As a recruiter, do you want to find both clients and candidates? Or, do you focus more on one than the other?
If you’re thinking about finding both clients and candidates, you need to know about full desk recruiting.
What is full desk recruiting?
Full desk recruiting involves one recruiter working on both sides of the desk. The recruiter sources candidates to fill positions and build up the talent pipeline. The same recruiter also finds clients and collects job orders.
What is a full desk recruiter?
A full desk recruiter does—you guessed it—full desk recruiting. A full desk recruiter gets their own job orders and fills them with their own candidates.
Full desk recruiters work alone. They don’t rely on salespeople to pull in clients. Nor do they have other recruiters find candidates. Full desk recruiters take care of all recruiting process steps themselves.
If you are a full desk recruiter, you will get to know both the client and candidate sides well. You will get to know your clients’ needs and be able to suggest candidates even when there isn’t an open job order. And, you’ll learn where and how to attract the best candidates.
Tips for full desk recruiting
Use the following tips to become a successful full desk recruiter.
Work both sides of the desk equally
A good full desk recruiter must have both clients and candidates. You should spend approximately an equal amount of time gathering both.
If you spend more time on obtaining job orders, you won’t have enough high-quality candidates to fill the openings. If you spend more time sourcing candidates, you’ll have a large supply and nowhere to place them. You need to build up your clients and candidates at the same time. Doing so will ensure you have enough candidates and clients to keep earning your recruiter fees.
Manage your time
A full desk professional must have impeccable recruiter time management skills. You must know how to divide your tasks so you don’t spend too much time on finding candidates or clients. And, you can’t spend too much time on any one client or candidate.
You must be able to prioritize your tasks. You have to be able to decide what to do first. And, you must be able to determine how much time is acceptable to spend on certain tasks. Prioritization and time management will help you avoid getting carried away with tasks that aren’t financially beneficial to you.
Focus your efforts
Don’t use the “spray and pray” method where you plaster your services everywhere. With this method, you contact every potential and client and candidate possible. You try to reach as many people as possible, hoping that your efforts will result in good client and candidate relationships.
When you use this method, you will reach many people but probably have few results. And, the results you do get might not be the best for you.
By narrowing down your client and candidate searches, you can get better results. Come up with a strategy for reaching out to clients and candidates.
Recruiting for a specific niche can help you focus your efforts. Instead of trying to be everything for everyone, you can do your job well for one or a few industries. Having a niche will help you learn about the industry. And, you can use your knowledge to attract the right candidates and clients faster.
Learn how to effectively market to your niche so you can dominate it. Download this free expert recruiter marketing webinar, focus your efforts, and become a big biller.
Don’t settle for rejections
You’re going to get rejected a lot. Potential clients will tell you they don’t have any jobs for you. Potential candidates might even ignore you. Despite the rejections, you must keep trying.
If a potential client or candidate rejects you, try contacting them again later. Just because they aren’t interested in your services now, doesn’t mean they won’t be interested later. Or, the people you are contacting might not fully trust you or understand what you can do. It might take several times to build trust and knowledge.
Alternatives to full desk recruiting
If you want to be an outside recruiter but don’t like full desk recruiting, you do have other options.
You can do team recruiting. This type of recruiting works if you are at a recruiting firm with multiple other recruiters. You and the other recruiters can share clients and candidates. By sharing resources, you will be better able to place the right candidate with the right client.
At some recruiting firms, certain recruiters might only focus on one part of the recruiting process. For instance, you might only focus on sourcing candidates while another recruiter at your firm solely focuses on gaining new clients and job orders.
You can also do split placements. This is where you supply either the job order or the candidate and another outside recruiter supplies the other. In this case, you and the other recruiter do not work for the same recruiting firm. Instead, you both belong to a recruiting network where recruiters help each other make placements. Because you split the placement, the recruiter fee is split between you and the other recruiter. Split placements can help you fill tricky job orders faster.
