In recruitment, everybody sells.

It has ever been thus.

During the ten-year recruiting boom that ended in March 2020 when COVID-19 hit, recruitment companies got away with squadrons of non-billing managers and platoons of people with sexy job titles and no discernible responsibilities.

Productivity declined, and then the ship was only righted when businesses became much more efficient as we came out of the pandemic.

But then – we went into reverse.

Our numbers improved, the back office expanded, and support staff added. That’s no bad thing in itself, but what is the outcome? Have you measured the gain in sales and productivity to justify that overhead?

Many recruiters were added, most of whom could not sell and who still cannot sell.

And now, a slowdown is upon us. It could get worse. In a downturn, the last thing you want is ‘administration managers’ poring over spreadsheets, number crunching, tweaking budgets, checking KPIs, planning, strategising, reviewing, assessing and (God help us!) calling (Zoom) meetings.

Of course, most of those things have some value. However, they’re not a full-time job, except perhaps in the largest of organisations, and even then, I doubt it. Why else do these roles get cut the moment the market dips?

They provide the most negligible value, and everyone knows it. These administration managers were the first people, along with rookies, fired by the big players in recruitment when COVID-19 hit.

Now we are in a slowdown, and it is happening again. It could get much worse.

And now its clear that agency recruiter layoffs have begun in earnest

So we need to look beneath the covers.

Previously lauded big billers in IT recruitment are now being let go. One of my clients told me last week she gets three calls a week from ‘Rec2Recs’ offering newly laid-off IT recruiters.

Because they cannot sell and have built no meaningful relationships to leverage off.

And the number of non-performing recruiters with 1 to 3 years experience who are being placed into intensive ‘performance management‘, unable to stand the scrutiny of activity goals that include sales targets, and then resign, is hiding the actual wave of exits from our profession.

In recruitment, everybody sells!

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The actual ‘selling’ will vary, but everybody sells – CEO included. And when I say ‘sell’, do not automatically think cold-calling or relentless ‘hard selling‘. It’s likely to be sophisticated, consultative, ambassadorial, relationship-based, and sometimes digital, but the point is that everybody bills or directly engages in activity that leads to billing.

A recruiter sells all day.

A resourcer or candidate manager sells to candidates and supports the recruiter in selling to clients. Supervising one or two people, the ‘team leader’ must hold a full personal fee generation budget.

The ‘manager‘, running a team of up to eight consultants, will still bill, but they will increasingly farm work out to consultants in support; however, that ‘billing manager’ still sells, even if they handle just a few jobs. The placements dwindle, but they still rain-make, account-manage, see clients, and front networking events. So, as the team grows, billing drops, but selling does not.

During the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and other recessions prior, this took care of itself because recruitment companies cut out middle management, and everyone went back on the desk. And it happened again during COVID-19, just much faster.

My advice to you is to get ahead of the curve.

Never allow non-billing managers to emerge as things improve. Be careful about any role in recruitment where the link to sales is unclear.

Your CFO, if you have one, should see clients. So should your HR manager. Why not?  Undoubtedly, they must be as connected as possible to the ultimate customer. Likewise, admin staff should be brought into sales meetings and rewarded for sales growth.

Your senior management should have sales responsibilities, including a goal for client meetings or running key accounts.

In my last ‘corporate’ role, I was the CEO of Firebrand, a company with ten offices in eight countries, and I did my share of selling. I did 100 client visits in my final year before selling the business. I also sold via my ‘ambassadorial’ role, speaking at conferences and events where clients and candidates were among the audience, and creating PR and branding opportunities. (For the full story of Firebrand and the other businesses I founded and ran, read my first book, The Savage Truth.)

Right now, you can hear the wails of recruitment business owners. Loud, clear, and everywhere.

‘My recruiters can’t sell’.

Well, it’s the leaders’ fault, because a selling component is part of every recruiter’s job, all the time. And it’s the leaders’ job to manage and ensure that.

Chasing the short-term benefits of a team of job-fillers in a job boom may make for a sexy P and L, for a while. But it’s never, ever sustainable. So many agencies fell for that one in the past two years.

Whether the market declines or the market improves, don’t lose focus.

Everybody sells!

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