore with a $100 bill and buy as many sales books or books on personal development as you can.

7. Find a mentor to guide you in your growth. It could be a manager, friend, co-worker, or even a professional coach who works in our industry like Gary Stauble.

8. Change the way you view training. I just returned from a trip where I spent the day training two very large MRI offices in Dallas. Both of these organizations possess a culture of achievement and share a positive outlook on training. This perspective on learning and training can transform a good recruiter into an amazing recruiter. (For a special report on developing a low-cost training program, email me at scott@recruitingmastery.com).

Success is deliberate and intentional and does not occur because of random chance. There is a method and a process to it. The sooner you start to find out what creates success, the sooner you reap the rewards. Start today and adopt this model of ownership to your own development. Do it today. Do it now.

Scott Love is a professional student of the search business and also works a desk. Visit his website at www.recruitingmastery.com to access his free articles, free tools, and free downloads. Copyright © 2006 Scott Love

If you could be like Superman and spin the world in the opposite direction and go back in time, would you have taken on that recent loser client?

I’ll never forget my worst client. He always seemed to call me with a big fat retainer check every time I needed the money. So I took the search and kept regretting it every step of the way. He was consistently a poor client. He failed to get in touch with the candidates when he should have. He failed to return phone calls in a timely manner. He failed to make offers when the candidates were ready to receive them. And he failed to stay involved in the candidate relationship after the candidate accepted the offer.

When it comes to human behavior and predicting it, consider what I call ‘The Two Cardinal Rules of Human Behavior.’ First, remember that people only do what is in their own personal best interests. It’s all about them, not you. Second, remember that people are generally predictable and consistent. If they fail to follow through on one thing, they’ll probably fail to follow through on a second thing.

Use these two premises to your advantage and think five steps ahead when you deal with both candidates and clients. Use their past actions as indicators on how they are going to behave in the future. More than anything, you need to remember this: always observe their actions more than their words. That hot new candidate may say he is really interested in the opportunity. But if you have to ask three times for the resume, consider that a clue to either how he performs or his interest. That client may say they really need to fill the position. But when they don’t return your call for a week to set up the interview, it either means they’ve already filled the position or the need just does not exist.

Ask yourself these questions the next time you are involved in a search and your instincts tell you that you might be dealing with a problem candidate or client. Use these questions to help hone your instincts so that you can anticipate the future and be ready for it:

1. Have I worked successfully with this person before? If not, then there could be a risk to how well and how quickly they respond and comply with what needs to be done.

2. What are the emotions that I am feeling when dealing with this person? Start learning to trust your instincts by getting in touch with your gut. Learn to observe those people who are risks, and what your gut tells you about them prior to dealing with them. You will develop an ‘emotional risk baseline’ that lets you know how to anticipate what’s going to happen based on the feelings in your gut. You will then get a sense to intuitively judge what type of person you are dealing with based on your emotional response to having contact with them.

3. What are the factual indications of this person’s actions that give me concern? Was it a slow response? A missed interview? A lie on a resume? More reliable than your hunches are the facts. You can develop a ‘mental database’ of situations that can be drawn from whenever you encounter a similar circumstance in the future.

4. On a scale of one to ten, how dependable is this person based on their actions?

5. Is there a ‘disconnect’ between their words and their actions? In other words, do they say they really want to interview with your client but then fail to return your phone call so that you can prep them for the interview? Whenever you encounter a large ‘congruence delta’ in your candidates and clients, then pay careful attention. That’s a sign that something is up. Ask them. Use the question such as ‘Has anything changed since we last talked?’ to find out what gives. Tell them that you are fine with whatever happens and that you only want what is in their best interests, but you just want to know what direction to take the situation.

Bonus tip #1:

Always give people the benefit of the doubt and leave an open door so that they can keep their dignity. For example, if someone forgot to show up for the interview, never assume they blew it off. That happened to me once and I found out that the candidate’s wife went into the hospital that morning. Glad I didn’t leave a caustic voice mail message for him giving him a lesson in personal responsibility.

Bonus tip #2:

If someone does screw up in the process, give them an open door of dignity. If the client forgot to have a colleague show up for the interview with a candidate, do not lecture. Say, “I understand you’re busy, George. How can we keep that from happening again? I’d hate for the candidate to misinterpret your company’s work ethic based on a miscommunication.” But if this same scenario happens again, then you need to address it with ‘tough love.’ Whenever you have this type of conversation with a candidate and client, explain to them why it is in their best interests to follow through on their end.

Scott Love has created a free recruiter training site with over 150 free downloads, tools, instruments, and articles that can make recruiters money right away. Visit it at www.recruitingmastery.com. For a limited time you can advance order his DVD training series ‘No Limit Recruiting’ for a pre-release discount. Visit his website for details. Copyright © 2006 Scott Love

‘Recruiting is a personal development opportunity disguised as a job.’
–Scott Love

To get people to do what we want them to do, we need to give a clear understanding about how we work and ensure that the client and candidate are willing to comply.  Then we ask questions throughout the process to make sure that everything is on track.  Such questions include “Has anything changed since we spoke last week?”  “Have any other recruiters called you with any opportunities since we last talked?”  “Are you still on board to turn your notice in tomorrow?”  To make matters worse, the longer you have been in the business the sloppier you become because you just sort of assume that everyone can read your mind and will follow in your glowing and glorious wake of experience.

