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!

*******************************************************************************************************

Subscribe to The Savage Truth and ‘Like” our Facebook page to enure you get your recruiting brain-food fix.

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.

View video on YouTube

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.

For regular recruiting brain food, please subscribe to The Savage Truth.

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.

Running a great recruitment business is difficult. The competition, the compliance, the cash flow issues and most of all, the people complexity creates an ideal environment to screw up.

Here are 10 of my biggest blunders, some of which I have made several times. I offer them up as a guide on what NOT to do when running a recruitment company.

1. Focusing too heavily on consultant activity levels. Slavishly counting activities, measuring ratios, chastising shortfalls… at the expense of ensuring the quality of those activities was high and consistent. Lots of activity, done badly, will actually send your business backwards, and focusing on activity for activity sake can be tremendously demoralising for the team, and distracting for the leadership.
2. Focusing too little on activity levels of consultants.  This is the flip side of the same coin and it’s just as big a blunder.  Allowing consultants to “free wheel” appearing busy by doing lots of ‘stuff’ without ensuring clarity and focus about what their key activities must be. Letting consultants spend 90 minutes in an interview with a junior person because “they want to get it right” and agonising for hours over the wording on a resume are great examples. Quality is important, but you also have to churn through a lot of the key actions that drive making the match. It’s a management task to keep that on track.
3. Allowing consultants full autonomy over which clients and which jobs they choose to work on was a mistake. Most recruiters are somewhat “tarty” by inclination, trying to work with everyone on everything. Specialisation is key, working with clients who will partner with us is key, gaining exclusivity and working on fully qualified briefs is fundamental, as is working with people who pay our bills. Not prioritising our WIP has cost me plenty, time and time again.
4. Hiring potential consultants because they had a great academic background and fantastic careers in a previous job, which was not recruitment, but in a field we specialise in. I have learned that when hiring recruiters we need to focus more on intrinsic attributes that drive success in recruitment, such as competitiveness, empathy, resilience, listening skills, passion, integrity and work ethic.
5. Opening offices in remote places without strong, committed, proven, loyal local management. Everything depends on leadership and it gets more crucial with every kilometre the remote business is away from HQ.
6. Retaining mediocre people (who may be very nice people) in the hope they will miraculously become superstars despite mounting evidence that they will always be underperformers. This is a massive opportunity cost and I make this mistake even now.
7. Hiring managers and recruiters on massive base salaries on the back of “impressive” track records (which are often not what they seem) or promises of huge performance. I learned that you must always link high earning with high performance. The big money comes after the big delivery, not before.
8. Allowing managers of smallish teams (2 – 8 people) to evolve into non-billing managers. This is a massive mistake.  We need “player/managers,” people who bill, rain-make, business develop and also manage the team. I have allowed managers to become backroom crunchers of numbers and process managers, and that’s not where the value of a leader lies, nor can you secure any leverage out of that kind of role.
9. Assuming that a good recruiter will make a good manager. They are entirely different skill sets. Promoting your highest billing recruiter to Team Leader because she wants a “career” can destroy her progress, dismantle her billings, and disintegrate the team.
10. Listing my own company Recruitment Solutions in 1998. It was too small a business really to be floated. Profit of only $4M.  The IPO was a financial success, but it was not the right thing for the business. It cost a lot to be listed, we lost control to non-executive directors and you have to answer to shareholders and fund managers. Watching share price means you spend less time on the important things like customers and staff. I am immensity proud of Recruitment Solutions. It was stand out business and produced literally scores of people who now own their own successful business. But we should not have gone public.

Please subscribe to The Savage Truth for regular email updates, insights and fresh information.

Last week I blogged about how you need to move the focus away from dollars and percentages when clients negotiate fees, and on to your value and your differentiators.

One of the comments on my blog from Matthew Lancey raised the point that sometimes clients keep pushing, and they say something like “but your competitors charge less”.

And it’s this use of the “C” word that often scares recruiters.

The “C’ word? Competitors. I love it when clients use that word. If they do start to talk about competitor’s low fees, your response is to ask…

“Can you tell me about a situation, Ms Client, where you were charged less than the fee I am suggesting today, where you got the level of service and the calibre of talent you want – on a regular basis?”

