I see this everywhere. Companies that are unwilling to pay for an A-player struggle along with teams composed of B and C-players.
In a high-demand, low-supply market, companies like this really suffer. Candidates think if you are cheap with people, then you will be cheap with everything else. Companies can’t afford this perception.
Statistics show that an A-player (top 10%) candidate is five times more productive than the average B-player. The Pareto Principle—80% of the results will come from 20% of the people—is something you should discuss with every client.
Put it to them this way: “Would it be worth that extra 10% to 20% more in compensation to add to that pool of 20% of the people who actually produce 80% of the results?” Sure, top talent costs more, but you don’t get a Mercedes for Taurus prices.
However, your clients should also understand that this principle applies to their relationship with a trusted recruiter. When clients pressure recruiters to discount their fees, they do not value their services as they should. It will be a problem.
If companies want the best people, they partner with the best recruiters and pay them a full fee. Many successful recruiters refuse to discount fees, and even if they did, would not spend any significant time on the search.
How could they justify it? If you have 20 great search assignments on your desk, why make time to work on a discounted search?
What your client needs to know is that the best recruiters don’t discount fees. They don’t have to. It is the individuals who are new to recruiting or without a strong value proposition in our industry who begrudgingly discount fees—the recruiters who have nothing else to work on.
In today’s business climate, it isn’t enough for us to be good at what we do. A great recruiter must focus on educating every client about the importance of developing the right belief system and hiring culture to be successful at hiring the top talent in today’s demand-driven market.
Clients should know: you get what you pay for.
This requires superior communication skills, a strong belief in your own professional worth, and the confidence that you—and you alone—will deliver the top talent available in the marketplace.
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Jon Bartos, a guest writer for the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog, is a premier writer, speaker, and consultant on all aspects of personal performance, human capital measurement, and the analytics behind them. In 2010, Bartos founded Revenue Performance Management, LLC. The RPM Dashboard System is a business intelligence tool used worldwide for metrics management for individual and team performance improvement. In 2012, Bartos achieved national certification in Hypnotherapy, furthering his interest in learning the dynamics behind what motivates others to achieve higher levels of success. Click here to visit Bartos’s website.