Editor’s note: Paul DeBettignies’ article was the 2nd most popular article on The Fordyce Letter in 2011. It originally ran in March.

I know, I know… smile and dial.

More phone calls equal more job orders, candidates and send outs. More send outs equal more placements.

I get it – I really do. But after thirteen years as a sole practitioner, I have learned that I need to get out from behind the desk every now and then, or I fear that the headset will become permanently fixed to my head.

My company recruits information technology professionals. Minneapolis is a very “community” oriented city and we have an abundance of IT user groups and professional associations, so I can get out and be social, learn something new, and do some candidate and client generation while curing my “cabin fever.”

And when I say abundance, it is no joke. In addition to the IT groups I participate in (there are more than 25), there are several professional recruiting associations in which I am involved, including the Minnesota Recruiters group, which I coordinate.

At this point, some of you many be thinking, “How do you manage all of that, and does it distract you from making placements?”

Does it distract me? No. How do I manage all of this? Here’s how:

1. I focus on the groups and events where I know my “targets” are going to be in attendance. Most of the groups in town use Eventbrite, and usually the attendee list is posted, so I will copy and paste the names I do not recognize into LinkedIn and/or Google to see who they are.
2. While I attend a lot of events, I make sure not to hang out with just my friends. I also find the people who look like they do not know anyone and introduce myself. I look to see who has “groupies” hanging around them – as I assume they have to be one of the “cool kids” – and introduce myself. Additionally, I focus on looking for the name tags of those I searched for online. (I write them down on a 3×5 card that I bring with me so as not to forget)
3. If I am attending an event and know no one, I will email the host ahead of time and ask if they will be willing to make some introductions for me. Over a period of time of course I get to know who is who and it makes networking much easier.

Besides being an attendee at events, I am also frequently asked to speak at them. For recruiter and HR groups, topics I am requested to cover range from closing candidates to social media, building talent pools, and so forth. The IT user groups and professional associations typically look for topics on job search, using LinkedIn, find the next consulting gig, and how to find/use recruiters.

So how does this help my business?

For starters, I am not one of those creepy “insurance salesman” networking types who quickly work a room, hand out their business card, and then head for the door. I have a reputation of being “the guy” to go to with a question, and I make it a point to invest time in those with whom I speak – whether they can help me or not. I think a lot of us have forgotten that we are in the people business, and not everyone is an instant means to an end.

Do these activities pay off? Last summer I attended a tech event at Best Buy headquarters and in a small group session of 50 Java developers, the presenter recognized me and said, “Hey, are you the recruiter guy with the blog? Come up here and answer some questions we have about how to ready ourselves for a job search.”

What a great way to be of help to others and allow them to get to know me. The number of emails, calls, and resumes I received over the next week was overwhelming – in a very good way. As a direct result of this opportunity, I was referred to a manager who I later placed. Even now, I am still seeing benefits from this event as several of the technology professionals I met are pursuing contract opportunities with us. Networking events can provide both ‘hunting’ and ‘farming’ opportunities if approached in the right manner.

Right before the holidays, I was invited by a friend to attend an HR event with her. She was surprised to learn that I knew more of those attending than she did. Not only did I know them – they were friends, too. Very rarely do I have to make a true “cold call” on the client generation side of the business.

It is good to remember that there are human beings on the other end of the phone and the other side of the computer screen. Getting out from behind your desk and mixing it up with your target audience helps them to put a face to your name and voice as much as it does the same for you of them. “Smile and dial” is a whole lot easier when the person answering the phone (or email) already knows your name – and what value you have to offer.

This article is from the February 2011 print Fordyce Letter. To subscribe and receive a monthly print issue, please go to our Subscription Services page.

This week we are counting down some of the most popular articles from FordyceLetter.com in 2011. We hope you enjoy revisiting these articles as we look ahead to 2012!

Have you ever been in a situation where the perfect candidate pulled out at the last minute? Or even worse, have you ever been used by a candidate to leverage a raise or a promotion with his/her current company? For me, the worst thing that could happen is a when a person accepts a job, goes through the background check, does everything you expect…and then doesn’t show up.

And that really happened – the guy just never showed up and never returned any attempt at contact by me or anyone else from the client company. Now, I would have understood if the person’s spouse didn’t answer the phone to take a message. I would have really understood if he ended up in the hospital or the worse case scenario dropped dead, but no — he just decided not to show up.

Let’s be absolutely up front about things here – IT SUCKS!

Yes, it’s for best in the grand scheme of things. After all, no one wants an unstable hire. But is definitely doesn’t make a recruiter’s life any easier.

For those of us who not internal recruiters, there’s the old, “The position went on hold,” or “We didn’t have an internal candidate before but one just surfaced,” after we’ve put heart and soul into a search.

We ask ourselves, “Why couldn’t that person just be honest?”

So now that I’ve picked at some old scars you can imagine how a candidate feels when the recruiting process takes a long time. And it doesn’t matter if it’s because of our process, the hiring manager is traveling, or we’re inundated with reqs — we have to remember that even when we’ve passed the candidate to the onboarding stage we still have a relationship with that candidate.

And because of that relationship, we, more than anyone else have a responsibility for the candidate experience.

A recruiter has an interesting place in the recruitment cycle. Unless we’re hiring for our own team, we are providing a service for our client. Now, it’s easy to think of a client as the person paying us to fill the job and that’s true to a certain extent. But when you define “client,” things get a bit more complex.

Customer Vs. Client

Jay Abraham, a famous marketing expert, makes a very clear distinction between a customer and a client. According to Jay, a customer is someone with whom you have a transactional relationship and a client is someone whose interests you watch out for.

In my world, here are my clients:

• The Primary Client (the one paying me) – after all, we don’t just do this for fun.
• The Candidate – when this person has a great experience dealing with me, not only will he/she be a potential candidate for something else (if not for this project) but a potential paying client down the line.
• Myself – by building relationships with candidates and giving them a great experience, I expand my access to talent and gain potential clients. After all, we’re ambassadors to the talent community not only for our paying clients but also for ourselves.

