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Most of us are told that recruitment is a sales job. And it is.

But the truth of selling is badly misunderstood. Selling in old-style recruitment means volume of calls, pleading for client visits, and pushing people into jobs where maybe the fit is dubious, at best.

But in fact the real selling in staffing is based on an ability to uncover and understand. Uncover and understand our customers needs and motives, that is. So being a great recruiter is going to require many so called ’soft skills’, like listening, probing, uncovering and questioning.

Successful recruiters will have the interpersonal skills to really get to know their client hiring managers on a person to person level, including their leadership style and knowing the type of employee that responds to that style.

And so as the staffing market recovers, it’s important we start talking about things we never considered before. Like the client mindset.

Let’s think for a moment about the mindset of clients as the market recovers. We need to remember that clients will be bruised from layoffs and cutbacks. They will be under pressure to deliver. They may be confused themselves about the strength of the market and whether it’s time to hire. Their own corporate strategies will have changed, culture will have evolved, management style will have changed, corporate needs will have changed, and indeed there is a good chance that their own manager may have changed under a restructure or a downsizing. So initial hiring will be tentative. There may be some tyre-kicking by clients. Clients will want to get an “exact fit” because they will be terrified of making mistakes.

So that brings us to the importance of asking questions to truly understand client needs. I have been on thousands of visits to clients with recruiters. Most recruiters ‘talk at’ the client. Few really seek to understand. Bear in mind the client may not know themselves what they really need. It may be a journey of joint discovery. We need to take great job orders, be consultative and question clients briefs carefully.

The biggest cause of placements falling through is people making assumptions. Recruiters taking what they are told at face value. You need to develop a relationship with your client and talent where questioning is actually welcome. It’s like a doctor asking questions while  working towards a diagnosis. Why is a candidate really wanting to move jobs? What are her true motivators? What is a client’s real ceiling when it comes to salary they will pay? Why does the job require the candidate to have 10 years experience in a certain environment?

Traditionally recruiters are the best of talkers. But now we have to learn active listening as a core skill, and we have to question everything.

Last week I blogged on why so many recruiters have a shallow understanding of what ‘competitive’ in our business actually means.

And so how do we thrive in a competitive world? What is the way to differentiate in 2010 and beyond?

Well it’s not cool to say it out loud, but as far as I am concerned it’s what technology cannot do that our clients will continue to pay for.

It’s a source of constant amazement to me how many of us in this industry have been completely seduced by the technology spin doctors. We are terrified that the Internet will wipe out our business. We agonise over social networking and how it will change the talent-sourcing model. We quake at the power of LinkedIn, and we are hypnotised by the thought our competitors will develop a piece of technology that somehow will make our service redundant.
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Don’t get me wrong. Technology is reshaping our business and having leading-edge technology is crucial, in as much as it allows your consultants to compete on an even playing field, and gives them the tools to give clients and talent what they really want.

But technology will not destroy our industry. At least not all of it – and definitely not the part we want!

And here is why.  Finding a job or recruiting a new staff member is not a commodity purchase. We are not dealing with the same psychology which drives i-Tunes, e-trade or amazon.com.

This is important because it means that the real value provided by quality recruiters will still have a market.  That is, screening, evaluating, persuading, assessing, negotiating, advising, consulting and acting, as an advocate for employers will still have tremendous value.

It is on these competencies that we need to compete.

But it’s also more than interpersonal recruiting skills (which by the way were largely lost during the decade-long hiring boom that preceded the GFC). Talent management is where the real battle for recruitment dominance will be fought. Building talent communities and managing effective communications channels with those communities is where the holy grail lies.

And we will need to compete in other ways too. Customers will increasingly call the tune. And by customers I mean talent as well as clients. The customer experience will build or tarnish your brand like never before. This is where social media will be able to destroy your business. Get it wrong and your brand will be brought down at viral speed. That’s where we have to compete. How we deal with customers and manage their expectations and experience with us.

Lack of personal interaction is doing our industry no favours. In fact I consider it one of our deepest flaws. Many recruiters use technology to avoid connecting personally with talent, when in fact the real advantage of technology is to get much closer to many more quality candidates.

So social media and technology generally is a threat to you only if you fail to recognise this fact…

… there will continue to be a market for tailored, personalised, high quality business solutions based on an advisory, consultative model, where access to talent is the differentiator.

Don’t be sucked in to competing on the basis of who can commoditise what we do the best. Don’t play the low margin, process game.

As your competitors claim, “we are bigger, have cooler technology and therefore we can do it faster and cheaper” or technology-driven platforms push to cut out recruiters altogether, your premise for doing business is…

“I can solve your problem because I understand your need and I know where the talent live”

There is one word you will always find in any analysis or even casual discussion about the recruitment industry.

