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The Fordyce Letter

Straight Talk for the Recruiting Profession


Articles tagged 'clientmanagement'

Jeff's On Call!

Unplacement Liability and the Case of the Renegade Recruiter

by 2 days ago


JeffOnCall_new

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for the great job you are doing in writing the Jeff’s On Call! column.

I have the following problem: A headhunter put me in contact with a firm I suggested to him, and after a couple of rounds of interviews I received an indicative offer.

In the meantime, the client’s Executive Committee voted against paying this particular fee. The client claims that he told the recruiter from the beginning that there might be a difficulty in getting this fee paid as they usually only pay for headhunting partner-level hires.

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Ask Barb

What Can I Do About Clients That Take Too Long Making a Decision?

by 10 days ago


Ask Barb

Dear Barb:

Loved your programs at the NAPS conference, I’ve implemented two of your ideas already with great results. I’m having an issue with clients dragging their feet during the interview process. When they give me the order they act like they want to hire immediately and then it’s as if they have all the time in the world.

This has resulted in me losing several candidates that I felt were very talented. How do you force the issue with clients who don’t understand the value of making decisions faster? When I press them, they stop returning my calls.  Do I just stop doing business with clients who can’t seem to make timely hiring decisions?

Catherine M.

Milwaukee, WI

Dear Catherine:

There are several reasons why clients don’t make decisions. These include:

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Closing, How-To

30 Client Questions That Will Save You Time and Make You Money

by 3 weeks ago


Question man cartoon - freedigital

Just like a golfer tees up the ball to optimize their drive for distance and accuracy, a Recruiter needs to prepare thoroughly before embarking on a candidate search, to maximize the chances for a successful outcome.

Proper qualification of a new requirement or job order is both a critical part of the recruiting process and great opportunity to further cement the relationship with your client. I’ve seen too many recruiters scurry off at the sniff of a new job order and start blasting away without having much of a clue as to the nature of the requirement or their chances of success.

I have worked with a multitude of recruiters and account managers in my 20 years in the industry in the UK and the USA. Most recently, I was the managing director of Kforce’s Silicon Valley Technology Practice.

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Ask Barb, Relationships

Everyone’s A Vendor; Become An Adviser

by on Mar. 13, 2013


Ask Barb

Dear Barb:

We work so hard to surface qualified candidates but it seems our clients are screening out over 50% of who we present. When we send resumes over, often, they just send us an email to let us know who they want to interview, so we don’t have a chance to ask why the others were screened out. I think all the candidates we send over are high quality. How do we get them to realize they are passing up some candidates they would possibly hire?

Susan M., Tulsa, OK

Dear Susan:

You are currently being treated like a vendor, probably one of several firms being used by this client to find talent. You need to really work on building a relationship with this client, which will never be accomplished by email alone.

When you are presenting candidates to your clients your goal is to book 100% of the candidates you present. A resume can’t possibly sell your candidate as effectively as you could verbally. You are not giving yourself a chance to overcome any objections or sell your candidate’s accomplishments.

Your client will only change the way you are currently doing business together when they see how it can benefit them. It’s all about them, not you. Inform them that it is your goal to elevate the working relationship from vendor to trusted advisor. One way you can do that is by attaining interviewing times up front, and only booking your best candidates. Show them the benefit in back-filling any candidates who are screened out so you can attempt to have two or three candidates going into the final interview process.

If they do not agree at first, send a fact sheet filled with the accomplishments of each candidate and the impact of those accomplishments on past employers, in addition to the resume. It often takes several steps to earn trusted adviser status.

Barbara J. Bruno, CPC, CTS

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For Managers, The Business of Recruiting

Here’s Why the World Needs Recruiters

by on Mar. 12, 2013


Adrian Kinnersley

Recruitment can mean different things to different people. There is a plethora of different business models within the staffing industry, so I thought it might be a good idea to define what I believe good recruitment is. This will perhaps put into context why I don’t believe that  LinkedIn — or for that matter any other web-based product — can ever replace the service we provide.

Talent Is Not an Online Commodity

Getting the best possible talent to join your company is not the same as purchasing a product online. Talent has opinions, options, and time constraints. Talent can be unpredictable, irrational, high maintenance, and uncommunicative. A product you buy online will always show up if you have paid the appropriate price and followed the correct purchasing process. A product won’t have any thoughts or feelings that it wants to discuss with a third party. It won’t have any opinions on how well you selected it. It won’t wait for a better company to buy it if it doesn’t like your communication style or your company values. A product won’t consult with family members, professional acquaintances, and even someone it met on the train to provide fresh objections about why they aren’t going to show up at your company.

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Ask Barb

When Disaster Strikes, Strike Out In Person

by on Mar. 6, 2013


Ask Barb

Dear Barb:

We were working on a confidential position to replace a company’s receptionist. When our candidate arrived, she announced to the receptionist being replaced that she was there to apply for the receptionist position. That is when everything went south.

