Tips for a Rookie Recruiter

Tips on entering the challenging world as a recruitment consultant

So you have decided to join the wonderful world of recruitment. You probably have the dollar signs flashing in front of you and you anticipate earning the big bucks straight away. Well you will earn the dollars if you build your desk by earning a reputation for being an ethical and respected consultant.

Recruitment is a people business. As recruiters we are dealing with people’s lives, helping them to make important career choices. We are also responsible for preventing our clients from making costly hiring mistakes. I don’t know about you but when I get up in the morning I want to be excited about going to work. I want to love my job so much that it is just an extension of a fun filled and exciting life. I want my candidate’s to feel the same thing when I place them in a job.

Recruitment is a great career choice,however many have a reputation of being ‘cowboys’ and many burn out very quickly. Here are my tips on building your recruitment career.

Building a Desk

No doubt you have started your job with a good agency who will give you some induction into the business. You will be taught the process of using the recruitment database, keeping records, invoicing your clients, how to place adverts, given your KPI’s (which will be pretty high) and all the normal day to day operations of the company.

Now what? How do you start a cold desk? You have no clients nor candidates. If you are lucky your manager may hand you some leads and the telephone and tell you to get making those calls. You start making calls to prospects only to find that most have been putting up with cold calls from other recruiters all day, and quite frankly they are sick of it.

OK maybe you can chase some adverts online and ring up the hiring manager, if you can find out who that is. You get through and then what? You don’t have any candidates to offer so you might ask them if they need help with this role and see if they say yes. Most likely they will say no. That’s just spinning the wheels and a waste of time. Bad Practice is to see an advert and then place your own one with a few changes hoping to get candidates to put forward. This is unethical and should not be practised and helps give a bad reputation to the recruitment industry.

The best approach is to carefully plan your business development and start your pipeline. You should have a target market and a niche. Have a strategy, set yourself goals and keep to them.

Clients

How do you get clients? It’s a mixture of cold calling, networking, personal marketing and building a reputation of someone who has the client’s best interest at heart. Needless to say, if you are making a cold call, ensure you have done some research on the prospect prior to the call. Remember you only have a fraction of time to get the prospect’s attention so make it all about them, not you.

Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. I freely admit cold calling is not my strength but boy I’m good at networking and forming relationships. Once I have met someone I don’t hesitate to pick up the phone. Other people are fantastic at cold calling. So my advice is play up your strengths and don’t fret about your weaknesses.

If you want to keep your clients and get referrals from them, remember that your customer service has to be paramount! Be available, get back to them quickly, fix their problems as soon as you can and if you have to make a replacement put as much effort into it, or more, as you did when you were originally paid for it….however, you will be such a good recruiter that you won’t have to make replacements right?

Candidates

Candidates are your gold! Remember that many candidates turn into advocates for you and refer other candidates and clients. Some even become clients. I have had candidates who I have worked with and not been able to place, still come back to me as a client.

Respect your candidates, always take their calls, never keep them waiting for interviews, get back to them and keep in touch. It’s easy to forget to make regular contact with candidates as we see so many of them. My trick is I have an excel spreadsheet on my desktop with different worksheets for different industries. Each worksheet has a silo and I keep the names of my most current candidates in that spreadsheet with a hyperlink to the CV which I have filed in a similar way. Of course this does not replace your company CRM.

What you should be reading

I actually don’t have a television because I’d rather read a book that helps me in my professional and personal development. There are some fantastic books on the EQ interview, interviewing techniques, sales, and entrepreneurship. I believe it is essential for recruiters to always be finding ways to improve themselves. A recruiter’s desk is like having your own business, so run it like your own business.

Interview techniques

I am constantly told by my candidates that I am a great interviewer. Not trying to blow my own trumpet here, but it’s the truth. I have blogged about this on another hub but mainly I make sure the candidate is relaxed and we are both having a chat about THEIR career. I never keep them waiting, I am always friendly no matter how I feel inside, I always make sure I am well presented, I laugh, smile and go out of my way to take away any nervousness the candidate may have.

Without fail I have studied their CV beforehand and I have come prepared with questions printed out with room for me to write. The questions relate to the job and also part of the candidate’s CV.

Because I am trained in personality profiling I know in which ‘personality’ I should be talking to them. This helps them to feel more comfortable with me. For example, I am an outrageous extrovert, quite loud and always laughing, however, this could be quite daunting if my candidate is an introvert and just wants a serious conversation. I will adapt to fit in with the candidate even if it means changing my own personality for a short time.

At the end I always ask for feedback on the True Colours Recruitment experience and thank the candidate.

99.5% of the time I know if I have brought the candidate in I am going to put them forward. On the very rare occasion that I am not going to I will tell them on the spot. It’s always better to be upfront and not give any false hope.

Stay in touch with candidates as much as you can and try to always LINKEDIN with them.

Networking

If you are in recruitment and you are not out networking constantly then maybe you should leave the industry. Seriously, your networks and relationships are the most important aspect of your recruitment life. You want to know everybody in town. I can honestly say wherever I turn up at an event, I will know at least one person, and Sydney’s a big place.

I cringe when I look back years ago when I first got into sales. I used to work the room like a tornado, trying to give and collect cards from as many people as I could. These days of course I realise it is about having interesting conversations with just a few new people. The conversation should always be about the other person. Ask them lots of questions, and if you are a really good salesperson you should be able to dig out any pain that may be relevant to what you can offer as a solution. Never underestimate any person you speak to, you may not think they can do business with you, however you don’t know who they know or who they are related to.

I always write notes about the conversation I had on the back of their business card.

Then of course the Social Networks like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter I constantly use social networking to advertise positions and find candidates.

Record Keeping

You need to keep accurate records of every call you make to your clients, and to candidates that you are currently working on. Ensure that this is done at the time of the call. Make notes on what was promised and also personal information about your candidates or clients. Birthday’s, hobbies etc. This is a good way to build rapport when you remember something that is important to your client.

It is crucial that you record when you are due to call the client again. Failing to do this will result in you possibly missing a job on. If you promise to do something then make sure you do.

It may take 4-6 calls before the prospect recognises you but your diligence will pay off in the end

Value added Service

So what value added service are you going to offer your clients and candidates? You had better come up with something good if you want to stand out from the rest. In our case we offer training included in the fee.

Presentation

This goes without saying. Recruiters have to look immaculate always! Your personal brand is just as important to your career as that of the company you work for. Be confident, become a good listener, look corporate, speak clearly and always have a smile.

Have Fun

There are times in this job that the pressure becomes overwhelming and you just have to keep your sense of humour. I could write a book about some of my candidate interviews, CV’s and other funny things that have happened. Recruitment is a fantastic career if you have personality, tenacity, guts and the ability to have fun, but it’s not for everyone.