Competition

Get two recruiters or more together, in any setting, and I bet that 90 % of the conversation will be about how competitive its all become and how to beat the competition.

A few years ago my office was at 275 George Street in Sydney. That building has 12 floors, and at that time it housed 14 recruitment companies! Seriously. We used to loose candidates on the way up in the elevator!

But what does competitive really mean?  And if we competed effectively in the past, will the same tactics work for us going forward?

Well I first started to compete as a recruiter in Australia in January 1980. Since then I have been able to get first hand experience of what the very best our industry has had to offer in terms of competition here and all over the world. And many of those recruiters have built superior businesses through quality service, innovation and exceeding customer expectations

…but the vast majority have not!

For almost all my recruitment life in Australia in New Zealand, as well as my exposure to the industry in the UK, Europe and Asia, “competition” for most recruiters has meant one or more of these things…

Speed: Urgency is good. It’s what clients want. But for many recruiters what “speed’ means is how quickly we can respond to requests for help from clients. And that usually leads to competition based on how fast we can work – not on the quality of what we do. So “competition” in that case leads to shortcuts, sloppy process and often results in unseemly resume races and squabbles over who represented candidates first. Ugly, unproductive and damaging to our reputations

Volume: This is the form of “competition “ where recruiters are being exhorted by desperate managers, totally bereft of new ideas, to do more sales calls, send out more spam, make more unwelcome visits. And yes, activity is crucial to recruiting success, but it needs to be quality, targeted activities, not volume of intrusive approaches which means we actually end up competing on who can annoy our clients the most!

Price:  The final competitive weapon of he or she who has nothing else to offer, resulting in the very essence of what we do as an industry being devalued in the eyes of our clients. And of course selling on price alone means our own margins are relentlessly squeezed to the point where we are all working harder and harder for less and less return – and how smart is that when you really think about it? Competitive pricing is key, sure. But value is the issue we should be competing on.  No matter what you charge you will always find someone who will charge less. And that is a slippery slope none of us want to risk.

Aggression: Truthfully, I like the word “aggression” when it comes to business, just as I encourage my sons to be aggressive on the rugby field. But my type of aggression is the healthy type. Passionate, committed, loving to win more than loose.  Always within the rules and never malicious. But too often recruiters think aggression means rubbishing your competition to clients and candidates, and bullying customers into decisions they don’t really want or need to make, all for the sake of closing the deal at all costs. And that is exactly the type of behavior that perpetuates the poor image our industry currently suffers with many of our customers using us begrudgingly  – and in some cases with undisguised resentment.

Dishonesty: And here I am using the softest word I can think of for competition based on lying, manipulation, and withholding of information. And it’s rife in our industry and I have commented on it more than once before (Integrity. It’s a bit like virginity. Either you have it…or you don’t!)

I can write fifty blogs highlighting outrageously deceitful behavior I have encountered from recruiters over the years, and maybe one day I will tell those tales.

But for now I guess the point is that it’s this kind of activity, that plenty of people in our industry believe “competitive” means.

Many of us in recruitment today are like pin-balls in a pin-ball machine. We bounce around without pattern desperately trying to hit the jackpot.

We are not sure we have the tools to compete, so we live in fear of every new development and then we try to copy it or do it faster or do it cheaper. But those old tactics are no longer working. In fact they are sending many of us out of business. Please note, “competing” does not mean copying.

So how do we thrive in a competitive world?

Well, stay tuned to next week’s blog entry where I will try and pin some of that down.

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

As the market recovers, one of the first impacts on our industry will be a revival of the temp and contract market. Temp-to-perm will be huge. Employers will see increased work volumes as the economy recovers, but will “dip their toes” into the labour market at first, hiring flexible solutions initially. But then, as momentum is gained and confidence returns, they will start to hire permanently. But the first place they will go for their permanent hires will be to transition tried and tested contractors onto their permanent payrolls. The big issue for us in the staffing industry will be talent management. It’s important we strategise and behave as if we are thinking years ahead when it comes to talent – because candidates will become a short resource again very soon.

Invest not only in adding talent to your database, but also ensuring relationships are built with them and that your systems allow you to access them fast. Find a way to shift the consultants’ mindset from running job board ads after they have taken an order – to a fully integrated talent strategy where your company and your staff are interacting with candidates and potential candidates, in their communities, all the time.

It’s going to be a whole new talent world going forward. The other issue is to think hard about the type of talent companies will be hiring in the recovery. Your tactics need to be based around building a relationship with the 10% that will be in demand and able to be placed, so that as the market rises you will be ready with the right stock at the right time.

It’s not about lots of talent, it’s about the right talent.

I have nothing against bikers. I had a motorbike myself, until I drove it into a hedge at 60 mph on the way back from the rugby club.

Bikers are only an analogy in my tale today so Rev Heads… take no offense please.

