Most people who become recruiters do not last. There are many reasons for that. Poor hiring decisions and inadequate training being high on the list.

But there is another key reason why so few people actually last in the hurly-burly world of agency recruiting.

It’s a frigging hard job!

So I know that sometimes you question why you do it. There are times you hate what you do. There are days you go home feeling deflated, worn-out and frankly, useless.

The world is littered with ‘ex-recruiters’, burnt out, scarred and resentful about their all-too-short recruiting career.

Seriously, the guy who cut my hair last week told me he had ‘been a recruiter once’.

It’s true too that being a recruiter can be the greatest job of all, but even so, to survive you have to know the pitfalls, prepare for them, minimise their impact where you can, and push through the inevitable challenges this job will throw you.

• Recruiting is uniquely tough because it’s the only job that I know where what you are selling can turn around and say ‘no’. Think about it. I sell you my car. You agree to buy the car. I agree to sell the car. We agree a price. The car does not then jump up and say “Hey you know what, I am not going to go with this new guy”. Don’t laugh. That happens to recruiters every day. We do everything right. Take a great job spec. Impress our client. Recruit great talent. Make the match. Manage the process. Architect a fitting deal for all parties. Secure a great offer. Get everything agreed and at the last minute – our product – the candidate – says, “ Nah, I changed my mind, I will stay where I am”. And that is it. All over red rover!

• Recruiting is a killer because for us, it is all or nothing. Sure, a tiny percentage of our work is retained, but mostly recruiting is first prize or nothing. Our business is not like the Olympics where you can pick up a respectable silver or bronze for competing well. For us it’s gold…or its donut! We do all the work, spend huge amounts of time and expertise, and manage the process with skill and diligence. But if our 5 great candidates get pipped by a late runner from another recruiter, or an internal candidate, then it is big fat zero for us. That’s tough. Hard to take. Especially when it happens often. And it does.

• Recruiting grinds you down because you do so much work you don’t get paid for. When you hear the words “I am feeling burnt out” from a recruiter, what that actually means is “I just can’t stand doing so much work for so little return”. Contingent recruiters are lucky to fill one job out of 5 they take, and place one candidate out of 10 they meet. And combined with the ‘all or nothing’ fee model most work on, it means lots and lots of hours for which we don’t get paid, and equally importantly see no tangible success. And success, in the form of happy clients and happy talent, is the bedrock upon which our self-esteem is built. And once that crumbles, it is the beginning of the end.

So what to do?

• Firstly recognise that if you are going to be a recruiter, these challenges come with the job. In the memorable words of my Under 16 rugby coach, ‘Toughen the f*** up’ and prepare yourself for plenty of disappointment.

• Secondly, work hard to mitigate the risk of these things happening to you. Hone your recruitment skills, your talent management skills, and your job qualification ability. Build trusted advisor relationships and work to get exclusivity on orders to increase your job-fill ratios. Great recruiters, who move from transacting to consulting, start to win more than they lose.

• Finally,  never forget that if you choose to be a recruiter, you have made a Faustian bargain. You have chosen a career fraught with pitfalls and sometimes it feels like a living hell, But do it right, and the fun and money we need for a great job is within our grasp, because being a recruiter can really rock too!

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There are only two reasons to come to work.

Fun and money.

And you have to have both. One of them will not be enough. Not if you want to love what you do, that is. Having a job where you get just one or the other, often seduces you into thinking you have found your dream job. But in most cases that dream fades like mirage as you realise a key ingredient of  ‘job love’ is missing.

And for recruiters, where our job is so hard, and the disappointments so many, you simply have to have them both for it all to be worth it.

Fun and money.

But let’s dig into what I mean by ‘fun’ and ‘money’.

At work, ‘fun’ is much more than just having a giggle. Fun means working in a business where you believe in the vision and the ethos. That’s where ‘fun’ begins. To do a challenging job well, every day, you have to be doing something that has meaning to you. Fun on the job means working with people you like and respect. Fun at work includes collaboration, mutual support and a strong bond of shared goals. Fun means winning more than losing, continuous learning, constantly growing as a business person, and doing something you know impacts people in a positive way. That’s fun. And it includes traditional fun too. A workplace where we can have a laugh, where we can socialise easily, enjoy each other’s company and celebrate group and individual success. A job that enhances your self esteem and sense of worth. That is fun.