I’ve found one of the best ways to make sure that our candidates are being honest with us is to be honest with them first. I know there’s a lot of pressure to get assignments and candidates, especially in the short run. And believe me, I’m not advocating trying to shoehorn a person into a role.

But when we’re looking out for our Primary Client and being honest, sometimes we’re able to get them to hire the person they need — someone who will have a major impact on their business — rather than the person or skill set they want. Then we’re treating them as clients. And they will come back to us over and over again.

Honesty Isn’t Always Easy – But It Can Be Rewarding

Sometimes making a placement isn’t in everyone’s best interest, even though it might appear that way on the surface. I recall a search I was doing that was particularly difficult. There were only a few qualified candidates who were willing to make a move to a remote area. I was speaking with someone who was perfectly qualified for the job in every respect but had a child in the middle of high school.

He was eager to move on to the new job, sure that his family would go along. I counseled him several times to include the family in the decision and although they would have made the sacrifice, it would be just that, a sacrifice — and a big one at that. Because of the situation, I advised him against moving forward despite his personal interest. After all, there would be other opportunities.

Because I was honest with him he gave me several contacts, one of which got the job. As an added bonus I was able to place the first candidate in another, better position at a different time and his relationship with his family became stronger because of their experience. When we say to truly qualified candidates who would be a slam dunk hire that a move would not be in their best interest, then we’re doing the right thing not only for them, but for the other clients on the list I outlined above – especially the “Myself” client!

Remember: what we do is absolutely legitimate. We have the best job in the world — we get to offer people an opportunity. And when we’re honest about who we are and what we’re doing we stand out in the crowd positively and our ability to connect expands exponentially.

Some things never change – honesty really is the best policy.

For 20 years now I’ve been a recruiter, trainer, coach, and mentor. In that time I have watched and listened to literally hundreds of recruiters try to explain to a potential customer why they should work with their firm over the dozens of others they get calls from every month. In all that time I’ve come to discover that we (recruiters) do an absolutely horrible job of differentiating ourselves from one another. Everyone wants to talk about the exact same things:

“I’ve been in business for X years.”

“We specialize exclusively in this area (almost always what the client says they need).”

“I’d be happy to offer (insert the name of your best customer here) as a reference.”

“We’re located here in (insert random city/ST) so we do a much better job of selling the community.”

And the piece-de-resistance, “I’m able to find candidates you won’t have access to without me.”

The words may come out differently from recruiter to recruiter, but the message is almost always the same.  This has to change. If you want to start to capture the market share and clients you desire, start with a whole new approach to what you “sell” your potential customers.

Understand the Transition

Companies that we work with are going to move through three distinct steps as they transition from being a Prospect Company to a true Client Company. The first stage in this process is VISIBILITY. You have to become visible to a potential customer. They have to know you exist. We accomplish this through our website, emails, and most importantly, phone calls. The second step is proving CREDIBILITY to a prospective customer. This is where most recruiters drop the ball: we don’t know how to effectively prove how credible we are to first-time buyers. Customers will become true clients only when we show them that working with us promotes PROFITABILITY. When you show them how you solve their problem and do it in such a way as to save them time, energy, money, and do all that in an easy-to-work-with fashion, you will have a true client.

The Fundamental Problem

Recruiters as an industry face an incredibly unique dilemma. For most other industries if you want to sell a customer a product you usually identify the problem that customer has, show them that you can supply a solution to the problem, and if they like your solution, they buy. We don’t have that luxury. Our entire industry was built around solving one problem – the need for companies to find people. So we can’t sell the “solution” to a problem. We have to sell “how we provide the solution.”  It is this “how” that clients use to determine which of the agencies they talk to have the most credibility!

Understanding What Clients Really Want

Whenever you present your agency to a client, you have one major mission — telling them “what’s in it for them.” Realize that clients are getting calls from multiple agencies, and to get their attention you have to sound different and more professional to capture their attention. Realize that clients care about basically six different areas and you need to address them in your pitch.

Clients care — that you have a process.

You need to be ready to explain the steps you will go through to ensure you will deliver quality candidates to your client and take them all the way through the recruiting cycle.

Clients care — about speed.

How fast can you put the candidates in front of a client?

Clients care — about accuracy.

Speed is important, but clients also want to see only quality candidates and that you are accurately matching the candidates you present to the skills they required.

Clients care — about accepted offers/show ups.

Clients are extremely aware of candidates finishing the process. They don’t care how many good candidates you present if none of those people accept the offers when they are extended or they don’t show up for the first day of an assignment.

Clients care — about longevity.

Once a candidate is hired through an agency, clients don’t want to have to think about refilling that position for at least three years on a direct hire and on the contract side they want people who stay the entire length of the contract.

Clients care — about finding new talent.

This is the most important feature you have to sell. You have access to people they don’t have access to through their normal recruiting efforts.

What Clients Want Is Only Half of the Answer.

Now that you know what your clients are looking for, how you share your information with them is the other half of the equation. To be truly successful, understand some fundamental sales realities. Start with understanding which styles of sales work best and then combine those styles with the correct information you know your clients are listening for.

Stay tuned next week for Part 2 as we discuss knowing what your customers buy by understanding what sales styles work best.

image source: cali.org

Positive relationships are key to achieving goals

What’s the secret to a recruiter’s success? Is it the ability to produce high metrics? In an industry where metrics are often how we are viewed for our ability to produce, there’s still much more to it. The answer is found within a simple statement.

Success is found in the success of others.

What exactly does that mean? It means that the best recruiters know that achieving their goals comes from helping others achieve success. At the core of recruiting is the ability to develop relationships. The details within those relationships are what differentiate the average recruiter from the A+ players in our industry.

Regardless of whether you are a recruiter working for an RPO, a search firm, or part of an internal recruiting department, the goal is still the same – to generate positive relationships with hiring managers and candidates. The hiring managers seek out the expertise to locate and draw the attention of the top talent in their industry. The candidates, on the other hand, are seeking out a recruiter that takes the time to understand what their career ambitions are and to assist them in making a match with a company that can provide the opportunity to fulfill those goals.

