4 placements in 6 weeks lock-down. The plan here!

Every single day I get emails, tweets and LinkedIn messages from recruiters, all asking much the same thing;

What should I be doing right now?

How can I be productive in lockdown?

Occasionally, people write to me saying how much my advice has helped them. That’s gratifying because that is why I produce it.

This recruiter works in insurance recruitment, is based in the US, and wrote me a very nice email saying that I shook him out of his ‘whining and wallowing‘ and inspired him to focus on outbound engagement. The results have been stunning for him and he gave permission for me to publish his email (Verbatim) although he asked to remain anonymous.

So here it is. The comments in italics in brackets are mine.

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“Now, feedback on the impact of your stuff.

• After a short period of whining/wallowing (which I kept to myself), I’ve followed your advice to “focus on constant, quality outbound engagement”. Frankly, I needed to focus MORE on “constant, quality outbound engagement” whether during a pandemic or otherwise…I must admit that I had gotten a bit complacent because business was coming at me and things were easy. (That is an insightful comment. And a lesson for most of us. We were all becoming very reactive. The lesson COVID will teach us is that constant outbound activity, clients and candidates, is key)

• I pumped out – on LinkedIn – a slew of free content in April (basically all of the tools that we use with clients and candidates).  (Yes, building a brand is critical. But you do it by providing valuable content that meets the needs of your audience. This is something you should have done before COVID, but must now)

• I pumped out a slew of LinkedIn connection requests (10+ per day) and grew my LI connections and LI company page followers. (Smart. Again, make it part of the routine. Putting out great content is only useful if you have a targeted audience to engage with it. Otherwise, it’s like putting on a great play in an empty theatre. Brilliant! But who knew?)

• I participated as a panellist in an insurance company’s COVID webinar for their commercial insurance brokers (my target clients). (Love this. Many of my clients are all over this. Precision Sourcing is doing a great job in producing webinars for clients. And it gives their recruiters something to talk to clients about. people2people to regular client and candidate live Facebook updates, and have produced a snap maket survey too. I was in their office on Friday and the MD told me the team have arranged over 300 15-minute zoom client visits to go over the results. Genius.  (PS I believe this was partly my idea, but the MD has not thanked me yet. I won’t embarrass him by mentioning his name. Mark Smith) LOL
  

• I’ve sent a minimum of 6+ IMs/emails per day to set up 6+ business development calls for the following day. I got this idea from Gary Stauble at the Recruiting Lab, and it’s a great way to fight off call reluctance – forces me to keep the commitment to call – and it warms up the sales calls.  (Love it. It’s all outbound engagement, driving meaningful conversations, which will drive work)

• So far, I’ve picked up 2 new search engagements. I collect an upfront engagement fee and a success fee (flat fee) on hire. The only change I’m making in my model is to be willing to go a tad lighter on the upfront portion and slide more of the flat fee to the back end if it’s a worthy client opportunity. I won’t cut the total fee…just more open to deferring some of it.  (I am in love with this paragraph)
  

• On the candidate side, my recruiting activity for May…and I don’t want to brag about this or publicize it…but it’s been a damn good month: 17 submitted candidates, 11 send-outs (so far) and 4 hires. I’ve had many WAY crappier months before COVID. ( I am in love with this paragraph too!)

Wanted to (again) pass along my personal heartfelt thanks for your contributions to the recruiting community in general and to me in particular during this shitstorm (yes, I love that phrase). (Pleasure, delighted it helped. And credit to you for taking action)

Oh, and one more thing: I stopped being a tight ass and ordered your book on Amazon too! (should hope so!)

All the best.
XXXXX”

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