Working both sides of the desk?

"Hi Mike...I was reading some of the posts you had on your blog.....very interesting articles. Currently I'm focusing mainly on the recruiting side, however, I would like to have my own client base and become a 360 recruiter. Is cold calling clients the only way to achieve this? I would really appreciate it if you can give me some tip to begin having my own book of business. I look forward to hearing your thoughts..."

Working both sides of the recruiting and sales duties are a big challenge that many successful independents and placements specialists have met and accomplished.  It's not easy and many times I think is a mistake for some folks.

Too many times, recruiters think they understand the sales relationship and too many times, salespeople think candidates are a dime a dozen and can be produced at any time.  Study someone you have seen as successful on the other side and understand what they have done and see if you can copy them.  AND, still do what made you successful at your current job.

The biggest complaint I get from full service placement folks is their time.  Good recruiters spend a lot of time building a relationship with the best candidates.  Good candidates usually aren't looking for a job, but are willing to listen to someone they already know and like.  At the same time, good salespeople spend time with important clients when they don't have requirements.  Clients remember that and will call those sales people first and trust them more with their opinions.

Usually, the sales side, will need to build up a stable of good candidates before they start looking for requirements.  Also, the recruiters will need to build up relationships with potential clients.  So what this means is, there is a great amount of time that will be needed up front before any revenue comes in. 

In a nutshell, it takes much more effort then either side thinks, but if you work hard and do your homework (like most things in life), you will be rewarded financially and personally.

ISO 9000 Update

Our challenge of getting our company ISO certified from scratch is progressing well.  We have moved past getting all the documentation, form and process changes in place. 

One step that really has helped up improve our business model has been the training.  It was really just re-training when it came to the recruiters and sales folks.  For those of you that work for ISO certified firms, the only real issue is that you must have a documented, repeatable process in place.  It's been a healthy exercise to walk through your processes and discuss (train) what each person is responsible for and make sure all the paperwork is done right the first time.

We have also instituted new processes for situations when a field staffer is removed from a contract.  This will help us look back over the year and see if we have any improvements we can make in recruiting to reduces this future hiring mistakes.

Our next step is the internal audit.  I'll keep you posted! 

Algorithm for predicting turnover? No Sale!

Scott Morrison of WSJ Technology, describes a program Google is working on in his article, Google Searches for Stafffing Answers, dated May 19, 2009.  Sounds like a good idea but I'm pretty sceptical that it would have really valid application when dealing with the imperfect human employee.

Google isn't publicly going into much detail, but sounds like they are taking historic information like reviews, salary data and surveys and trying to equate results. If this really it valid, it would totally discount the impact a good recruiter would have ever pulling an a happy employee out of Google.  It doesn't take in account what new opportunity the employee might be interested in.  It doesn't take into account the future at all.  It just try to measure past experiences when someone was unhappy with a raise or a boss, they resigned.  Well of course!  Personal situations and feelings change in humans.  They can be influenced, especially by a good recruiter that can articulate and "sell" a new opportunity. 

I do believe in indicators, but whenever I hear of someone trying to predict what a breathing, feeling and emotional creature like us humans might do, my red flags come up. 

Great cover letter article

I'm usually not a big fan of cover letters because too often I think candidates get lost in too much detail and the HR folks will ignore them anyway and just run the resume into their ATS for key word searches.

BUT, Harry Joiner at Marketingheadhunter.com has a great example of a well written cover letter. 10 Reasons Why this Cover Letter Rocks  There are many things about this letter that I like.  It's short and too the point, highlighting the items that the author believes will get him noticed.  And that's the key point, GET NOTICED.

Flexible Recruiting Organizations

Got a call last week from a friend in the industry.  He had some questions from one of his clients about how to set up a flexible recruiting organization that can gain or drop scale quickly depending on requirement flow.

I have set up organizations similar to this in the past.  Focus on setting up local and off shore recruiting support. 

 Break your local organization into:

1) a strong, experienced senior core recruiters

2) mid level skilled 1-3 year recruiters

3) entry level sourcers

Set up off shore companies to provide:

1) sourcers that perform internet searches and produce resumes only

2) recruiters that perform searches and make initial contact to set up meetings for local recruiters

3) full level recruiting

Make sure to negotiate monthly contracts with the offshore companies.