Taking the relationship principle into account, it’s clear that in order to obtain success, you must first make others successful. The hiring manager you helped to fill a position with A+ talent is able to develop a thriving business unit and earns the respect of his colleagues — a direct result of your contribution. The candidate you took the time to understand and place within the right company becomes the future hiring manager, ultimately looking to you to help build the best team. It is a cyclical chain of events.

Now let’s take a look at the details within those relationships. Knowledge, trust, and integrity are at the core of every successful relationship:

• Knowledge: in your relationships with hiring managers and candidates, you must have a level of knowledge about what your clients do. If you can’t speak intellectually about the industry and job requirements,, you’re not fully capable of delivering the best service. There are varying opinions about the level of knowledge you need to have. Most recruiters with the core relationship-building skills educate themselves via Google, trade magazines, and associations. If you are not an expert in the subject matter area, the worst thing you can do is pretend that you know everything. Ask questions. It will go far in building a trusting relationship with your hiring managers and candidates. This leads me to the next quality of a successful relationship.

• Trust: recruiters talk to hundreds of people each week. What differentiates one from the next? Is it that the recruiter persistently called them back ten times before having a live conversation? Maybe, but it takes much more than that. We all have the intrinsic need to trust those with whom we build a relationship. No one wants to invest time with someone whom they can’t trust. If two people do not trust one another, eventually the relationship becomes mutually unbeneficial. Therefore, successful recruiters build strong relationships one step at a time by showing that they can be trusted to do what they say they will. We’ve all heard the saying, “A man is only as good as his word.” Keep it, and you will build a relationship of trust. And if you are proven to be untrustworthy, the relationship will be unsuccessful.

• Integrity: recruiters who succeed understand that one relationship will multiply to ten relationships over time, but this only happens if the recruiter has integrity. When is the last time you referred someone in your network to someone who lacks integrity? You don’t. We only refer people to those who have high integrity because it reflects back on us personally. While trust and integrity essentially go hand in hand, trust is what you obtain in order to have a reputation of integrity.

Recruiters are in the business of building relationships that result in successful people and companies. If it weren’t for the success of others, where would our industry be? Zig Ziglar said it best, “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.”

image source: Thomas Cunningham

Since 2008 we have seen businesses fail, jobs lost, inventories cut, marketing budgets slashed, and lots of markdowns. Over the past year however, life has seemingly resumed again. People are starting to buy extravagant items, businesses are getting back on track, and, if you don’t read the news on a daily basis, you’re feeling pretty good about life.

However, a new trend has recently popped up and it’s not a simple matter. Perhaps being in the executive search universe, we are more focused on it, but it cuts across all sectors, functions, and companies. I call it the “Art of the Negotiation.” And it’s not just playing out in the courtroom anymore.

Never before in my professional life have I seen this – and I used to sell furniture for a living. It seems we can’t get by without some haggling. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is taken for face value anymore. Everything is a dance – in which both parties say exactly what they want, how they feel, and are happy to draw a line in the sand.

Negotiations Double Time to Offer

Over the past year, the average time it takes to finalize an offer has more than doubled. At times, the negotiating process is even longer than the search itself. When a candidate and a client fall in love, it can all dissipate if the numbers aren’t quite right. More than ever before I’ve seen this dance take the wrong turn, spurring bad feelings, counteroffers and ultimatums.

On the client side there is a mentality that people were overpaid during the frenzy of the pre-2008 timeframe and that this recession should have opened their eyes and made them aware that everyone is replaceable, that they are lucky to have this offer, unwilling to budge. Needless to say, the candidates are less inclined to recognize their good fortune. From their perspective, they feel that that the economy is better, businesses are starting to boom again and 20% salary increases should be compulsory to even thinking about taking on a new job.

Job Pre-Nups

Then there is the middle ground, where the recruiter tends to act as mediator. Think of hiring a new employee like a marriage, two entities joining together to form a team, one that is bound by certain promises and pieces of sacred paper. The negotiation process is somewhat similar to drawing up a couple’s prenuptials. It’s quite uncomfortable, always takes longer than one expects, and it’s difficult to make both parties absolutely 100 percent happy – but hopefully, there’s a compromise.

My role is to advise clients about the market realities, and help them to understand that their requests may be too extravagant. On the candidate side, I have to guide and mentor them through the divergences of their fantasies and the clients’ less romantic standpoint. Fortunately, we almost always get there – in the end most parties see the bigger picture and understand the realities of the situation from the others’ side, not just their own.

Everything we experience is an opportunity for growth and learning. The “Art of Negotiation” is a dance that we are all perfecting in our own way.

My phone is ringing off the hook. More calls than I can remember receiving in a long time. Good news. The recruitment marketplace is heating up again. The callers are expressing a desire to re-attack their niches. This means they are getting ready to market again  — an activity many of my students haven’t really concentrated on in months. And with marketing will inevitably come those pesky Hiring Manager (HM) objections, so now it’s time to remind everyone how to respond to them.

Why we make Marketing Calls

But first things first: why do we make marketing calls? We make marketing calls to find companies that fall into three general categories:

1. First and foremost, those companies that have a tremendous urgency to fill a position. We recruiters are most often paid to circumvent the time factor.
2. Those companies that have a difficult position to fill. They have run ads, offered referral bonuses to employees, checked with competitors, consulted with colleagues, and extensively interviewed with no success. In this scenario, the recruiter offers these companies a window of opportunity – a “court of last resort,” if you will.
3. Those companies that wish to be kept apprised of top-notch talent as those talented people surface, regardless of whether there is an opening.

It is generally accepted by top producing recruiters that these three types of companies, which we will ultimately place with, make up 4% of our marketplace. So, if our marketplace contains 1500 contacts (which I recommend), then 4% of that marketplace equals 60 companies with which we will place. Multiply those 60 placements times an average fee of $10,000 and we have a $600,000 per year desk. Multiply those 60 placements by an average fee of $20,000 and we have our basic $1,200,000 annual operation. That, my friends, is how recruiters, by themselves, bill over $1,000,000 per year. They understand the math.

So now we have been reminded of why we need to make marketing calls. However, when we make them, we are invariably going to hear HM objections and there will be a tendency to give up way too early.