This is one of our best clients. Now he won’t even talk to me. We specialize in IT and have placed five permanents and over 20 contractors with them this year. We took this receptionist job just to help them out. They also cancelled the contracts we were trying to fill. They have told five of our contractors that their contracts are ending at the end of the week instead of three months from now. I’ve sent at least five emails, with no response. I then left a couple of voicemails, and again no response. His assistant called me to cancel our open contracts.

We told our candidate this was a confidential opening, not sure of what more we could have done. You can’t control what your candidates say. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Devastated in Dallas

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Ask Barb

How To Get Clients to Make Faster Decisions So You Don’t Lose Candidates

by on Feb. 27, 2013


Ask Barb

Dear Barb:

How do you force your clients to make decisions faster? I just lost two candidates who had completed final interviews because my client didn’t make a decision. Now I’m back to square one after working on this for six weeks. Don’t they realize it’s not easy for us to find these candidates?

Tim M., Alpharetta, GA

Dear Tim:

You can’t force your clients to do anything. At best, when you provide written expectations to them, you are showing them what they can expect of you. You then show them what you need from them if you are going to succeed in attracting the top talent they want to hire, always stressing the benefits to them.

Time always kills deals, but delays are often caused by one of the following:

  • Another issue at work is now their top priority, not this hire.
  • Your candidates are okay but they are still interviewing others.
  • Their target date to fill is a different time frame than yours.
  • This final person wants additional credentials not listed on your job order.
  • Additional referrals of candidates have delayed the process.

You can avoid most of these by doing the following when you write an order:

  1. Obtain a specific target date to hire.
  2. Email a copy of your job order to every person in the interviewing process to get their approval; 50% of the time our clients make changes, often, major ones.
  3. Back fill candidates that are eliminated, and keep working the search until you close the placement.

If the position was not difficult to fill, they would not need to utilize your services. You will close more deals if you develop strong relationships with your clients based on trust. When you send in a rock star, it’s interesting how often the interview process is actually shorter than anticipated. Focus on what you can do differently to alleviate this problem in the future. If you had continued to work this search, you would not be starting from scratch; you would have additional candidates to submit.

Barbara J. Bruno, CPC, CTS

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Relationships

The 5 Cs of Client Monogamy

by on Feb. 26, 2013


5 cs honn article

I was recently reading Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman and the Race to Own Las Vegas by Christina Binkley. A quote in the book sparked this article: Gary Loveman, the president and CEO of Caesars Entertainment Corporation (formerly Harrah’s Entertainment), said, “I’m in the business of fostering customer monogamy.”

Loveman, a former Harvard Business School professor before joining Harrah’s Entertainment, noted that Harrah’s biggest weakness was “lack of customer loyalty.” Loveman and his team were instrumental in creating the company’s Total Rewards® Program that was modeled on credit card loyalty programs, which became a major impetus in developing “customer monogamy” for the company’s properties across the United States.

It occurred to me that this idea applies to client retention. I thought hard about the manner in which I’ve been successful at keeping my best clients happy and earning repeat business – and fees. That lead to my Five C’s of Client Monogamy.

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Closing, Interviews

The Parable of the Two Principals: A Tale to Share With Clients

by on Feb. 14, 2013


Lone woman at conf table - freedigital

Lone woman at conf table - freedigitalShe’d found her calling as a teacher of kids with special needs. She loved her job, and enjoyed working for the person who’d graciously given her a start. She was constantly engaged, challenged, and acclaimed in this role.

Her commute to work, however, was two hours roundtrip; 10 hours a week, 40 hours a month in freeway traffic. For personal, economic and safety reasons, working closer to home made sense if she could find an equally rewarding position, and boss. After much encouragement from friends and family, my daughter Ryan reluctantly decided to explore alternative job options.

Ryan attended a district?wide job fair for the school system within her home community. She quickly went through second and third interviews, and was invited for final interviews for open positions at two nearby, high?quality schools.

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Relationships

Trust Is the Foundation For Every Good Relationship

by on Jan. 31, 2013


fordyce-default

handshakeThere is often a lot of confusion as to who exactly the headhunter represents. Are they watching out for the best interest of the candidate? Are they watching out for the best interest of the company? Will they negotiate the highest salary for the candidate? Will they do everything they can to save the company as much money as possible?

The short answer is, both. A good headhunter is not looking for a quick buck. They understand that this industry revolves around relationships. These relationships, both with the company and the candidate, must be built on trust. As almost anyone will tell you, trust is earned, not given.

Building Trust With The Candidate

In order to truly build trust with a candidate, you need to be honest with the candidate. That honesty needs to go both ways. The candidate, in turn, will need to reciprocate the honesty. What is he/she looking for in their job search? What compensation package are they targeting? What are the key criteria they search for in a new job?

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