Is that how it is for you where you work?

If you are going to thrive as a recruiter, indeed in any role, you need to have ‘fun’ the way I define it here.

But what about ‘money’?

I don’t simply mean the amount you get paid, as important as that may be.

I mean working in a business that is financially successful, for a start. If we have a great product or service and deliver it well, we will thrive. And that is where you want to work. Profit is not a dirty word. Profit is like oxygen. We don’t wake up every day with ‘profit’ as our only goal, but like oxygen, we sure notice when it’s not there!

Making money means we can invest in people, learning, marketing and technology. And that is fun! And ‘money’ means getting a fair reward for the effort applied and the result achieved. So a heavy element of reward for result is a good thing. And that means if you are good at your job, you get well rewarded. And financial success is important in only one way. More choices in life. And that leads us back to fun!

So there it is. You can read many books on employee engagement and motivation at work. Put them all aside. You don’t need them to evaluate whether you are in the right job, recruiter or not.

Want to love what you do? Work with the ‘twin sisters of the holy grail’ - Fun and Money

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I love being a recruiter.

Seriously, I think it’s the best job in the world.

Yet 80% of people who enter this industry, fail in the first 2 years, leave, and are never sighted again.

And it’s true, it is tough being a recruiter. And I believe in the modern era it’s getting even harder. During the downturn it got even worse. We all worked harder and harder, and earned less and less.

On top of that, our customers seem to resent us more than ever, as can be seen in my recent blog, ‘God I hate recruiters’.

Ironically there is a fate worse than being amongst the 80% of recruiters who fail. Yes, being an average, mediocre, ploddy recruiter who survives is real purgatory. Why? Because this job is too hard, has too many disappointments, not to be great at it. You have to be a great recruiter to reap the rewards that make it all worthwhile.

So for the top 5%, the cream, recruiting is the coolest job in the world.

Here’s why:

• Recruiting is a win/win/win. Unlike most commercial transactions, recruiting is not a win/lose scenario. If I sell you a car I aim for the highest price, you push for the lowest. One of us will feel we ‘won’, the other a bit despondent that we ‘lost’.  But in the perfect recruitment scenario everybody wins. Happy client, happy candidate, happy you. This is not as trivial as it seems. There is something intensely rewarding about doing a job where everyone is grateful, everyone is excited with the outcome… and then you get paid as well.
• You create great outcomes. Maybe the coolest thing about being a recruiter is that this is a job where you actually make good things happen. The candidate is reluctant to go on an interview, but through your influencing skills they reluctantly go along, do fantastically well, love the job, and get hired! The client won’t see your top talent because of something they spotted in the resume, but you persist, explaining the person is better than the paper, the client relents and your talent gets the job, gets promoted and in time becomes your client!  For me, when I recruited, this was the real buzz. Making things happen. Controlling the process. I would crack open a beer on Friday and reflect. That would NOT have happened if I had not seen the opportunity and influenced the outcome. Beyond cool.
• And of course that leads us to another reason why recruiting rocks. What we do actually matters. I mean it really matters. Recruiters get a horrific rap sometimes, and often it’s deserved but hey, at the end of the day, we find people jobs! And that’s a good thing right? Something to be proud of. It makes an impact. We change people’s lives. We solve companies staffing issues. We help people further their career ambitions. Fantastic!
• One of the beautiful things about our business is that it is so measurable. This does not suit everybody I know, but in recruiting there is nowhere to hide, and I like that. If you have the right temperament, you will thrive in this competitive environment, love the fact that you can measure yourself against your competitors and colleagues, and revel in the transparency of fee-tables and pay-by-results. Truly in our business, you eat what you kill.
• You can own your market. If you have longevity, if you maintain integrity, if you deliver service and outcomes that your customers want… you can elevate yourself to a true trusted advisor, and then recruitment becomes a beautiful, beautiful thing.  All your work is exclusive, all your candidates come via referrals and commendations, clients treat you with respect, seek your advice, bring you into the tent . You actually ‘own’ your patch and that is a wonderful place to be!