Objections

Objections are normal consequences of what we do for a living. Unfortunately, many recruiters interpret an objection as a rejection — the HM has decided not to buy, and those recruiters stop selling. Top billers realize that an objection doesn’t mean “No,” but instead means, “You haven’t convinced me yet. You need to give me a more compelling reason to buy” — so top billers don’t see the objection as the end to the call, but as the beginning and as an opportunity to win.

The objections we receive can also be ‘defense mechanisms’ that have been built up over the years because of ‘recruiter presentation pollution’ that has preceded our marketing call. Think of these poor HMs who have had to listen to defective and shoddy presentations every day of their professional lives. Because of that, they have put up barriers. Then we call, make our scintillating presentation and get a rude reception seemingly through no fault of our own. We are being asked to pay for the sins of those who have preceded us. It’s a shame, but this pollution reaction does exist. Don’t let it affect you.

Over time, most HMs have built up an inventory of NO’s and YES’s — many more NO’s than YES’s, as a matter of fact. And so, when they listen to our initial presentation, we are more likely to get a NO just because the HM has more of those to give out. But they do have YES’s as well. What the HM is saying with his NO is, “You haven’t convinced me yet. Your presentation was not compelling. If you give up now, I will know that I was correct in giving you that NO. So go right ahead. I’m still on the phone. Convince me!” Now is the time for us to remember that most sales are closed after the initial objections have been expressed.

Stating an objection also allows the HM to avoid making a decision — after all, making a decision is risky business. That’s why most people aren’t good at it. A NO can be just as bad as a YES, so most of us tend to avoid either. Just think of yourself the last time you were shopping at the mall and a salesperson asked, “Can I help you with something today?” How did you respond? You probably said something like, “No thanks. I’m just looking.” It’s a very common response and postpones making a decision.

My final point is this: Since most of what we do is over the telephone, it’s easier for the HM to stop us. When we aren’t face-to-face with the HMs, we can’t read their non-verbal cues — a blush when they make an incorrect statement, fidgeting, tapping their fingers on their desk, etc. Over the phone, they don’t have a problem being abrupt with us. But always remember that the beauty of working via the telephone is that we can make many more calls and make many more presentations as we vector in on our 4%. That’s a huge advantage if we make use of it.

Questioning Technique

We ask questions to find out where we are in our selling sequence. Those questions need to be open-ended. I always think of the Rudyard Kipling poem when I think of open-ended questions:

I have six honest serving men

They taught me all I knew

I call them What and Where and When

And How and Why and Who

The only reason to make a statement is to prepare the way for asking a question. Never make a statement without following it with a question. The questioner controls the direction of the conversation.

Here are twelve pointers on questioning technique:

1. We ask questions to gain and maintain control.
2. We ask questions to indicate the broad areas the HMs are interested in where we might be of service, and then we ask more questions to isolate the narrow area that is our best opportunity to serve them, and then we ask more questions to pinpoint the exact service we can render.
3. We ask questions to get the minor YES’s that will start the stream of minor agreements that will swell into the major river of acceptance of our proposition.
4. We ask questions to arouse and direct emotions towards working with us.
5. We ask questions to isolate objections.
6. We ask questions to answer objections.
7. We ask questions to determine the benefits that the prospect will buy (our services, expertise, and candidates).
8. We ask questions to acknowledge a fact. If we say it, they can doubt it. If they say it, it is true.
9. We ask questions that will confirm that (a) they are going ahead, and (b) we should now go on to the next step in our selling sequence.
10. We ask questions to help our clients and candidates rationalize decisions that they want to make, but need a nudge in that direction.
11. We ask questions that close the transaction, whether it’s the small closes along the way (such as when to set up the interview) or the final one of start date and salary.
12. We ask questions to solicit their help. People love to be cast in the advisory role. We use this desire to “help” to our advantage.

When encountering objections, don’t use questions that will set up an adversarial relationship between you and the HM. Rather use questions that will enable you to qualify the objection as real or imagined. Make sure that the real objection has been uncovered. If we are attacking the wrong objection, no matter how compelling our arguments and selling points may be, we will lose.

Generalizations

When we hear generalizations, we can’t let them pass unchallenged. We need to drill down and investigate them. We can question them by reflecting those statements back with a question mark on the end. Think of this Precision Model when dealing with generalizations:

They say, “Too much, too many, too expensive…”

We say, “Compared to what?”

They say, “People are greedy,” (nouns)

We say, “Who or what or which specifically?”

They say, “Offensive football players should attack the defense.” (verbs)

We say, “How specifically?”

They say, “Should, Shouldn’t, Must, Can’t…”

We say, “What would happen if…? What causes or prevents…?”

They say, “All Recruiters are self-serving.” (universals)

We say, “All recruiters are self serving?”

Deal with Objections, and then move on…

Remember again the 4% rule that governs our success. 96% of the companies out there simply don’t need us. They can be nice to us. They can be responsive to us. They can even give us Job Orders and clear our fees, but they lack what we must have. They lack real URGENCY. And so, we need to thank these employers (i.e., ‘time wasters’), wish them the best, and move on.

In the immortal words of Thomas Edison, when asked about his seemingly futile quest to invent the light bulb,

“…I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

Similarly, when we are making all of these marketing calls, we are doing what Edison was doing. We are finding the companies who don’t need our services. In so doing, we are finding the other companies who desperately need us, and those are the ones that will make us rich.

One final piece of advice — this one from my favorite CFO, Ron Allen, who said that we always want to make sure that we are speaking with someone who can say YES and NO; too often we try to sell to those who can only say NO and because of that, we get a NO.

Objections come in many shapes and sizes. In my Quick Resource Guide, I enumerate seventeen different company objections and responses and four candidate objections and responses.

Here are some of the favorite responses to a couple of common HM objections:

The “No Openings” Objection

“No Openings” is the big one—the easiest way to get us off of the phone. It’s the one we hear with the most regularity.

“Oh, I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I’m a recruiter. I would venture a guess that 90% of the companies I place with don’t have openings when I call, but do want to be kept apprised of top-notch talent as that talent surfaces. One of the reasons for my call was to see if you wanted to avail yourself and your company of this unusual service.”

