Yes, the staffing market may be recovering, but every day we read of recruitment companies going into liquidation. And even in the best of times, I know plenty of recruitment business owners are frustrated by how hard they work for such modest returns.

And the tendency is to blame clients, or the market or the government.

But often the real culprit is much closer to home. Profitability of a recruitment business is totally dependent on recruiter productivity. And more to the point, poor returns are usually a result of long-term acceptance of mediocre performers.

And plenty of business owners are naïve when it comes to the real cost of their staff. They talk of accepting people billing a modest multiple of their salary as being sufficient. I have often heard such statements as “Well, I only paid her $60,000 a year and she billed $70,000, so she covered her cost”. Total nonsense, that was a loss making hire, make no mistake.

What is often forgotten is the opportunity cost of having a serial under performer in your company when you could have a high performer, covering overhead and contributing to profit.

This short video above explains a quick, rough and ready way to work out what recruiters cost you – even before you pay their salary!

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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 Aquent 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 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.

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In my last blog post I explained how great coaching is built on two key functions – recognition and correction.

Today I expand on one of the tactics I have found exceptionally helpful in mentoring and coaching recruiters to outstanding performance, ‘Live Feedback’.

This may sound unusual, but a good leader who wants to have an impact as a coach should actively look out for opportunities to catch their consultants in the act of doing something good!

Yes, live feedback starts with the positive.

If you want to see a behaviour repeated, reward it via recognition. So for example, if you hear a consultant doing a great job of selling a temp rate to a candidate who was hoping for more, as soon as that recruiter puts down the phone, tell them. ‘Heard the way you handled that conversation Bob. Great job! It’s really crucial we keep our margins up on this temp desk and that starts with paying our temps market rates, but no more. Well done’.

What’s more I think you should pass on this recognition publicly and immediately. It is wonderfully uplifting for the individual, and will certainly reinforce that behaviour. But it also starts to create a team ethos and culture that rubs off on everyone in the team.

But of course as a manager you must also be on the lookout for practical situations to improve a consultant’s skill and performance. This is the ‘correction’ component of effective coaching. This will mean keeping an ear out for conversations where you feel the consultant has said the wrong thing or could have said something differently or better.

The key here is not to be punitive or demeaning in words or tone. It’s a real skill to position your feedback as constructive, but it can be done. Say you heard a consultant making a bit of a hash of handling a counter-offer. You may start with something like this. ‘That was a tricky situation Bob, and you handled it well, but just thinking, when your candidate said he had been offered more money to stay, do you think it would have been good to take him back to his original reasons for considering a move…’ And out of that question will come an impromptu coaching session on handling these situations. It’s immediate. It’s powerful. It’s positive.

Always be prepared to speak to the consultant immediately they have put the phone down. The learning and retention by the consultant is far more powerful if you can relate a concept to a real and recent situation. This takes discipline and means that you often have to consciously listen out for situations and opportunities.

Live feedback is incredibly effective. It’s real because the consultant has just felt the euphoria of success and or the pain of failure. You will never have a better time to really drive home behaviour.

And that is coaching.

Coming up next week in this consultant coaching series of blog posts – ‘Real Life Situations’.

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As anyone who has been in recruitment for a while knows, the subtle and varied skills of our industry are best learned ‘on the job’, and they are always best communicated with the help of a mentor or coach, usually your manager, who can show how things work in real life.

There are stats on this you can dig up I am sure, but experience has shown me that people learn by doing things, seeing things done and being coached in real time. Sure, classroom-style training has a place, but coaching is often more powerful as a real learning method.

People often ask me, what exactly is ‘coaching,’ and how can we learn to coach our teams more effectively? Well, the way I understand it is that there are two primary functions of the ‘coach’.

Firstly a good coach focuses a great deal on the positive. In fact, I believe recognition – for things done well – is a highly effective way to reinforce behaviours you want to see repeated. What’s more, that recognition should come publicly and as soon after the behaviour actually happens as possible. Funnily enough, although this aspect of coaching is the easiest and the most positive, I notice many managers find recognition hard to give. It’s as if we are not a ‘real’ manager unless we are always pointing out fault and deficiency in people. In my view, that could not be more wrong.

The second primary function of a great mentor or coach (which is what every leader needs to be) is of course correction of behaviours and deficient activity levels. Importantly though, this guidance can and should be given in small bite-size chunks, in real-time and often ‘on the run’. There’s no need in most cases for a ‘meeting’ or ’special training session’. Often this correction is as simple as a two minute debrief when the recruiter puts down the phone to a client or candidate. How could we have promoted that candidate more effectively? When the client said this, did you think of saying that?

My next four posts over the coming weeks will drill down on some great ‘on the job’ coaching tactics that I have learned and used over the years, and from which I have seen fantastic outcomes in terms of professional development of the teams I have run.