About a year and a half ago, I was marketing a candidate who wanted to make a move to southern California.  The relationship was strong and I had known him for several years.  I told him that I felt I could help him and he was an eager and enthusiastic candidate.  He returned my calls right after I left messages.  He was sharp and happy and had the perfect career background.  His spouse was an enthusiastic supporter of the move.  His employer loved him and didn’t have any offices there.  The motive to move was strong and pure.  The candidate was ready to go.  All I needed to do was conduct a ‘slam dunk’ round of calls to my relationship base and collect the fee. “I’ll take care of ya, John,” was pretty much my prep with him.

“Scott, for some reason this candidate’s background sounds familiar to me,” the prospective client said when I presented this candidate’s background to him.  I had only had three conversations with prospective employers and this fourth one seemed the most promising and the most eager to talk with my candidate.  “Is he from Charlotte?”

“Um, yes.  Why?”

“Wait, I think I have his resume right here in front of me.  Here it is.  Is his name John Smith?”

Yes, that was the candidate all right.  When I asked the prospective client how he got the candidate’s resume he said that it was emailed to him the day before from another recruiter.

Why that little . . . wait.  Wait.  Wait.  Did I tell him to work with me and only me?  Um, no.  I sort of assumed that he would because the relationship was so good.  When I talked with the candidate and explained the situation to him he said that he got a call from another recruiter shortly after the two of us talked and decided to send his resume to him.  “Should I not have done that, Scott?” was all he asked me.

My mistake. He had no idea about the exclusivity of working with me because I never told him about it.  I learned the lesson once again of why a recruiter should make sure that everyone is on board with their protocols and is willing to comply.  In this circumstance, I should have told John something like this:

“I’m interesting in partnering with you to help you find an opportunity that you might not be able to find on your own.

What’s even better for you, once I come across something, is my ability to sell you as a top performer.  Because I’m an expert in your niche and make a living presenting top performers, they’ll take me seriously when I have a candidate that they need to hear about.  If you call them they probably won’t take you as seriously and will put you in the human resources corral with all the other cattle.  With me you get head of line privileges because typically I bypass HR and go right to the top or to those who are really running things.

That way, I can tell them something like, ‘Hey, John’s a good guy,’ and they’ll believe me more than you saying ‘I’m a good guy.’  I can give you the power of third party credibility.

What I need from you to be able to do this is a commitment that you and I are going to work together and exclusively.  I’ll uncover as many opportunities as I can and will make sure that they’ll all hear about you, and if you hear about any opportunities then call me first so I can see if I can open the door a lot easier for you.”

If only I had spent the thirty seconds saying that to John.  He would have agreed, would have turned me on to the other opportunity, and I would have had another check to deposit.  But at least the experience gave me content for this article.

Whenever you need compliance from someone, whether it’s a candidate or a client, there are three principles of gaining their commitment:

1.    First tell them exactly what you need.  “We need to work together and I need you to work exclusively with me.”

2.    Second, tell them why this will benefit them.  If it’s a client and you are trying to get an exclusive from them, tell them why it will benefit them to give you this.  “Because of the type of performer that you are looking for in the market, I will have to spend a lot of time and dedicate my resources that normally I would give to more of my established clients. (contrast principle).  I’m okay with this, but I need to ask from you a greater commitment in terms of an exclusive or a retainer (reciprocity principle).”  The odds of compliance increase significantly when you tell people why it will benefit them.  Remember that it’s not about you.  It’s about them.  Make it that way in your communication with them.  And if you have not yet bought Robert Cialdini’s book on influence, you need to pick it up.  (Influence: Science and Practice).

3.    Ask those tough questions.  When you follow up, ask questions to test that they are still on board.  If I had communicated the exclusive nature of my marketing relationship with the candidate, I would have followed up every once in a while, asking things like, “Are you still on board with everything?”  “Have you had any contact with anyone else regarding career issues since we last talked?”  “Have you received any other calls from other search firms since we talked?”

I think the reasons why we fail to spend the time to explain what we need from people, such as an exclusive relationship in this example, is fear.  We are afraid of getting a ‘no’ from them, even though we know that we are doing something in their best interests and that they’ll probably be okay with it.  We are afraid that we are coming across too salesy or too pushy.

Get over it by making yourself do it.  Recognize your feelings of anxiety when you come across these situations and validate them.  I feel anxious telling this candidate for an exclusive.  Then tell yourself why you need to push through it.  But I need to because if I do not then I open myself up to variables that could take him out of the placement process.  If you feel you are too pushy and think you are too salesy, remind yourself that it really does work in their best interests if they follow your lead.  If John makes calls on his own they won’t take him seriously.  If he works with me he’ll be on a plane next week flying to an interview.

Remember that your job as a recruiter is one of the most powerful in corporate America.  You build companies.  You build futures.  Sometimes it’s as simple as taking someone from Rut A and putting them in Rut B.   But Rut B is always a better rut.  Believe in the power of what you do and take charge of your desk when it comes to communicating effectively with people.  And you’ll be amazed at how much of a difference this minor change will make in your billings.

Scott Love has created a free recruiter training site with over 150 free downloads, tools, instruments, and articles that can make recruiters money right away.  Visit it at www.recruitingmastery.com.  His next two-day training seminar, ‘No-Limit Recruiting’, is scheduled on Oct 27 – 28, in Asheville, North Carolina at $377 per person.  Call 828-225-7700 to register. Copyright © 2006 Scott Love