“What kind of person would you like to hear about, should I uncover that person in a subsequent search? Remember, I am a ‘contingency’ recruiter, so that means that it costs you nothing to speak with my candidates. Only if you make them an offer and they accept and they start to work does my service charge come into play.”

“Excellent. I assume no news is good news in that area. To what do you attribute your low turnover? (Answer) That sounds great. Of course, we are not solely in the business of filling openings. The majority of the placements we make and the relationships we have built are based upon a strong ability to locate, qualify, and refer high-performance rarities in our/your niche. We attract and recruit professionals who cost-justify themselves.”

“You are fortunate not to be concerned with an opening right now. On a scale of one to ten, one being the weakest link in your company, where do most of the employees fall? (The HM says a six). With our recruitment and evaluation process, if I could locate a seven or an eight and keep your payroll cost equal to or lower than your six, would you like to meet that person?”

The “Too Expensive” Objection

When the cost of our services comes up, try setting the value of the opening versus our service.

Explain to the HM the following basic sales principle. There are three different methods to estimate the worth of an employee to their company: The Multiple of Compensation Method; The Contribution to Profits Method; and The Cost of Replacement Method (and yes, for more information you can Google all three). This following presentation is based on the first method. The verbiage goes something like this:

“Based on studies conducted by the top business graduate schools in the US, an employee’s value to their company is usually set at five times their salary. So, for instance, if your opening calls for a salary of $50K, then the value that person should bring to your company is $250K per year. My service charge, on the other hand, is just 30% of their realistic first year’s earnings, which, in this case, is $15K. Or, to look at it another way, my fee is merely 6% of this position’s value to your company and that’s only for the 1st year! You benefit from the $250K value year after year after year. My fee is paid only once. When you look at our fee structure in this way, we can definitely bring an advantage to your company. Conversely, taking the value of this position at $250K per year, and realizing that there are 2,080 work hours in a year, you are hemorrhaging $120 per hour for each hour that this position remains vacant. Think about it! That’s about $1,000 per workday, $5,000 per workweek, etc. Three weeks with this position open will basically equal my fee, and you’ll still have that vacancy.”

At this point we can go into selling urgency again — that we are paid to circumvent the time factor, etc.

Universal Response to most objections

Here is a universal response that we can use on pretty much every objection that we hear:

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you had a sense of urgency and, as you know, we recruiters are paid to circumvent the time factor. When you say (state the objection) really what you are saying is that you don’t have any urgency and so don’t need my services right now. I completely understand. Should that urgency to fill your vacancy increase over time, please be sure to give me a call. I wish you the best. Goodbye.”

Formula for Objections

1. The first time we hear an objection, we want to by-pass it — never answer it. “Yes, I can see why you might feel that way. By the way (go on with our presentation)…”
2. If the HM brings it up again, that’s when we shut up and listen!!! This may be a condition of working with this client. This may be real.
3. Once we hear them out, we now question the objection. “Just to clarify my thinking, (name), what brought that to your mind at this time?” or, “Just to clarify my thinking, (name), what makes that so critical at this moment?”
4. Answer it fully.
5. Confirm the answer. “That clarifies it completely now, doesn’t it!”
6. Be diplomatic.
7. Don’t ever argue.
8. Don’t try to win; try to help.

If we give up when we face initial resistance without giving the HM the information they need to make an informed hiring decision, then both of us lose out. Always remember that the objective is not to overcome all the objections; the objective is to make the placement.

In the next article of “The Phone Rang…” series, I will cover “My tribute to John Wooden and his Pyramid of Success.” Until then, deal with those objections…

“The Phone Rang…” by Bob Marshall is a series that defines what we, as recruiters, do for a living. This article series ran in The Fordyce Letter over the past year and we are proud to bring you the series online. To subscribe to the print edition of The Fordyce Letter, click here.

A response to the article written last week by Matt Lowney titled “What Drives Me Nuts About Staffing Agencies (and How They Can Work as a Better Partner)”

I am an agency recruiter  — a Managing Director for a search firm in New York City. I have nearly twenty years of financial services executive search and consulting experience. However, I have previously worked in-house for a large investment bank managing a team of recruiters. I take exception to some of the content of Matt’s article, as I’m sure you do if you’ve read it. There are some truths but there are also some points that demonstrate a lack of compromise, responsibility, and professional courtesy on the corporate side of the table.

While I understand that there is a need for give-and-take in the agency-corporate relationship, I feel compelled to address Matt’s points on the canned pitches he receives from agency recruiters, in order to provide an opposing viewpoint for our corporate brethren to consider when complaining about the ‘relationships’ they have with us agency folk.

Part one today will address each pitch outlined in the original article, and Part two will address the follow-up items suggested to fix the broken relationship. My plan is to show where we, as agency recruiters, need to own our own faults, but also point out Corporate’s role in the difficulties that are often experienced when working with one another.

“We’re different.”

From my HR time, I know this is true – most recruiters who have called me have said this and expect no further explanation to be necessary (to give some perspective, at one point I was running North American recruiting at a large investment bank, and we had “narrowed down” the list to 139 agencies, many of whom would call the recruiters they weren’t working with because they were “approved” – those calls came to me).  A very slim minority ever scratch the surface of showing how.

Back on the search side of the fence, I used my HR experience to adapt accordingly. My approach was to actually show our difference with a real-life example.  During one pitch, I sat with the head of recruiting at another large investment bank (well, it was large at one point…before their 30 times leverage turned against them, necessitating their rescue by another, larger investment bank in the late 2000’s), having been able to leverage my other relationships in the firm, and proceeded to tell him we were just like a great many other agencies, except in the area of candidate presentation.  I then offered to show him a single candidate presentation, which I immediately emailed from my phone, and he was blown away.

Of course, as I mentioned, they imploded.  And even though he said, “This is the most impressive candidate presentation I’ve ever seen from a contingent firm,” I still didn’t get any additional business.

