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Hot Tip #24 - These Six Techniques Can Improve Your Productivity by 100%!

By Lou Adler, August 7, 2007

Most recruiters waste too much time doing unnecessary work. The solution is not reducing your req load, it's cutting your sendouts/hire in half. This will increase your productivity by 100%. In the process you'll start hiring more people who are top performers, but not great interviewers, and you'll stop hiring people who are great interviewers, but not top performers. Here's how to pull off this amazing feat:

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Related Topics:

Assessment, Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiting, Sourcing

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1. Don't Take "No" for an Answer. Don't let prospects off the hook. Too many say they're not interested in what you're offering even before they know what you're offering. The only allowable "No" to your question, "Would you be open to explore a new opportunity?" is when the person has enough information about your offer in comparison to all other potential offers. Assume a "No" early in the discussion is really an attempt to avoid talking with you. As a recruiter your job is to get them to not only talk to you about your opportunity, but also to get the person to give you two to three great referrals. So from this moment forward never take "No" for an answer, and when they say they're open to talk, don't tell them anything about the job; have them tell you about themselves first. This is called applicant control and is the critical first step in getting great referrals.


2. Only Call Warm Leads. You'll get more of your voice mails returned if you mention the name of someone they respect as the reason you're calling. That's why getting referrals is the heart of great recruiting. You can prove this by tracking your warm calls to cold calls voice mail return rate as well as candidate quality. You'll discover that warm calls are typically stronger candidates and they all return your calls. Being great at getting referrals is the key to making more placements more quickly with high quality candidates.


3. Focus on Opportunity not Compensation. Recruiters need to be able to present their offerings as great career moves, not compensation increases. This is another aspect of applicant control. When you first talk with a prospect ask the person if she'd be open to explore a new career opportunity if it offered significant stretch and upside potential combined with only a modest compensation increase. If you don't take"No" for an answer, you'll get the "Yes." Of course then you'll prove your case. The best way to do this is to clearly understand real job needs and then use the interview to find gaps and voids in the candidate's background that offer stretch and growth.


4. Convert Having to Doing. Whenever confronted by an overly stringent requirement, ask your hiring manager client what the person taking the job needs to do with the skill or trait. For example, if the requirement is for a "Top-10 MBA," ask "What will the person actually be doing with the MBA?" When the manager says something like "Lead the development of the five-year business plan," ask if he would be willing to at least see someone with a less-stellar MBA if the person had done some exceptional similar work. Switching the selection from having to doing this way will open up the door to more great people who have a different mix of skills and qualifications.


5. Control the Opening Tip-Off. More hiring mistakes are made in the first 30 minutes of the interview than any other time. Biases, perceptions, emotions, candidate nervousness, and first impressions all play a role. Intervening somehow during this period will prevent many of your good candidates from being excluded for bad reasons. Conducting panel interviews is one way to do this. Properly organized panel interviews force everyone to remain more objective. Another way to increase objectivity is to have your candidates prepare a write-up of their most significant accomplishments (2-3 paragraphs each). Then ask your client to review these during the first 30 minutes of the interview. Reducing emotional errors requires early intervention.


6. Conduct a Formal Debriefing. Most assessments are too subjective resulting in the wrong candidate hired or the best one slipping away. I won't take an assignment unless my client agrees to use a 10-factor scorecard to assess competency, fit, and interest. You shouldn't either. Here's how: at the end of each interview have the hiring team collectively debrief and rank the candidate on a 1-5 scale across all 10 factors. The rankings needed to be based on real evidence and details, not feelings and emotions. The lack of a formal and deliberative debriefing process is the primary reason weak candidates get hired and strong ones, who might not make great presentations, don't.

Process improvement is the key to increasing recruiter productivity. These six steps offer a great way to start.