Yes it’s true. Recruiting Rocks. When it all boils down, what all of us want from a great job is just two things. Fun & Money. And if you’re a great recruiter you’ll get lots of both. The fun of winning, the fun of finding people jobs, the fun of working in a job that actually counts. And money? I don’t mean how much you earn, although of course that important. I mean working in a job where you get a great return on your efforts. That is where it is at!

So if you are having a down day. Never forget. Fun and money.

Recruitment rocks!

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This post is for anyone who manages people, or who hopes to in the future. It will probably draw some flak too, but that’s because I don’t really believe in generational differences. I think it has been largely hyped and exaggerated. I have plenty of employees at Firebrand who fit into the so-called ‘Gen Y’ age bracket. And I don’t see the negative characteristics often ascribed to this ‘generation’. Mostly, I see hard working, highly focused individuals who want to do well, have fun and make a difference. And many of them have been with us years, defying the job-hopping Gen Y stereotypes.

Often, too much talk of how to ‘manage the generations’ leads to skipping over some of the difficult things that need to be done when managing people. And I reckon those things need to be done no matter who you are dealing with.

One of the ways I define great leadership is that the leader actually cares. Bureaucrats do not make leaders. Administrators don’t make leaders either. But before we go any further on the subject of “caring” for our people, a key word of warning on this.

Unfortunately there is too much hype nowadays about the idea that leaders must show concern for their teams. Apparently you have to give a figurative cuddle of support to ‘Gen Y’ staff on the hour or they will resign and go Llama farming in Peru. Codswallop. You cannot fake the fact that you care about the people in the business. There is nothing worse than a manager returning from the latest interpersonal skills training program with “concern” for others beaming from every orifice. It’s not real and everyone knows it’s not real.

Real leaders don’t need training programmes to convince their staff they care. What’s more, real leaders empathise with the people they lead. By this I mean the leader knows what a recruiter does, knows how hard it is and knows the inevitable peaks and troughs.

I have always found it key to any success I have had as a manager of recruiters, that I have worked a desk myself. I feel the recruiter’s pain to this day. I have had shocking months, offers turned down and phones slammed in my ear.  So I do understand the bruises the job will give you. I also like everyone I work with on an interpersonal level, so I really do care when someone is having a bad month or day.

But some times the empathy you need to have is of the “tough” kind.

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Tough empathy means giving your consultants what they NEED not what they want.

That means often telling people things they don’t want to hear, or setting work practices and goals that at first they may not agree with, or like at all. But that’s OK because tough empathy works – and tough empathy is about what’s needed at a particular point in time, not what’s preferred by the consulting team. After all, the team may want something, or prefer something else, but they don’t after all ultimately carry the responsibility for the business, do they? You do though.

At its best, what tough empathy means, is a balance between respect for the individual and the business imperative to achieve the task at hand.

So it could mean sitting with a recruiter who is failing, but who you know can make it. It will mean putting that person on a rehabilitation plan. It means closely managing activities, imposing time management regimes, setting daily goals, and providing intense coaching. It’s confronting and scary for the consultant. It’s frankly not that much fun for the leader either. Yes it’s tough. But you are doing it because you care about their success and their future – and at a deep level they know that.

Do you see what I am saying here? The recruiter knows you are doing something difficult for you, and difficult for her, because you care about what happens to her.  And the power in that dynamic is almost immeasurable.

Some people think that to be a great leader you have to be liked by all. That could not be more untrue. People in our industry, regardless of  ‘generation’ are not looking for friends when they look to their boss. They are looking for direction, support, honesty and clarity. And even though they may not know it at first, they may be looking for the occasional dose of tough empathy too.

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In just about every country that Firebrand operates, we are finding it difficult to hire great recruiters. We have pretty tightly defined criteria, so I guess that’s not a surprise. However, what is a little unusual so soon after a severe recession, is the evident rush to hire recruiters across the board.

In Australia there is such a shortage of experienced recruiters that one ‘Rec to Rec’ recruiter told me she has over 1200 vacant orders in Sydney alone! In the UK we find that there is strong competition to hire recruiters, and Asia is much the same.

So inevitability, recruitment firms (and corporates too, I imagine) will relax their criteria, maybe train more newbies into the industry, and that is no bad thing.