Yeah, we’re mostly the same.  But even if we can show you that we really are different/better/whatever, is that going to win your business?  Are you even going to listen to the pitch?  I ran recruiting in NYC for producing financial advisors for one of the world’s largest brokerage firms, ran North American recruiting for another large global investment bank, spent years in Wall Street operations, got quoted in more industry trade rags than you can shake a stick at, and even when referred in by name directly by the CFO to the head of HR, got passed to a non-titled HR staff member who said, before I even had a chance to speak, “I know your firm is different.  We’ll keep you in mind when we open up the approved list.”  I mentioned that we were already on the list – andI can tell you it is not at all difficult to add a firm – and got a vacant “Well you’re not on it for this division.  We’ll be in touch.”

Really?  Now I know what a C-list extra feels like after a failed audition.

Ask me what I know about your business, or the competitive landscape for your business, or my experience in your business – or just ask me “How?” if I cave in to peer pressure and proceed to tell you “We’re different.”  Over the 50 calls you’ll get this week, this question alone will point out who may be an actual value-add in 20 seconds or less; that’s about a 15-minute investment a week.  Ask it enough times, and you’ll start getting fewer calls over time, while identifying firms that can provide real insight and actionable information – in short, value.

You know how I know this to be true?  Because with a staff 30 people reporting to me and accountability for filling a large investment bank’s entire slate of openings in North America, I found the 15 minutes a week to do it myself.  End result: the fly-by-night guys stopped calling, the value-added firms were identified and added to our approved list, and a few of them were even successful.

“We build relationships.”

I have no idea what this even means as a point of selling a service.  It’s like selling cars and saying, “They move.”

Notwithstanding that it’s amateurish to offer this, of course we build some kind of relationship…but what kind are you going to let us build?  The kind where we send you a lot of resumes for every position, and they all fit, and all you have to do is tell your coordinator to draft an offer letter?  The kind where you never have to answer any questions about the position/manager/compensation?  The kind where, if it’s apparent that I know more about the industry than you do, you needn’t worry about facilitating a conversation with the hiring manager?

I get it – you’re busy.  You have 50 openings – a realistic number – and all your hiring managers (let’s say those 50 open requisitions represent 30 hiring managers) call you all the time for updates.  Then you have 50 firms you actually work with – because they all have different strengths – all trying to call you.  And another 50 a week cold-calling you.  Plus every candidate you’ve ever interviewed in the last 6 months trying to “touch base” – all the while having to provide detailed metrics internally on the number of candidates you’ve interviewed, the number submitted to each position, any diversity information (which no search firm in North America tracks unless they’re doing temp), internal meetings, etc.  It’s a 50-hour work week if you’re lucky.  No, most of us won’t trade places with you unless we’re burnt out or offered a high rate consulting position.  And no, most of the managers you work with aren’t going to call you and say “Awesome job!” – they’re going to call you with “What the hell are you doing about my open reqs?”

However, this is something most third party recruiters just don’t get – there isn’t enough time to devote per requisition and make it through the week with any semblance of sanity – that’s why the whole “Just use everyone and let the performers shine” thought process every third party recruiter hopes for doesn’t work in real life any better than “We build relationships” does as a pitch.

The flip side is that, because the internal recruiting process is more often misfiring than not, some outside help is necessary from people who can – argh! – build relationships with the core group of professionals (read “passive candidates”) either directly in a hiring manager’s area or in areas that easily network into that hiring manager’s area.  You think our fees are that easy to earn?  OK – go earn some.

But yes, we recruiters all – ALL – suffer from megalomania coupled with an inferiority complex.  We love to tell you how great we are, how necessary we are, how important we are…while we typically disavow the real truths:  our product is people, we’re not humanity’s gift to hiring managers and any client can pretty much take or leave us whenever they want.

That’s probably why we focus on the relationship thing – because you don’t need to.  And therefore, many times you don’t.

Doesn’t matter what we did before – young guns will still be asked by a smiling face for a salary survey from a client they’ve never made a placement with, terms will change on converted temps and total compensation-based fees, RFPs will still need to be filled out when your third party outsourcer comes in and we’ll still have to anonymously upload resumes to Taleo, only to find out that you “already have” a candidate who sold his house and changed jobs in the 3 years since you first got the resume (without candidate permission) from another recruiter who flooded the database.  And even if that candidate is perfect, you probably still won’t call him…there’s just no time in the day to do it.

Sure, we build relationships.  Mostly dysfunctional.  But we keep trying anyway. It’s our job.

“We have a proprietary database.”

Yes, this is a joke.  But it pales in comparison to the “proprietary database” you in HR have – the one with all the candidates from all the recruiters you’ve worked with.  The one that’s “yours” after 3 months, or 6 months, or 9 months or a year – whatever time period it is that lets you take our work.

Are you able to actually get what you want out of it?

Agency recruiters: raise your hand if someone in your database ever got placed by a competitor at a client you were working with on a job that had been listed by you.

And RPO guys – raise your hand if your firm ALSO has a search capability.  Because the actual truth of the matter is that those resumes we’re sending through your interface aren’t firewalled from the search guys – I’ve seen this first-hand while the president of the company swore to a client’s General Counsel that the information was segregated.

Now HR – raise your hand if a significant portion of your hires (more than, say, 1/3) come from your internal database.

I see a big difference in the number of hands raised.  Maybe the “proprietary database” line is amateurish…but there’s some truth to it.

I think “proprietary network” is probably more accurate.  That, Mr. or Ms. Internal Recruiter, is what we have that you don’t. If you can’t find the candidates in your own database, then you have bigger problems than to poke fun at our “proprietary database…”

…like filling your open requisitions. We can help you with that — if you’re willing to give us a fair shake.

Stay tuned for Part 2…

image source: Simone Lovati

Community as an aspect of our daily lives – not the television show – has become another buzzword. Many of us crave community, be it a gated community or online community. But what is a community? When you experience community you know you have it and many times it isn’t even labeled a community.