True, this is a gamble, but the fact that you are there, in the client’s office, taking the order, or even on the phone taking the order, means that it is most unlikely the client is happy with their current supplier. In fact it amazes me when a client spends 20 minutes bagging another recruiter, and then when I quote my fee – he says, but the other recruiter only charges 15%!

That’s is the time to remind the client that a low fee, quoted by a supplier who does not deliver, is not a benchmark you will measure your fees against. And nor should the client.

Sometimes the client pushes hard for a reduced fee. When that happens, don’t feel pressurised. It’s a purely commercial decision – and it’s your decision to make. Is this client and this order so attractive it is worth taking a lower fee for?

Remember this before you discount next time. Don’t think of the fee only as dollars gained or lost – think of the fee as what your service is worth. A discounted fee means a discounted you – never forget that.

But sometimes you feel it is worth a compromise to secure a particular opportunity. In these cases I emphasise one golden rule.

Never reduce your originally quoted fee without extracting a concession from the client.

In other words if you say, “My fee is 20%”.  And the client asks for a discount. And you quickly respond with “OK how does 15% sound?”. You have just signaled to the client that you never believed in your value proposition and your service in the first place. You will struggle with getting his respect ever again – and you will never get your fees back up.

So if you reduce your fee, always ask for something in return – exclusivity maybe, client paid advertising maybe, client gives you multiple orders maybe, or maybe you waive the guarantee.

Make sure the negotiation involves both sides giving. This way the equal partnership is in tact.

So is your self-esteem by the way. And in our business, that’s crucial.

It’s a fact of recruiting life that clients will push you to negotiate your fees. And with so many recruiters quick to drop fee percentages to secure briefs, that can be a hard discussion to deal with.

The starting point for successful fee negotiations is, strangely enough, to get the conversation off the fee percentage, and on to the question of what it is your fee is actually for.

And of course, bundled up in that conversation, is your ability to sell your differentiator. What have you got and what do you do that gives your client special value? That’s where you want to focus. At Firebrand Talent Search we emphasize our niche focus, our unmatched access to creative, marketing and digital talent, our multiple branches in Asia Pacific and Europe, our specialist knowledge and understanding of clients needs, our proprietary testing software which means we know candidates have the design skills we say they do, and then we wrap all this up in 110% money back guarantee.

But all recruiters will have differentiators, and it’s important you know how to articulate them.

So when a client does ask you to drop your fee, go through your entire recruitment process explaining all the things you do to secure the right person. Take your time. Start at the beginning and don’t miss anything out. Talk about your screening, your interviewing, your talent generation strategies such as social media and networking. Talk about your database and the fact you have several offices tapping into talent. Explain how you act as an advocate for the client, and how you will qualify each candidate in terms of fit, salary and skills. When you drill down on this, you find we do a lot!

That’s the point. Tell your client.

Then, and only then, ask the client why she feels a reduced fee is appropriate. This is important. Get the ball firmly into the client’s court. The client is asking for a discount. She should be squirming – not you. When it comes to fee discounts you don’t have to justify why not – she has to justify why!  It’s a shift in the dynamic and it’s very powerful indeed.

Its not as simple as this of course, many clients will continue to push for a fee discount regardless, and then you have to make a commercial decision. But the starting point is not to haggle over a number. Get the attention of the service you provide.

Talk about what you do, explain your process and your insights and your connections and your value adds.

That’s a far better place to start a discussion on discounts!

Successful recruiting is about lots of small interactions, handled well.  The real job of a recruiter is to manage outcomes in the interests of both client and candidate. This week I have another micro recruitment consulting tip – the key skill of managing the candidate’s expectations around salary.

It’s not that we want to find a person the lowest possible salary we can. Not at all. But it is crucial to know what the absolute minimum salary is for a candidate to move for the right job.

That is the key.

View video on YouTube.

Too many recruiters take a stated salary expectation at face value. Often that number is inflated and largely wishful thinking.  However, if taken as a true guide, it could mean the candidate misses out on the perfect job because you, the recruiter, did not understand what his or her true motivators were.

Managing expectations on salary starts in the first interview and it involves coupling the perfect job sought by the candidate to the lowest salary they would accept. Sure it’s a technique and it’s a test but it does clarify what the salary tipping-point really is.
And you have to know that or you could be the recruiter who has the candidate, has the job, but watches another recruiter put the two together because they did a better job of uncovering the candidate’s salary floor.