First topic up next week will be ‘Coaching via live feedback’.

Until then…

Over the past week I have committed to presenting at two RCSA conferences in Australia, which by the sound of the program and the quality of the other speakers, will be well worth attending.

Below are details of the two presentations I will be giving, in Sydney and in Hobart, as well as links to the Conference programs

RCSA Sydney Consultant Forum 2010

Tuesday 1st June 2010

“Recruiting Skills for the New Era”

Greg Savage MRCSA (Life) AQUENT
“Restocking the Skills Briefcase”

The fact is that the skills and tactics that got you where you are today, will NOT be good enough to take you where you
want to go! The market has shifted,technology has evolved and client and candidate expectations have risen. This session will uncover the key skills many recruiters lost during the boom years, which now need to be relearned,and will also highlight brand new approaches to client and candidate interaction. Full of practical takeaways and immediately useable tips and tactics, this is session for all would-be top performers

For details Click here to download the event brochure for more information.

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RCSA Conference  – Hobart, Tasmania

25-27th August 2010

“Bridging Connections”

Featured Key Note Speaker

Greg Savage-CEO Aquent International

“New engagement for a new world – A case study in changing the recruitment conversation”

Apart from his reputation as a business leader, Greg Savage is known throughout our industry as a recruiting trainer and coach. His management and consultant skills session sell out all over the Australia and New Zealand. But this session is different. Designed for recruiting leadership, and presented exclusively at the RCSA leadership conference, Greg will share exactly what he is doing at Aquent to change the way his business engages with clients, relates to talent and builds loyalty from their own staff. It’s happening to Greg right now so you will hear the strategy as well as how some of the plans are working out..or not! Few recruitment leaders would share such strategic imperatives, and fewer still will divulge the results, but Greg will outline the Aquent social media strategy, the new customer service charter and a brave new way Aquent are dealing with client commitment — amongst much else.

for details  visit the website  bridgingconnections

Most staffing markets around the world have stabilised. Some have definitely started growing, while others are clearly showing signs of increased optimism.

For recruiting firms, it seems the dark days of 2009, where demand virtually collapsed, are behind us. Many business owners and managers are thinking about growth, reinvestment and hiring staff. However, these strategic and tactical decisions raise the big question of timing. When to spend money and when to invest in people and marketing.

These things depend on your local market and your position in that market, but they are absolutely critical. You, the business leader, will be best equipped to judge when your market is ready for investment, so any advice can only be generic. However one thing is for certain. You don’t want to go too early. It will be disastrous if you sink big cost into a business that is unable to generate returns. But equally dangerous is moving too late, as you can be sure that once your competitors get ahead of you they will be hard to dislodge. The prudent approach, I believe, is that you need to be working on aggressive growth plans NOW. That does not mean you have to press the “Green for Go” button yet. So for example, start working on a targeted marketing and sales plan now. Get the ideas in place. Get the timelines in place. Plan now. For example, if you are in accounting and you believe demand for temp accountants will take-off first, get a campaign ready now to launch when the time is right So you invest a little in planning and preparation, but the real investment in media and events and other marketing spend comes when you are sure the upswing is firmly in place.

A related key timing question is when to hire extra staff. We all know how hard it was to get good consultants when the boom was at its height. Yet we also know the devastating cost of mediocre people and highly paid staff who are not billing. Again it’s a matter for fine judgment, but even if you are not ready to hire, you should be planning now. Identify your gaps. Where will demand come and do you have resources to service it? Interview consultants now even if you are not ready to hire. Build a database of potential recruits. Keep in touch with them. In terms of actual hiring, don’t underestimate the lead time it takes for someone to become productive. Factor in training and induction time.

At Aquent we are starting to hire now in selected markets, but I am very mindful of productivity per recruiter as a key ratio in managing my business. I consider “full productivity” for a perm recruiter to be fee production equal to 3.5 times base salary and temp to be 5 times base salary – as a broad rule of thumb. So I am taking the view that current recruiters need to be at eighty per cent plus productivity before we add additional people.

Gear up, but be very careful not to over-hire in your haste to cash in on the upswing. It will kill your profitability in the recovery – especially if that recovery is slower than we would all hope.

Image courtesy of Martin Palmer

Managers have subordinates, leaders have followers.

That short statement took me many years to learn. When I was young, and thrust into a management role way before I was ready, I thought leadership meant “getting people to do things”. And maybe, in the end, that is what it is. But it’s not by telling, or coercing or bribing. It’s way more subtle than that. And if you are looking to carve out a career in managing a recruitment business, developing your leadership abilities will be key to your success as a manager of recruiters.

Consultants are typically demanding, fickle, selfish even. Merely managing the process won’t be enough for you to build an exceptional business.

The good news is that leadership can be learned. It can be improved.