But…

The biggest cost to every recruitment firm is salaries, and the primary destroyer of profits is under-performing or failed recruiters. That is a fact.

So as the recruitment industry gains momentum, we all have to make sure we hire people who can bill consistently, who can learn, and who fit our culture.

The irony is that our industry is notorious for making bad hires. We don’t train that well either as a rule, and our own staff turnover is often a disgrace. Yet there is another problem, which might at first seem counter-intuitive.

When we make a bad hire, often we are slow to put it right. We hold on to under-performing people for too long.

Now please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t believe in ‘Hire and Fire’. Indeed our mantra at Firebrand is to apply the utmost rigour to making the right hire, and then put huge effort into making sure that hire works out. We invest heavily, and for a long time, to bring people to full productivity.

But even so there are sometimes early signs you have made a wrong hire and it’s not going to work.

I am not suggesting you let someone go if one or even all of these signs emerge, but it should set off alarms and trigger action. Because doing nothing is the one thing you should not do.

• Slow learners. Intelligence is a much underestimated trait when it comes to recruiting. I always look for it when hiring. A newbie who is slow to learn, repeats mistakes and just does not ‘get things’ is a potential disaster. Proceed with caution.

• Unwilling learners. “Coachability “ is a key recruiter requirement in my opinion. Poor listeners, know-it-alls, and those who just can’t focus on learning different ways in their new environment, are likely to fail long-term.

• Social misfits. Seriously, sometimes in the first day I know I have made a bad hire. Not because they can’t recruit. But because they can’t fit in. Inappropriate jokes, over-familiarity, too loud or too quiet. Of course you have to take into account new-starter nerves, and often people settle in over time. But sometimes, you just KNOW…this is wrong!

• Late and lazy. I always see a red light flashing when the new recruiter starts coming in late in the first week, misses meetings, or does not follow up on simple, basic tasks you have given them. If that’s their “honeymoon” effort, just wait till a few months down the track!

• Lack of courage. Sounds strange talking about courage in a desk job. But, in fact, you do need to be brave in recruitment. Make that cold call. Tell that candidate they are not right for a job they really covet. Negotiate a fee. Lead a client meeting with your new boss in the room. I have noticed that new recruiters show their “courage colours” early. Don’t throw a raw newbie in the deep-end. That’s not right and unlikely to help. But they do need to be given little tasks, which involve doing tricky things. How they tackle those is a strong signal of their long term success.

Please use my tips with care. Every new recruiter will show some of these faults. But on the other hand if you see them in a rookie, hone in on it. Examine it. Test it. Counsel them on it.

And look for rapid improvement.

If improvement is not forthcoming, you may have a serious issue.

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Not so long ago, I ran the Sydney Half Marathon.

That’s 21.1 kilometres around the streets of Sydney. Took just over two hours for me to do it too.

But running a Half Marathon is no big deal. Even at my age, and with my drinking habits. Thousands do it regularly. In the Firebrand business we have plenty of real athletes, some of whom comfortably run full marathons!

So why tell you this? Well, running this marathon reminded me of a very important life lesson. And it’s a lesson that has huge significance for anyone who wants to be a great recruiter and make a long-term career in this industry.

The story goes like this.

I suspected I might be a little unfit, so I went for a jog around my neighborhood. Problem was that after three kilometres I had to stop as I was out of breath and felt dizzy. Bad news. I was seriously unfit! As I hobbled home, I made a rash promise to myself. It was 9 weeks until the Sydney Half Marathon, and I decided I would get fit enough to run it.

So easy to say. So hard to follow through.

But I was determined, and I started training. Gym. Road running. Running on a treadmill. It hurt. I hated every second. The gym was full of smug dudes who looked like models from Men’s Health magazine. Running the streets was cold, and friends of mine would honk and laugh as they drove past.

One week into my programme, I got home from a run and I started to waver. “This is ridiculous,” I thought. “I am too old for this rubbish,” I reasoned. “I don’t need to actually run a marathon to get fit,” I persuaded myself. “I am far too busy. I have travel coming up. There is no time to get fit for this,” I tried to convince myself.