And that is an ugly prospect.

You need to drill down on what the candidate would accept for the right job.

Without that how can you effectively manage the candidate’s job search?

***************************************************************************************************************************

Subscribe to ‘The Savage Truth’ -  Weekly recruiting tips, videos and insights

Do you accept the fact that your client can reject candidates you present on your shortlist?

Yes? Then you lack ‘Recruiter Equity’.

View video on YouTube

Recruiter equity is the trust, the buy-in, the belief that your clients have in your ability and your judgment. It is the combination of your experience and your knowledge, and it gives you the power to advise clients and truly impact the outcomes of your interaction with them.

Most recruiters lack equity all together. The presenting of a shortlist for a permanent brief is a classic example.

The fact is, that if a client rejects or will not interview any of your shortlisted candidates, it can mean only one of two things — both bad.

1. You misunderstood the brief. You got it wrong.
2. The client does not trust your judgment.

It can mean nothing else.

Both of those outcomes is a disaster. And it means you did not get equity into the relationship with this client. Equity means ownership or a share of ownership. In this case joint ownership of the problem and the solution.  Recruiter equity is the key difference between winners and losers in this business. Do your clients trust your judgment? Do they interview every candidate you refer?

No? Then your recruiter equity is low – maybe non-existent. It takes hard work to build up your equity. It takes determination, study and practice. But it all stems from our attitude. Think about the best recruiters you know. The relationships they have with clients amount to shared equity. Sharing the problem. Sharing the solution. Sharing the rewards.

View the video for more on presenting the shortlist.

Recently I was honoured to present a keynote address to the RCSA National Conference in Hobart.

In that speech I laid out 10 trends that I believe will impact the recruiting profession and which we need to factor into our strategies and business planning.

1. Expectations of clients are rising and will continue to rise. Clients want insights, not just résumés. They want better service. They want specialist level consulting advice. And they want it faster and globally.
2. Clients and talent are savvier, more discerning, and more sensitive to quality. Right now, publicly listed recruiters are reporting rising revenues and profits. But at the same time we see increasing numbers of small recruiters going into liquidation. Big firm or smaller player, clients will not accept the second rate, the cumbersome or the old-fashioned.
3. Employers will continue to aggressively build their in-house capacity to recruit staff.  Clients will develop corporate in-house recruitment teams, build recruitment technology, enhance employer branding, and use social media. And all of these will be used to cut recruiters out of the process. It’s a major issue for our industry and we have to offer something measurably different to be seen to be providing value.
4. An increasing majority of vacant jobs will not be advertised anywhere. Forget web advertising vs. print media. More and more jobs just won’t get announced at all. Networking, social media, and skilled, specialised recruiters will fill most jobs before they ever hit the mainstream media. That has huge implications for us in the way we develop business, access talent and make the match. And also for the skill-set of our recruiting staff.
5. Talent will become smarter and wiser to the way our industry works. They will be far more discerning about the recruiter they work with. They will take charge of their job search and of their employee brand. Technology has made things so much more transparent for job seekers and the pathway for them to connect with employers is now wide open, potentially leaving third-party recruiters out in the cold. This raises massive questions around the way we engage with candidates and our entire talent acquisition strategies.
6. Reputation and Brand – of recruiters – will become our most valuable asset. And we will not be able to influence brand via traditional PR and media anymore, because social media is so viral, so transparent and so powerful, that your business can be destroyed or made by it at lightening speed. Our brands are being defined by the voices of strangers.
7. Referrals will become the primary sourcing channel for all levels of positions. Not print, not job boards – but word of mouth, reputation, networking and referral programs.
8. Customers’ loyalty will become key. And by customers I mean both clients and talent. Churn and burn will not work. We need to retain what we have, and develop it intelligently and consistently.
9. On top of all this, there will be increasing pressure on price. Clients will not pay the same for what they used to get.
10. To sum it all up, yesterday’s “delivery” market will become tomorrow’s relationship market with both clients and talent.

Please subscribe to ‘The Savage Truth’ for alerts on new postings, recruiting information and more. It’s free and takes no more than 20 seconds to do. Subscribe now

**************************************************************************************************

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.