12 massive blunders most recruiters are making right now

Being a recruiter has always been a tough gig. But probably never as tough as right now. (Clue: Not because the market is against us, because mostly, it’s not)

It’s tough because the ‘rules’ are changing. The environment is shifting. Our real ‘competitor’ is not who it was and who many think it still is. (Clue: It’s your clients, and maybe your job-board)

Many recruiters are adapting and re-skilling. Most are not.

I am going to talk about this at length in my upcoming 9 city speaking tour of Australia and NZ.

But for now, a quick check list. Is this you?

• You rely on job-boards for your candidates. You know they are becoming increasingly ineffective. You know, deep down, that the massive response of inappropriate candidates keeps you ‘busy’ which means you won’t have to spend as much time making fruitless cold-calls. In your gut you know you need different candidate tactics. But you run job-board ads, over and over and over…

• You still treat candidates with disdain. Oh, you will deny that. But ask them. Especially candidates who have not been successful. Calls not returned, expectations mismanaged. Disrespectful tone and interaction.

• You have not built a digital brand. In fact, deep down, you think the whole concept a bit of a joke. You don’t blog, you don’t tweet, you don’t use status updates on LinkedIn. You distribute no content at all in fact. You are happy to spam resumes all over town, sure. But content marketing strategy? What’s that? ‘I am a recruiter mate, not a marketer!’ (Clue: If you are a recruiter – you are a marketer!)

• You take jobs in competition. Almost all of them. You don’t try to sell exclusivity, and you don’t prioritise the jobs that are fillable. So you work hard. But you work stupid. And you fill 1 job out of 5. At best.

• You don’t qualify your job orders. You don’t even really know what I just said. Filling a job does not start with finding candidates. It starts with taking a superbly qualified job-order. That has never changed, and never will.

• You don’t discriminate with your candidates. Yes, that’s the word I used. Discriminate. You must. Obviously not on the basis on creed, colour, ethnicity, or any other irrelevant, illegal or immoral prejudice. No, you need to discriminate on the basis of the answer to one golden question. Is this candidate placeable? (Clue: A placeable candidate is one who will GET an offer, and likely ACCEPT that offer. Both)

• You seldom, if ever, see your clients face to face. Some of you don’t even bother to see your candidates IRL. You are becoming transactional resume-flickers and your value is diminishing as fast as my bottle of Shiraz on a Friday night (Clue: That is fast.)

• You don’t use the phone enough. Except to Text, Tinder and Tag, obviously. (Clue: I am talking about the telephone function of your phone. Try and find it now)

• You think you are a productive genius multi-tasker. In fact your productivity is low because multi-tasking is a big fat fallacy. You feel super-busy, but you achieve little and make mistakes. You need to allocate time to dollar-productive activities and see them through, unless an emergency arises.

• You make assumptions. You interrupt candidates because you ‘know what they want’. You assume your client ‘deals only with you’, and that is just the beginning.

• You do most of the talking in a sales visit or client meeting. Your listening skills are as bad as mine. Maybe worse (Clue: that’s bad!)

• Your pro-active candidate acquisition tactics are non-existent. You can’t even search LinkedIn properly, let alone construct a Boolean search string, or a social search methodology.

Score yourself on this. Be honest. What are you guilty of?

6 out of 12?

10 out of 12?

That’s bad news. Very bad. But don’t panic. You can re-boot and update. If you have the guts.

Or, don’t.

And die like the ‘Yesterdays Hero’ you are.

Figuratively speaking of course.

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Tips, tool, tactics to bill 25% more!  350 recruiters have signed-up to this already! Massive Speaking Tour! S.P.R.I.N.T. Savage Recruiter Masterclass. Nine cities. Australia and New Zealand.  Full details.

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