By the time I got into my warm living room I had decided to give up the stupid half marathon idea, and I was on my way to the fridge to grab a beer (which I had given up for 9 weeks too by the way!)

Suddenly an image flashed into my mind. I was sharply reminded of a conversation I had had that very afternoon with a recruiter in our Sydney Firebrand team. This person was a good recruiter, but young and relatively inexperienced. He was going through a rough time. Two bad months. Offers turned down. He was despondent and was telling me he was not sure “if recruiting was right for him”.

During that conversation I did not hold back. I talked about persistence. I spoke of the fact that nothing worth having ever came easy. I spoke of courage and character. I told him stories about bad patches I had had, and how determination had turned things around.  I examined how building a reputation and a real business took time. I shared my opinion that often you feel as though you are getting no traction, but that all the work he was doing would pay off in time, and when it did he would feel pride and self-esteem and a sense of achievement.

And every word I told him is true. But as I hesitated at the fridge door, about to grab the beer, I realised what a hypocrite I was being. How could I tell this guy to knuckle down? To persevere in the face of something he found difficult, when I was giving up on my half-marathon after only 6 days training?

I closed the fridge and the next day hit the road again. Over the next two months I trained four or five times a week and I hated almost every session. I got a calf injury and came so close to giving up. I made so little progress for the first month that I felt I was getting less fit instead of more fit. I had to travel overseas for work and the temptation to give up training was overwhelming. But I held firm and I trained in hotel gyms and I jogged along the murky Singapore River in 90% humidity, when I could have been in the cool bar of the Marriott hotel.

School holidays came around and I took the family on a holiday to Borneo and with only two weeks to go until race itself, I resisted the hotel in-pool bar and jogged down the main street of Kota Kinabalu instead – to the utter amazement of the locals who were sensibly resting under shady trees, or sitting under fans drinking iced tea.

But that conversation with the Sydney recruiter kept coming back to me. Don’t give up. This will pay off. You have to put in the hard work before the rewards come.

One week out from the race I went to the Sydney Botanical Gardens and ran 15 kilometers. I did the distance, but it hurt so much I wanted to lie down under one of the giant Port Jackson fig trees that line Sydney Harbour. I truly came so close to giving up on the race there and then.

On the day of the race I nearly didn’t get out of bed. It was cold. I knew that 15 km had nearly floored me. How could I run 21 kilometers? At the event itself were 10,000 runners. And trust me this was no fun-run. No one was pushing prams or dressed in Superman outfits. These guys were serious!  They all looked like East African Olympians. Skinny with all the right gear. I felt well out of place and half felt like slinking off and going home.

But I did the race. And I was pumped and sped through the first 15 kms as though it was a stroll in the park. It got harder after that, but I finished, ran every step and I did it in a better time than I expected.

And it felt great.

No doubt it was worth all the hassle and the pain.

And so is it with our jobs. It’s true that often people have early success in our job. A good match, a bit of good fortune, a client or two inherited.  It can make you look good and there is nothing wrong with taking wins when they come around.

But real success? Building reputation that will last? Developing sophisticated skills? Building a portfolio of loyal clients? Evolving into a trusted advisor? Generating referrals and word of mouth talent? Generating repeat business? Securing clients who use you exclusively?

That takes time, perseverance and effort.

It takes consistent activity. It takes moral courage to do difficult things like cold calling. It takes ego strength to withstand rejection and poor results. It takes an open mind to learn new skills and work at the things you are not good at.

And slowly but surely the rewards will come.

Recruitment or running. The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.

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This is the fifth blog in my series on great coaching for managers of recruiter teams.

Previously I expanded on the importance of ‘live feedback’, ‘real life coaching’, as well as the tactic of ‘plugging in’ new recruits.

Today we look at ‘role swapping’.

Many managers I have worked with feel that if they are not doing the talking or showing the consultant how the job is done, then they are not providing valuable input.

This is not always true. From time to time, it is highly effective for the manager or coach to reverse roles, providing feedback after the event.

For example, once you have a consultant up to a certain level of competence, or even with your more experienced people, take them on a client visit with you where they lead the discussion, where they take in the job, where they do the selling and you play a secondary role.

