If you haven’t done so already, this is the time to start preparing for NEXT year on your recruiting desk. Wait a minute. Scratch that. I mean THIS year . . . because 2020 has already begun!
If you’re an agency recruiter or search consultant, then you’re more than likely focused on making more placements this year. At the very least, you’re focused on making more placements than you did in 2019. Even if it’s only one more placement. The reason is simple: more placements means higher billings. More money, in other words.
However, how can you achieve greater recruitment production this year? This is a question with multiple answers, because there are a lot of factors involved. The number of job orders you work is one. The quality of the candidates that you present to clients is another. The speed with which you work is yet a third.
Recruitment production analysis is the key
However, there are other ways to improve your recruitment production as a search consultant. And to discover those ways, we’re going to draw upon the wisdom of recruiting industry trainer Jon Bartos.
According to Bartos, there are a few things that recruiters should be thinking about. Specifically, Bartos believes they should be asking themselves the following four questions in their quest to achieve greater recruitment production in 2020:
#1—What worked last year and what didn’t work?
This is more of a general question, but you get the idea. Which recruiting strategies worked on your desk and within your agency and which ones didn’t? This includes both on the candidate side and on the client side.
#2—Which marketing approaches worked and which didn’t?
Once again, this pertains to marketing on the candidate side and also on the client side. Did cold calling work? If so, to what extent did it work? How about emailing? If that worked, how well did it work? How about your website? How about job posting? Or how about I stop asking questions?
#3—Which recruiting approaches worked and which didn’t?
This mainly involves the way in which you engaged and interacted with candidates. After all, as a search consultant, it IS your job to recruit candidates for your clients’ job orders. How you approach candidates and what you say to them to convince them to consider your clients’ employment opportunities has a big impact on how much success you experience.
#4—What technology worked and what didn’t?
Ah, yes . . . technology. This includes everything from texting candidates on your smartphone to social media to the recruitment software package that you choose to use. (You DO use recruiting software, correct?) Each of these technology tools have to “pull their weight,” so to speak, in terms of your production.
These aren’t just rhetorical questions, either. These are questions that recruiters should answer, and they should also record their answers, too, in the interest of improving future performance.
Bartos also indicated that recruiters need to take a good, hard look at the job orders they’ve received from their clients during the past 12 months.
“From a quality perspective, recruiters should ask themselves what percentage of the job orders they’ve actually filled,” said Bartos. “That will tell them the quality of their job orders.”
According to Bartos, it doesn’t matter HOW good your year has been, there’s always room to get better . . . in all areas.
“If recruiters have a good understanding of the past year, then they can continue to improve,” he said. “Even if it’s been a tremendous year, they can have 40% to 50% increases in revenue next year. They can make next year that much better.
“Do more of what worked . . . and do less of what didn’t.”
And that pretty much sums it up.
Recruitment production and continuous training
Jon Bartos is a premier writer, speaker, and consultant on all aspects of personal performance, human capital, and the analytics behind them. Bartos has served as a keynote speaker at Top Echelon conferences and is also a regular contributor to the Top Echelon Expert Recruiter Coaching Series of webinars.
Speaking of which, if you’re looking to improve your recruitment production, participating in continuous training and education is an excellent way to do so. And it just so happens that Top Echelon has an extensive training library of free recruitment agency training courses. These courses are recorded versions of Top Echelon’s Expert Recruiter Coaching Series.
These webinars touch upon a variety of recruiter-related topics. These topics deal with both candidates and clients. As always, our goal with these webinars (and corresponding videos) is to help recruiters make more placements.
In addition to training and webinars, Top Echelon offers other recruitment solutions. These solutions include the following:
Find out more about the recruiting tools that Top Echelon offers to agency recruiters and search consultants!