But to the business at hand. Consider this and then run the figures for your own business if you need convincing. In most of the recruitment businesses I have run, 70% of your business will come from the top 20% of your clients. In fact, often over 50% of your Gross Profit (NDR) will be generated from less than 10 client companies. Even on an individual consultant desk you will find that a high proportion of fees will come from between 3 and 5 clients.

Maybe we know this already. Why then do we spread both our marketing dollars, and our personal business development efforts, across all our clients and prospects equally?

It’s crazy!

You will no longer survive by spreading yourself so thin. The superficial phone call and the multi-listed, non-exclusive job order – and then we move on, is not a strategy that will work any more.

It’s transactional. It’s superficial. It’s dangerous for your financial health. What we want to focus on now is “share of wallet” not market share.

What is important as the market recovers is targeting long-term clients with fee-generation growth potential. We want to work with companies that will use our services regularly. We want to partner with companies that themselves are growing. The best client is a client that has a need for all or most of your service offer.

But it’s much, much more than that.

We need to understand that the best business is often the hardest to win, but the most profitable once you have it. The future requires us to invest time, resources and brainpower on developing, nurturing and retaining these key clients.

But it’s much more than that too.

We need to build different relationships with our clients. Engage in fresh conversations. This means providing value-added activities for your clients (webinars, blogs, salary surveys, skills testing of candidates). The goal is ensuring a regular pattern of meaningful contact and it also means developing proactive recruitment strategies specifically for them.

But it’s more than that too. Do not try to be all things to all people. Very few recruiters I know, have managed to survive as generalists and it will not get easier.

And the bikers? Well bikers are those hairy, ugly, anti-social clients. Clients who jerk you around with sketchy job specs. Clients who demand the world from you and give nothing in return. Clients who pull jobs half way through assignments. Clients who fail to return your calls and who use three other agencies in competition with you. Clients who unfailingly try to negotiate fees – especially after you have gone to the ends of the earth to fill their job. Clients who show no respect for what you do or say, who abuse your guarantee and who in the end, refuse to pay the bill.

You are smiling as you read this! And yet we still work with these guys. Why? They absorb your time and they torpedo your self-esteem. They take your focus off where it should be – your targeted clients and prospects who can offer you long term, sustainable, profitable business.

Why do we keep on giving these pseudo-clients another chance? Why do we defend them within our companies? Why do we say “they are not so bad –they will get better – next time we will earn a fee”?

Frankly, trying to pretty up these bikers is a bit like putting lipstick on a pig. A pig is still a pig with or without makeup!

Kill off these bikers – fire these so called clients –these renegades and buccaneers – and put your effort into those key prospects and clients who you have identified as the sorts of employers you want to do business with.

Business is like dating – you do have choice who you go with.

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.

During my recent RCSA speaking tour around Australasia I spoke to over 500 Australian and 150 New Zealander recruiters, on the upbeat topic of ‘Riding the Recovery’.

I have to admit it was refreshing to talk about positive ideas and strategies to ensure we take advantage of the opportunities presented by an economic revival.

One of the key areas I covered was the use of Social Media as a sourcing and influencing tool for our industry going forward. I have already blogged on my finding that Australian recruiters use Twitter in tiny numbers and followed that up with a similar story on New Zealand. However, I also used this opportunity to survey (by show of hands, so not very scientific), the use of LinkedIn by New Zealand recruiters.

It turns out that in Auckland and Christchurch, only about 70% of recruiters have a LinkedIn Account (I have to say I am wondering what the other 30% are waiting for). However when asked whether their LinkedIn accounts were worked ‘actively’ with status updates, participation in groups and all the other available applications, only between 10% and 20% kept hands raised.

I am no LinkedIn expert, but it seems self-evident that it’s a great branding tool, a fantastic sourcing tool and an exceptional way to connect with otherwise inaccessible people-not to mention its research capabilities.

I have spoken to clients who acknowledge freely that the first thing they do when assessing a new recruitment service provider, is to review their LinkedIn profile, including an evaluation of history, stability and quality of the recruiters network.

Personally, I could do far more with my LinkedIn account. However I do review it every day, participate in groups, answer questions, update my status and add connections every week. I have also connected my blog and Twitter account to my Linked In page, making an attempt to integrate my Social Media messaging and content. And it works. Even though I am only using the free functionality of Linked In, so far I have hired new Aquent employees from LinkedIn, won clients, secured speaking engagements and generated publicity in many countries and many media.

So Kiwi recruiters, let’s get with the programme. Slow to buy into Twitter I can half understand.

But if you are not LinkedIn… you surely will be left out.

Over the past week I have conducted RCSA seminars for over 150 New Zealand Recruiters in Auckland and Christchurch. The topic was “Riding the Recovery” and part of my session was on Social Media and how we need to build that technology into our talent sourcing strategies.