You may be surprised how difficult this is to do! Many managers simply cannot help themselves on a client meeting and leap in to take control. I understand why, but look at the bigger picture. When is the recruiter ever going to learn if you always take control? In fact you are setting that person up for disaster because the first time they actually get to run a client meeting, they really will be on their own. i.e. when you are not there.

So sure, be ready to leap in if it goes totally off the rails, but otherwise let the recruiter run it.

Then afterwards in the cab back to the office, or in a coffee shop, do a full, immediate de-brief, pointing out missed opportunities or where things could be handled differently.

The same role swapping should be applied to interviewing candidates. Your consultant interviews, you observe and feedback afterwards.

The most powerful coaching you will ever do.

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This is the fourth blog in my series on great coaching for managers of recruiter teams.

Previously I expanded on the importance of ‘Live Feedback’ as well as the ‘Real Life’ approach to consultant coaching. Today we talk about effectively inducting new hires through clever coaching.

If you spend all your time training consultants in a one-on-one situation, your own productivity will suffer dramatically, plus we agree ‘classroom learning’ has limited effectiveness. A neat solution to this problem is to plug new recruits into your own desk.

Assign one or even two new people to literally follow you around and listen to every conversation you have for an entire morning. Let them listen to you taking job descriptions, let them come with you on client visits, let them sit in on interviews with you.

This way you expose new people to the full variety of consulting situations, they absorb your style and ethos, and after all they are getting it from the best consultant in the team (hopefully).

You can also plug new recruits into other senior members of your team. One word of warning. If you do plug consultants into yourself or your colleagues, it is very important to have regular debriefs where you ensure that they understand what has been happening and they have the opportunity to ask questions. Three or four times a day, stop and ask them to tell you what they have heard and learned. Then refine their perceptions and explain dynamics they have missed. Maybe set them follow up tasks. At the very least it tells you where they need more input.

You can’t limit your new hire training to this technique, but you can certainly liberally plug new recruits in during their early weeks. It’s much better than have them sit there and read a training manual!

Plugging people in is a highly effective way of getting on with your job, while at the same time providing exposure to the fundamentals of the role.

If you have ever managed a team of recruiters for any length of time, this topic will resonate with you, I am sure.

Inevitably, within a group of recruiters, one, maybe two, will rise to the top. These “Big Billers” either inherit a great desk or, less often, they build it themselves, and soon they are consistently out-billing everyone else. Sadly, in many cases it seems with good consultants “the higher the fees the bigger the pain in the butt”. It’s not always the case, and I have known many great recruiters who are humble and willing to share, but with many high billers it seems it is no longer possible for them to operate without making it perfectly clear to their colleagues that they are not quite on the same consulting planet. Smugness sets in. Lack of cooperation on new initiatives becomes the norm. The “Big Biller” comes late to meetings because, you know, “I bill a lot, you know”. Administration is suddenly beneath them. Ironically, as the Prima Donna gets more complacent and more arrogant, complaints from clients and candidates about the ” Big Biller” start to rise.

And boy, if Prima Donna gets a headhunting call from a competitor, the whole world knows about it in three seconds flat.

Now this is a management challenge. And over many years I have noticed that managers of Prima Donnas fail miserably to address the problem because they allow themselves to be held to ransom by the “Big Biller”. There is an action-stunting fear that the fees will be lost if the Prima Donna is offended in some way, and heaven forbid, resigns! It seems many managers put up with a thousand varieties of bulldust from Big Billers because, “we can’t afford to lose them”.

This is a massive mistake and one a good manager must avoid at all costs.

If you allow top performers, who evolve into Prima Donnas, to blackmail you because “they bring in all the money”, you are setting yourself up for a life of pure hell! The first rule, and the non-negotiable rule with these guys is this. Do not allow different rules to develop for Prima Donnas because they are “special”. It is a slippery slope you are creating if the perception exists that as long as my fees are good, I don’t have to attend meetings on time, or do my admin like everyone else. Do not compromise the type of team you are trying to build, the culture you are creating, for the short-term benefit of one high-production consultant.

If you do this, the problem will multiply as the Prima Donna takes even greater liberties. You will lose respect from the rest of the team, and ultimately you will lose your team.