And it has to be — because creating an environment where people want to do things, rather than feel they have to, is the difference between great and mediocre. And yet leadership is so hard to define and so hard to find in our industry as well.

But perhaps it’s not surprising. Because it is true that many of us in management roles in recruitment have been promoted into leadership positions because we were good recruiters. Or we started our own business, hoping initially to just survive, but our energy and drive finds us now with teams of people to lead. We may, if we are lucky have learned to manage along the way, but who ever taught us about true leadership? What is it? What does a leader do? How does a leader behave?

To really make this point, I am going to pose a question. It’s rhetorical, but it’s directed at anyone reading this who is, or wants to be, a leader.

“Why would anyone want to be led by you”?

It’s a frightening question. And with good reason. You cannot do anything in this business without followers. We know it’s all about the people. And in these “empowered”, Generation Y times, followers are hard to find, right? People don’t follow blindly, and they don’t simply do what they are told – unless they believe. So managers of recruitment businesses had better know what it takes to lead effectively. You must find ways to engage people and rouse their commitment to the company goals.

But first, what are we talking about when we say “leadership”?

Well, there are many definitions. But, in this industry, knowing the psyche of the average recruitment consultant, I believe it’s best encapsulated by two, linked characteristics.

You see, I have come to understand that the people who matter to us most are NOT the ones with the most credentials. People we look up to are not the ones with the most money or the most awards. The people who matter, the ones that we respect and will ultimately follow, are the ones that care and the ones who’ve made a difference in our lives.

That is leadership at the level we should be focused on now. Leaders will be judged by their ability to impact people and make a difference.

Think of your own history in the recruitment business. Is there a person or two who made a difference, taught you things, mentored, and influenced your values? Showed faith when others didn’t. Inspired you through their actions? That’s leadership. And that’s who we have to be for the next wave of recruiters coming through.

So there we have it defined. Leadership is about truly caring and about making a meaningful difference. Leadership is not about talking a good game. It’s not about thumping the table like some deranged half-time football coach. It’s not about dreaming up an esoteric vision statement that no one believes in or acts on.

Leadership is Action

It’s what you do that counts. It’s your behaviour that people will remember and emulate. It’s your example that people will follow.

Leadership is action.

I have been in business a long time. And all of that time has been in the rough and tumble world of recruitment and staffing. Having worked as a recruiter, manager, and owner of recruitment businesses all over the world, I have seen my share of dubious business practices. Indeed I have, sadly, been witness to many instances of outrageously deceitful and unethical behavior. We have all seen it no doubt.

In business, as in life generally, we expect to confront people who are dishonest. We know they are there, and we become better at identifying them before too much harm is done. But what really gets me is that category of person in business who preaches ethical behavior, even believes they are whiter than white, but when put to the mildest of tests, will collapse in a heap of moral compromise at best, and resort to outright duplicity at worst.

In a strange way I have even come to prefer dealing with crooks who knows they are crooks, rather then those people who believe there are degrees of honesty. People who somehow feel you can leverage acting decently against the amount of money involved. You cannot. Honesty is like being a virgin. You are, or you are not. You can’t be a virgin when it suits you.

I remember a conversation with a manager a long time ago that sticks with me as an example. I had recently taken over a business, and inherited some of the middle-management. The situation was that we had billed a client a large fee. The placement was made in Asia and the fee was in Singapore dollars. The client, based in the US, paid the invoice with US dollars, a value that was almost double the original, correct amount. I asked the manager of the office handling the deal “what do you propose to do”? The reply was along the lines of, “well normally I would tell the client about the error, but this is a large fee and we are having a poor month in my office, so I feel we should let it slide”. Of course I quickly smothered that idea, but I knew I had a serious problem. What is the mindset of a person who will effectively steal from our clients? What is the moral fortitude of someone who will compromise any standard of honesty “because they are having a poor month”.

In 2009 I saw so many examples of this “rubber-band morality”. Clients, candidates and others closer to home, have managed to surprise even me with how tenuous is their grasp of what is right, and what is wrong. Yes, times are tough and money is tight. But what we have to understand is that it’s in exactly these circumstances that honesty and moral strength counts. Anyone can be ‘ethical’ if there is no temptation to test your ethical fibre. It’s very easy to see yourself as ‘honest’ if there is nothing financial at stake to give you pause for thought.

I love the competitive nature of the recruitment business. Anyone I have worked with or against will attest that I ask nor give any quarter in the commercial battle. Winning is important. Success is what we strive for.

But not at any cost.

To me its obvious that in business, or indeed any commercial interaction, you play it as hard as you can, but stick by the rules, retain your humanity and ensure that you will always be able to look every person you deal with in the eye.

Don’t be like a client who said to me once, as he lied his way out of paying a bill , “Greg, I am an honest man, but business is business”

Sad and pathetic