Well, I grabbed this opportunity to conduct a little mini-survey on the Twitter habits of attendees. It was totally unscientific and very impromptu, so take from this what you will, but I was somewhat surprised to find that only 5% of the attendees (by show of hands) in Auckland, and probably even less in Christchurch, actually have a Twitter account at all.

I am not sure what I expected. Having done a similar survey in three large Australian cities late last year, I should have been prepared because the Australian average was only between 5% and 10% as well. But on the other hand, Australians and New Zealanders are massive early-adopters of technology, and at the general level have swarmed into Social Media use. Why not recruiters?

I think this is going to have to change – and fast. New Zealand recruiters won’t be able to rely on job boards for candidates going forward. The cream of candidates, especially passive ones, will need to be sourced through an increasingly fragmented variety of channels. In my view Social Media will be one of those channels.

But for recruiters, Twitter will be far more than a simple source of candidates to fill todays’ job order. More important than that is that smart use of Social Media is an opportunity to be perceived as an expert in your industry niche. Recruiters are going to need to use Twitter to foster relationships (and not to spam people by the way), build credibility, and actually interact with communities of people they might want to place in the future, or who are influencers in their area of interest. That will be increasingly powerful for those who get it right.

In my view it’s like this. Social media remains a TOOL – not a strategy – to reach people. There are still tons of people who will not be found on social networking sites. Recruiters don’t want to be seduced by Social Media and the hype surrounding it — but equally recruiters must acknowledge its’ role, and figure out how to work it into the talent acquisition mix

So Kiwis (and Aussies, by the way) get to it! Build social media into your communications armory. When that talent shortage comes roaring back, you are going to need it!

It has been a while since I had a really good laugh reading something on the internet, but apparently this item caused me great mirth, because even people on the other side of the office came over to see what all the fuss was about.

Yes, the article on Skrentny Speaks where I am described as having ‘large metallic balls that most in the profession can’t even touch‘ cheered me up for its political incorrectness as much as for the implied compliment.

Skrentny was referring to Aquents’ drive to improve the customer experience, and our new strategy where we survey customer satisfaction every quarter and reward consultants on customer feedback. He is a fan of our initiative, and goes as far as saying ‘This attention to our buyers is why the best of us have survived year after year against the big boys’.

I continued on the theme of the appalling state of customer service across the recruitment industry in my latest blog, and the comments on the blog, via twitter and in the recruitment press, have been lively and mostly favourable.

At Aquent, we have a whole raft of internal customer service delivery agreements, but for us, or indeed any recruiter, I feel there are several key ‘moments of truth’ where candidates can be turned into raving fans (or lifelong critics). So many recruiters get this so wrong. Plenty in the staffing business think finding a candidate a job covers up all other sins. This is patently not correct, and I know many candidates have been found new roles by recruiters they subsequently despise for their arrogance, lack of respect and non-existent communication. What the candidates who are not found new roles think, I hate to ponder.

And the reverse is true too. My good friend Graham Whelan, who founded a company with me in the 1980s called Recruitment Solutions (which we subsequently took to an IPO, after building it nationwide) is a case in point. Graham is probably the best recruiter I have ever known. He had such a high quality attitude and service delivery to his candidates, that we worked out that Recruitment Solutions were taking two to three new job orders a week from previous candidates of Graham, who were now in a hiring position. Interestingly, the vast majority of these were people he had not placed! Why? Well, it seems that returning phones calls, giving honest advice, empathy and doing what you say you are going to do, so differentiated Grahams’ service to candidates, that they never forgot him, and sought him out when they were in the client role.

Seriously, ponder the implications of that for a moment.

And it’s not that hard. Key ‘moments of truth’ we are focussing on at Aquent include;

• The period of time between initial interview with us and the first temp assignment (or perm role referral). This is critical. The talent has taken time to come and see us. We have spent an hour together. A relationship is established. Communications expectations are set. This is when the recruiter must deliver. The candidate is vulnerable and keen to hear next steps. The recruiter needs to actively engage with the talent whether there is an assignment on offer or not. Keep them informed. Advise on the market. Advise on progress with their job search.
• The post first interview stage after a permanent role interview. This is a burning moment of truth. The candidate has seen the client. They are “dying” to know more. Many recruiters leave them hanging. This is especially true if the recruiter learns that a particular candidate is not favoured by the client. That is the time to communicate with the talent and manage their expectations.
• On a long-term temp assignment. It is an irony, but a long term temp will make more money for the recruiter than the biggest of perm fees. But often the temp is never contacted by the agency who placed them. It’s a major criticism of the staffing industry. And it’s dumb business. That contractor is generating income for you every day. Nurture them. Keep in touch. Show appreciation. They can be your biggest advocate or your most vocal critic… to your client.

So in our view ‘customer experience’ is the key differentiator for recruiters going forward.

Do YOU have the balls for it?