Why are we part of communities? There are many intrinsic values that are associated with being part of a community. While we sometimes think we are best alone, it is when we are part of a community that we truly shine. A community allows us to share common concerns and challenges, shouldering similar burdens. Communities rally around causes or threats; you just have to look at any of the recent disasters to see people pulling together. I live in the Washington, D.C. area – and recently we’ve been no strangers to natural disasters. After we lost power due to ______________ (fill in the blank: earthquake; flood, hurricane – we’ve had it all recently!) our community was enriched as everyone was talking face-to-face since they weren’t sitting in front of some form of an electronic box for a change.

A key component of the community experience is time. I know I am part of a community when I go to my farmers market and can say hello to many community members. My purpose in going to the farmers market is to buy my weekly groceries, but more importantly to feel part of something. My returned value is the great food and the camaraderie I experience being with like-minded individuals. The community for me was built over 10 years of my participation in it.

Community is an experience, and contrary to the stock valuation of companies who feel that “community” has monetary value, the community “experience” is the true value of the community.

What, you may ask, is the value of community in our line of work? After all, aren’t a lot of us competing against one another for similar (or sometimes the same) clients? Let’s take a look, shall we…

Defining Community

All communities have some similar key components:

• Purpose: Simple or magnanimous – saving life on earth or coffee talk for recruiters.
• Resources: Having resources or tools that the community participants can use together or individually is important. A challenge with some community platforms, such as Facebook, is that the tools and resources change frequently. Is this serving the platform or the community?
• Support: Key personnel (paid or volunteer). Leaders, influencers, evangelists, and worker bees. Some folks can have multiple roles. You need a variety of voices in the community; after all, it is a community and not a monarchy.
• Communication: Communities need to communicate but there is no one “silver bullet” communication channel. If you are a community organizer, you will need all forms as everyone communicates very differently – tweets, posts, email, cell phone, text, chat, and face-to-face.

What are some ways in which recruiting communities deliver these components to members?

Serving Needs of Members

Communities serve particular needs – the early settlers had communities because there was protection in numbers and different services were needed to keep the community going; exchanging of values, goods, and services to keep the community alive, vibrant, and growing.

Communities are created to serve one or a small number of purposes and structured to support the community and its members. Many communities were started by meeting simple needs. LinkedIn was started as an exchange of start-up contacts in Silicon Valley. Facebook was started for Harvard kids to connect about campus life. Professional communities span the gamut from purely social to purely business with many hovering in the middle.

It has been great watching the rise of recruiter communities as recruiting professionals realize they can make an impact on their profession and their professional development in a communal environment – both online and offline. Many professional groups have laid the groundwork for recruiter and HR community building but the synergy of social media tools combined with passionate individuals has created many new strong communities.

Case Study: recruitDC

As an example, recruitDC was started by a passionate group of recruiting professionals who wanted to address the lack of networking and professional development in the D.C.-area recruiting community.

The driving force behind the success of recruitDC is the enormous need coupled with the opportunity for each member of the community to participate — online and/or offline. This community showcases the understanding that there are other recruiters battling the same challenges, no matter the industry, and that support or skill acquisition is easily attainable through the community. This benefits the individual recruiter who many times will think they are alone or individually challenged with a particular problem, environment, or technology. You can see the relief on many recruiters’ faces attending one of the recruitDC events when they have an “A-ha!” moment brought about from sharing a sticky problem or getting over that particular hurdle that has been holding them back. The community benefits as it becomes a more cohesive unit to share best practices to improve overall recruiting.

The recruitDC community support comes from all forms of social media as well as meeting face-to-face. Leveraging the online network has created new opportunities either through new gigs or sharing best practices, while offline events provide best practice skills training from national leaders as well as the recruiter next door. recruitDC community management is handled through leveraging resources of committee members and making sure that the community needs are being met before any other needs are considered.

Community Killers

Finding “community” is an interesting balance and that many strive for it, but few succeed. Dead giveaway community killers are not supporting the community with resources, not being in the community for the long haul, and allowing others to take advantage rather than add value to the community. For example — the spamming that is often prevalent in LinkedIn groups.

Todd Wilms, SVP Social Media Marketing at SAP gave a great example at the Online Marketing Summit of what many think building a community is. He likened it to starting a family.

You meet someone and you tell them, “I want a big family with lots of kids.” You continue to date and continue to talk about how you want this great big family with lots of kids. You finally get married and start having kids. And you keep talking about how you want more kids, and you have more kids until you become grandparents. You have a family reunion and talk about how great it is to have a large family with lots of kids. You get together to have the family reunion picture, everyone is all lined up with their best clothes out and you step out of the picture. You get in your car, drive away, splash mud on everyone and give a profane gesture as you drive into the sunset saying, “All I wanted was the picture.”

Taking Things Offline…Sort Of

One component that some tend to disagree on is the need for offline interaction. When the dot com era came about, the demise of brick-and-mortar was predicted. Yet in an interesting reversal, new and old brick-and-mortar establishments have popped up; banks now have more retail operations in small, drive-thru locations, coffee/bar cafes abound, and everywhere you go wi-fi is available so you can be both online and offline in the same place.

While we tend to say we don’t want to be together, we actually do. Even if it is to just sit together in the same coffee shop and ignore each other or pass each other in the mob at the shopping mall, offline face-to-face interactions are key to sustain any community. Just look at the surge of Tweetup, Meetups, and Mashups. While some conferences may be on the decline there are a variety of reasons for this, including travel costs, changing attitudes, job changes, or the right content not being offered – yet we still want to be together offline, especially if we have established an online connection first.

Community Sustainability

People believe that a community can be built on the fly, go viral, and become profitable. It is too much in our culture to monetize relationships where we say “Okay, I have built this, they have come, now how can I sit back, and become rich.” All communities will hit a sustainability rough patch where they will need to make adjustments and persevere with the community feedback. This is where the rubber meets the road – how to keep the community alive, vibrant and sustainable.

Building a community for a talent pipeline is an interesting notion. The thought process is that you build a talent community and you won’t have to “recruit.” People will just come to you and you will save big bucks by not needing to purchase job board access, advertising and/or management systems. However, communities require resources and time to become sustainable — and whose role is this in a talent community? It may be the recruiter’s and the company but many times communities self select their leaders. Social media has made it very easy to launch an uprising and job seekers may launch a coup d’état if you are not providing the right resources or value exchange for your talent community.