Remember that this is the full level organization.  You should cut back or grow depending on the detail level of requirements and your client relationship.  The more distant your relationship and client contact, the more you build the off shore side.  The more exclusive your requirements, the more local and senior types.

The key is to take a very hard and honest look at your requirements and fit them into each category.

Personality Test aren't true evaluators for job success

I observed first hand, a situation that a very good candidate didn't get even through the first cut of a job screening process because of a "Personality Test".  These tests are called different things, but they are used and intended to judge the personality of a person and as a predictor how they will perform.

While discussing these tests with the vendors, you'll get a valid argument that they can be used as a tool for management to understand what motivates people differently.  I agree. But, too often they are used as a filtering tool.  Wrong move! 

Two main items that I believe points out their faults:  1) They can be manipulated.  Again the vendor will disagree, saying they use multiple questions to test traits that can't be tainted.  Again wrong.  I have had an opportunity to test this myself and have twisted answers to achieve desired traits in the results.  2) Companies must have a baseline as what traits make each role successful.  Again wrong.  In this industry, I have seen very successful personalities of all types as recruiters and sales people.  Now, I have seen certain successful companies only hire certain "types" of personalities that has proven successful.  But not a guarantee!

I believe the healthiest companies mirror their client base.  Meaning there are all types of personalities.  Don't pigeon people by these tests, and if you must use them, only make it part of your evaluations, not the main focus.

ISO 9000 Journey ongoing

We are making progress in our ISO 9000 quest. 

I purchased a package that provides formats, forms and recommended project plans.  I have background in a national company working with ISO, but this is my first go at getting a small company certified from scratch.

We've made advances in documenting our critical processes, building the quality manual and training the staff in the benefits gained by using repeatable methods.  I've always been a strong proponent of having a strong project plan on IT projects, but it's really been a valuable tool here also.

One lesson already learned, is deciding if it is wise to implement any changes during your investigative step.  DON'T.  We have a invoicing system that has evolved over time with various clients.  I see numerous steps that could be streamlined, but I talked myself out of making them at this time.  The more it is realized that during this certification, right and wrong systems aren't a issue, but having a repeatable process that you can document and repeat is the important factor.  Improvements can come after the certification.

How to answer interview questions

I received a comment from the folks at Australia Works and a request for opinions on a list of questions that candidates commonly receive during interviews.  The list is thorough and very well done.  If you're out interviewing, I'd encourage you to visit the site and practice the questions.

I'm not a fan of HR or hiring managers asking questions like these.  In my experience, they are usually used by interviewers that are inexperienced or not comfortable interviewing candidates.  Most questions don't really focus in on if a person can do this job, but usually are misinterpret trying to "box" a candidate in on behavior issues.  Just too much room for error.

But, right or wrong doesn't matter if you want to land that job, so study up and be prepared.

Recruiting/Sales metrics in a down economy

Assuming you already know and have confidence that you have a team in place that was performing well before the recent downturn, their performance numbers probably stink right now.  Normally, this would be an alarm that there are problems with the person and not the situation.  So what do you do?

One option is to just ignore those numbers and wait for things to turn around.  But, what about dumping those: #of starts, %of margin etc numbers and change to something that can help you motivate them to build a stronger foundation for the future.

How about: # of new candidates in the data base, #of new requirements generated, # of new clients that give you requirements etc.  In the past, recruiters and sales folks that highlighted these numbers were said to be all fluff and not able to put together actual deals.

Now is the time to be creative and design business models that help you last through the storm and ready to gain market share when the market rebounds.

ISO 9000 Certification Good Match for Staffing Industry

I am getting ready to start a ISO certification process for Chameleon Integrated Services.  This new step was required by federal guidelines for some minority firms.   Although this was the motivation, I believe this will be a very good step in the growth in the organization.

My experience with ISO occured with a national IT staffing firm during a time of extreme growth though acquisitions.  My job was blending two different branches in a city into one functioning team.  I feel, because of the processes already set up, established by the ISO certification, I was able to focus on the people and the structure was already clearly defined.

I'll post the progress all the way through the outside certification audit and give some suggestions and discuss mistakes we make.