The best strategy for Prima Donnas is to confront their behaviour head-on. And the way to do this is to keep raising the bar. The psyche of a Prima Donna is based on a belief that “they are the best”. Turn that label back on to them. Your communication is along these lines. If they are as good as they think and say they are, then they will want to achieve higher activity levels and quality standards than the rest of the team.

So with a Prima Donna, you must specifically tell them what they are consistently doing well. Compliment them and encourage repetition of that behaviour. But also very importantly let them know what they need to do to be a truly excellent performer. What they must do more of and less of. So for example you might compliment your Big Biller on a quarter of great fee production. But then go on to point out that 40% of the jobs he took in, were lost to competitors. (Not an uncommon figure for contingent perm recruitment.) Focus on this. If possible compare it to other recruiters with better ratios. Set the Big Biller a goal to reduce jobs lost and increase their fill rates. These guys are so used to praise and fawning from leadership, it actually stunts their development.

I never met a recruiter in 30 years who could not improve. With your Big Biller, focus on that. Areas for improvement. Bring them down to earth. Set goals which while fair and business critical, you know they will struggle to meet.

It gives the old Prima Donna a wonderful sense of perspective.

On behavioural and attitudinal matters, I recommend a zero-tolerance policy. After a few normal warnings and coaching on areas the big biller must improve, it has to come down to this, “BB, your fees are excellent and we value your contribution greatly, but one of the non-negotiable aspects of working in this team, is we all attend daily meetings on time. We have spoken about your lateness several times and now I have to tell you that if you wish to stay on the team, you need to be there on time, every time”.

And be prepared to follow up on that threat.

You see, Big Billers are important, but more important than their fees, is equity in the team, co-operation, and an environment of mutual respect. Don’t trade off the long term harmony of your business, for the short term hit of the fees provided by a toxic Big Biller.

Last week I blogged on the importance of customer service in the recruitment industry, and how Aquent is surveying customer satisfaction, and rewarding our staff based on customer feedback

My story was picked up by recruitment journalists in Australia and the UK, and I have been fascinated by the feedback this concept has received. Comments on my blog are all favorable, but I have also had feedback that the concept is flawed because our staff ‘will be worrying about satisfying customers instead of focussing on making money’. In particular, some critics regard spending too much time on candidates as foolhardy because, in the words of one individual, ‘Candidates don’t pay your fees’.

Frankly, this kind of comment gives me tremendous encouragement. That competitors in the staffing industry can be so naive, and so blind to the power of referral, recommendation and repeat business, driven by satisfied customers, makes me very confident about the future of Aquent, and the careers of our staff.

Two days after my blog, came an article in the Australian on-line newsletter Recruiter Daily. Robert Godden, a HR consultant with People Magic conducted research that involved collecting 85 job ads (50 with agencies, 35 with employers), all of which invited potential applicants to call a specific person for more information.

In the course of making 85 phone calls, Godden was only able to reach seven of the nominated contacts, all of whom were from agencies.He left 76 messages for the remaining recruiters (after two numbers rang out).The “unbelievable” result of the experiment was that only seven recruiters returned Godden’s calls — less than 10 per cent.

After ringing 50 of the numbers again a week later, he got through to two recruiters and only a further four (out of 48) returned his messages – again, less than 10 per cent.

As a career recruiter, proud of what we do, I find this result supremely depressing. We run expensive ads and invite people (customers in my view) to call us. Then we ignore them. It is disrespectful. It’s a sad indictment of the way recruiters are managed and coached. But it is also a supreme opportunity. An opportunity for forward thinking recruiters to differentiate and provide a level of service that leaves customers “wowed,” Frankly right now, it seems just returning a call might ‘wow’ most candidates replying to ads.

Talent is the only real currency a staffing company has. It’s what clients pay us for and it’s going to get increasingly difficult to access quality talent as the recovery takes hold. Job boards will become less effective and in any event they only tap into the active talent market. The recruitment company that owns the talent market.. will own the market

Candidates as customers? It’s a no brainer surely!

At Aquent we have a global strategy to improve the client and talent experience. We know we have much work to do. But we are tackling the task with gusto. We plan to stand out by hiring people with the right attitude, coaching customer service standards, measuring our customer satisfaction independently, and then rewarding staff according to what the customer thinks.