Finding someone a job is only half the battle….

In financial markets they talk about canny investors being “stock-pickers”, which refers to an ability to select ‘diamonds in the rough’; investments that will outperform over time.

Great recruiters are “talent-pickers”.

We would love to place every person who approaches us, or who we interview. But that is not going to happen.

In fact, spreading your talent activity too thin will dilute your ability to find people work. Candidate selection is key. Selecting the best ones will be an art, developing a relationship with them will be a skill that many of today’s transactional recruiters will find hard to adapt to.

We have to be nimble enough to understand the trends in clients’ needs and adjust our candidate activities to meet those needs. In fact, we need to predict impending client needs and source talent accordingly; ahead of time.

Then we need to assess which candidates are truly motivated to move. Finding someone a job is only half the battle. Getting them to accept it is the other half.

Winning clients is important, obviously. But as the market tightens, increasingly those recruiters who select committed, in-demand candidates to work with will emerge the winners.

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  • Posted by Greg Savage
  • On March 16, 2011
  • 3 Comments
Tags: Coaching recruiters, Recruiter coaching, Recruitment Consulting Skills, talent management

3 Comments

Mark
Greg, I got onto your site for the first time a couple of weeks back and have read lots of material. It is refereshing how you are trying to contribute towards best practice recruitment - in sales, service and everything else. Good point in this article, especially in candidate tight markets. If you specialise in recruiting core, skills shortage staff you should always maintain a pool of candidates that are both active and passive. Manage them with the highest level of service as you would a portfolio of active and passive clients. When you get wind of upcoming roles, tell your candidates that opportunities are coming up with your clients and start to ascertain which candidates will be interested. This applies so much to contingent specialists like myself who compete against the same recruiters on every assignment and whoever has the candidate gets the fee.
Mat Gollop
In order to be an effective 'talent picker' you also need client control and commitment because the time invested in effective selection is significantly greater than basic transactional work. One of the reasons that recruiters have become more transactional is because clients have forced them back down the supply chain with stronger in-house or RPO processes and portals. This is mainly on larger accounts but I think clients and recruiters alike need to share some responsibility here.
Paul Anderson
Excellent points both from Greg and I like Mat Gollops particulary. Recruiters are becoming so far removed from line or company culture, that talent picking for those in that situation is tough. I would just add, with a little bit of nous and effort that can be addressed to a point. Although RPOs put barriers in, the flip side is with the available media and contacts with ex employees you can find all these things out if you want to get to the top of the recruitment pile. Yes there are barriers, and some will be too tough/not commercially viable to try to jump. However, a little time invested in research good reap higher rewards, and not just financially.

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