Welcome to The Fordyce Letter:

The Fordyce Letter

Straight Talk for the Recruiting Profession


Cold Calling

Cold Calling

Matching, Pacing, and Rhythm



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Last week I went to pay some bills online. I looked at my account and realized there were charges listed that I had never made. I called the bank immediately. We shut down all of my accounts and opened new ones.

I went to the bank ten business days later, and I still did not have a functioning ATM card. That meant that rather than simply go to an ATM for cash, I had to wait in a long, long line at the bank for a teller. Twenty minutes later, by the time I got to the head of the line, I was seriously annoyed. I expressed my annoyance to the teller. Her response? “Calm down, Ma’am.”

So my dear readers, do you think this response calmed me down?

Of course not. It had exactly the opposite effect. I went through the roof. “Don’t tell me to calm down,” I snarled. Where before I had simply been annoyed, now I was really angry.

So why am I sharing my banking woes?

Cold Calling, The Business of Recruiting

“I Want Your Job…”



Sandra McCartt

Thirty six years ago, I was an accountant. Happily or unhappily, as the case may be, putting lots of numbers into lots of big black books. Yes, they were big black books. Edison had invented the light bulb but Microsoft was some kind of fabric that kept small children and big dogs from making a mess on pillows . Being not too long out of a divorce I was focused on talking on the phone to discover what was going on with the rest of the world of newly divorced people — planning where and what time the “young and the restless” were going to solve the problems of the world that night. In a fit of pique, my boss walked by my office and uttered the now infamous words, “Why don’t you go find a job where you can do what you do best…talk on the phone.”

Now if you have ever been divorced or have spent much of your life putting numbers in little boxes, you know the mind set du jour of someone who is newly divorced and doesn’t like what they do for a living, either. I remember saying something like, “That’s a great idea, now if you will excuse me, I am on the phone.” I kissed my life as a bean counter goodbye (as soon as I got plans firmed up for the evening), picked up my purse, and headed to the nearest employment agency.

Cold Calling, Weigh In!

Client or Source: Perspective From the Corporate Recruiters



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In a recent blog post by Jessica Lee, Senior Employment Manager at APCO Worldwide, a privately held, global public affairs and strategic strategic communications firm, she laments about some ‘shady’ business practices she has been seeing as of late from some third-party recruiting professionals:

“…how am I to respond and react to a headhunter/recruiting agency who I know has tried to recruit our company’s talent away who then reaches out to me to try to solicit our business?” 

Cold Calling, How-To, Technology

Phone Sourcing Basics



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How many of us remember the days before Google, LinkedIn, and other social media sites… When sourcing was a primary function of recruiters, who relied on phone sourcing as the primary means of connecting with potential candidates. When recruiters resorted to purchasing phone directories of targeted companies and then figured out how to break through a phone system to reach the desired department, often resulting in many misconnections that somehow lea to the right person.

Phone sourcing has become somewhat of a lost art form – which is interesting considering that we live in a world of connectivity yet have lost the personal touch of picking up the phone and calling, regardless if you are full cycle recruiter, a sourcer, or a researcher.

Cold Calling, Relationships

What You Wish You Could Tell Candidates



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I’m always hearing recruiters say they want to be more helpful to candidates.

I wonder. I wrote the following with the idea that it might help some express some of their challenges through a third-party voice.

I’m a phone sourcer. That means I am paid to find people who hold specific titles or who are doing specific job functions inside (usually) specific companies.

I’ve been doing this a long time.

There are a few things that spell disaster for you as a job seeker.

Cold Calling

How to Effectively Cold Call



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Evolution of Cold Calling & Recruiting

Cold calling came about as a way to find and close new clients. Given leads, a “real” salesperson needed to be able to call on prospective customers to sell a product or service. These prospective customers were not expecting the call. Hence, the term “cold call” ensued. For a powerful depiction of cold calling, watch the 1992 movie Glengarry Glen Ross.

During the early days of recruiting, technology was nonexistent. There were no faxes, computers, databases, Internet, social networking, applicant tracking systems (ATS), webcamming and mobile and cloud technology. The only tools were the Rolodex, file cabinet, telephone, physical transportation and advertising (newspaper, TV, radio).  Recruiters developed leads through incoming resumes from advertising, referrals and networking at job fairs, user groups, and other venues.  Many recruiters were already cold calling clients. When they could not find candidates through the usual methods, they easily turned to cold calling into companies to find candidates.

The Best Choice

Yesterday’s scenario was much different. There was good reason to cold call. Resumes were limited and mail could be slow. Networking and searching was cumbersome and often had to be done in person. Advertising was expensive and did not always result in the best matches possible. Being able to call into a company and pull out a targeted passive candidate saved time and money and often resulted in superior matches.

To be truly effective in today’s sophisticated market, one needs to be able to determine if cold calling is the best choice. Asking and answering the following five questions have helped me to determine whether or not to cold call.

Cold Calling

Fewer Candidate Cold Calls, More Conversations



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When I started in search in 1998, conventional wisdom said that if you were not on the phone, you were not working. In fact, two of the firms for whom I have worked had call tracking software built into the phone system. Every night, the head of the office would send out a report to the entire company detailing how many calls each recruiter made and how much time they spent on the phone. It was implied that recruiters who spent time sending e-mails and performing internet research did so because they lacked the spine to make cold calls. This attitude became deeply ingrained in me.

However, times change and technology changes behavior. Many people today are not likely to answer the phone if they do not recognize the number on the caller ID and even less likely if the caller ID is blocked. A few candidates in their twenties and thirties who work at big companies have confessed to me that they frequently go a week without checking voicemail. They feel that if information is important, it will arrive via e-mail. 

Cold Calling

Why Cold Calling is Imperative to Your Success, Part 3



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Now that we’ve discussed how to go about cold calling candidates, let’s rewind just a bit and discuss cold calling for business.  Obviously without business, you’d have no reason to cold call candidates! A lot of the same principles apply in both types of cold calling, so why not put your skills to work on both sides of the desk? I realize that not all third party recruiters handle business development but a well-rounded recruiter should definitely be capable of doing so. The most successful recruiters are those that control both ends of the placement equation, thus resulting in more earned fees.

Smart recruiters will seek relationships with clients where they can have direct interaction with hiring managers, allowing them to gain a deeper understanding of the client’s needs and environment beyond just a job req.  Instead of competing with hundreds of vendors on VMS requisitions, targeting smaller environments where these relationships can be built is a great way to position yourself for long term success. While I certainly would never discourage big business, relationships make the best placements. Period.

That being said, what’s the best way to go about cold calling for business? The same way you would if you were looking for a candidate.  Research!

Cold Calling, Technology, Weigh In!

Best of Breed: Phone or Online?



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Which contact method is the best, and why do you think that way? If you’re an online person, why do you think some people prefer the phone, and vice versa? Do the new online and social tools available make the phone less important in the recruiting world?

Jump right in, leave a comment, and let us know your uncensored thoughts. If you prefer, send me an email, just be sure to let me know if your comment is “on” or “off” the record. We will select some of the most interesting, no-holds-barred responses for inclusion in an upcoming article in The Fordyce Letter!