As Todd shared in his presentation, communities cost resources to build and maintain. Putting up a Facebook page or building a LinkedIn group is not necessarily building a community. It is ad space or a place for news sharing. Follow the good rules of community building that many folks have done and be in it for the long haul. And remember to always add value – your ROI will be much greater when you give first!

What are some of the recruiting communities to which you belong, and why? Share in the comments below.

To commemorate the fifth anniversary of my career in recruiting which recently passed, I have shared with you over the past several weeks the five biggest learning lessons I’ve experienced thus far during my time at the Aureus Group. Last week, I shared the story of how I forgot about the relationships that really matter, and how that cost me countless placements. This week, I bring you….

#1 – Story of Losing Faith in an Old Customer

It never fails. Every single time I talk to a prospective member of our esteemed recruitment team here at Aureus Group, I am asked the same question.

“What does it take to be successful at recruiting?”

I have fumbled, mumbled, rambled, and stuttered senseless responses to that questions dozens of times. Andrew, my current recruiting partner and teammate, makes good fun of me because when he asked me this question during his interview, I actually told him, “I have no idea.”

Sorry Andrew, let’s just assume I was having a bad day. After all, when have I ever not had an opinion about anything?

Bottom line, it’s a tough question for me to answer, as you could reach for dozens of legitimate answers that make sense and can be proved true on some level. That being said, there is one possession that I now believe to be of greater value than any other; and It was my lack of this that led to my biggest mistake in five years as a recruiter. It is the virtue of persistence.

We’ve all seen one of those semi-lame motivational posters. You know, there’s the one with the J.R.R. Tolkien quote and the footprints in the sand. Persistence…..”Little by little, one travels far.” Leave it to the creator of “Middle-Earth” to dispense profound wisdom for our usage. He is right though. Persistence=very good.

In our business one must be judicious as to not let persistence become stalking, but there is no real way to teach the difference. If you don’t know it, you are probably a stalker. We all must toe that line in order to be remembered.  If the juice is worth the squeeze, eventually the chase will be rewarded.

This all seems obvious enough though. When has “not giving up” ever failed anyone? Criminals, and miscreants aside, likely nobody. Which is why I always cringe in rehashing my “not so great” moment in giving up on an old key account.

Late in my second year of recruiting I came to a crossroads, though I didn’t really know it at the time, with a former client of ours. I had been calling on this business since I started and had literally nothing to show for it but some good phone time. With a unified front, this organization had denied all my advances to penetrate their defenses. Calling on no less than a dozen hiring managers for nearly two years had amounted to nothing. Nada. Nil. Resigned to defeat I gradually stopped calling entirely.

Several months later, a call came in from the HR Manager of this former client. They needed a payroll manager. Finally! At last, my hard work is going to be rewarded! This former client was now going to be a current client once again! The only problem was that the call was not for me. It was for my teammate. The one that had been calling on this client before me. You see, once I stopped calling this particular hiring manager I was easily forgotten. Meanwhile, my teammate smartly picked up the ball that I had dropped and kept the relationship warm.

The client gave my teammate an order for a payroll manager and we successfully placed not one, but two payroll managers. I watched idly by as this happened, burning inside that I had not stuck with this client. I even had some displaced anger toward my teammate that really had no merit at all. It was not her fault that she did her job and I didn’t. This all occurred at a time when I was teetering on the edge of success and failure in this business, and this was a move in the wrong direction for me.

This situation resulted in plenty of internal thought about whether or not I had what it took to be successful in this business. Gradually, I began to own my mistake a bit more, at least to the point where I realized that I controlled what happened to me. Simply put, I lost faith that the calls I was making were moving the needle towards something positive.

Later that same year, my teammate went on to make two more, higher level placements at this company. We had billed them almost $100k and I was not a part of that at all. Perhaps I was never meant to get those placements and my teammate was. Perhaps this client simply worked better with her and I was not going to convert with these hiring managers anyway. Any of those possible realities are tough pills to swallow, but what hurts the most is that I will never really know. I didn’t stick around long enough with them to find out.

As much as I was happy for my teammate to convert on the placements, I was upset that it was not me. My competitive nature would not allow any other emotion to prevail.

On the outside, I know I have certainly made mistakes that have had larger and more negative ripple effects. After all, my team made the placements in this case. I was the only person affected negatively. I value teamwork and a “sum of all parts” ideology very much, but you must convert on your own opportunities to be successful in this business. I preach to the newbies in our office that “controlling the controllables” is paramount. Have a plan, put forth good effort, have strong ethics, have good follow-through, and you are likely to be good at this. Add in some natural ability to create real rapport and you can be great. Within that is the virtue of persistence. The road in recruiting is not paved in gold, and even within the most successful times we are bound to encounter great challenges to our faith and resolve to get the job done right. The only way through that is by pressing on.

As a matter of poetic justice, this client is now under my supervision once again, and we have not billed them since I took over. One thing I know for certain is that I will keep calling this time around. Additionally, I have an answer locked and loaded for every time I get the question of, “What does it take to be successful at recruiting?”

In summary, here are lessons I learned from mistake #1:

• Persistence in combination with solid ethics is the greatest determinant to success in our business, and maybe any other as well
• Never stop calling on past clients unless they go out of business. Even if you are not getting job orders, those relationships will matter at some point for you.
• Finally, know the difference between persistence and stalking. But if you must, err on the side of stalking. Just not the creepy kind.

Here is a recap of this very humbling Top 5:

#5 – Story of the “One Year Search”

#4 – Story of the Email that Got Me Fired

#3 – Story of the Botched Salary Negotiation

#2 – Story of Forgetting about the Relationships that Really Matter

#1 – Story of Losing Faith in an Old Customer

This list is bound to look different a year from now as I will continue to forge boldly ahead into new missteps. I pray my mistakes continue to be vastly outnumbered by proper execution of my job. I hope that this mini-series has helped you to avoid some pitfalls in our profession that are all too common.

The Recruiter Chronicles will return shortly with perspectives from two “Million Dollar Producers” that you will not want to miss.  Stay tuned…

image source: Zach Klein