Phone recruiting- Back to basics

Hillary — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:56:29 +0000

When it comes to recruiting there’s an obvious advantage to using several different mediums to attract the right talent. We all use email to reach out quickly and conveniently and hey, if it comes from a real person (no email blasts), with a real job offer, it can even feel really personalized. Social media connects with candidates from another platform. It can come off as less intrusive and more friendly, especially when you share a networking or social group with the candidates you’re reaching out to. Then there’s the old-school recruiting tool- the trusty phone. Recruiters have been using the phone for quite some time now but believe it or not it’s really easy to forget some of the basics that can make you a very successful recruiter over the phone.

Here are a few tips on successful phone recruiting:

Get in the right mindset- As recruiters, our approach can sometimes come off as more of a sales pitch than a job offer. Remember to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. You don’t want to feel like you’re being solicited and neither do they. Remember you have a real opportunity to share and open the conversation with that in mind.
Focus on building a strong rapport first- Mirroring a candidates conversational tone and even the loudness and speed of their speech will help them feel more connected to you. This is a quick way to get someone to open up.
Remember- As Dale Carnegie will tell you, people love talking about themselves- If you want someone to talk, just listen. Well ask a question first, and then listen. You may lean something that’s not on paper. Getting a candidate to open up and discuss his/her own career objectives can save everyone time. Often the things you learn from simply talking to an individual give you a lot more information than what’s written on their resume.

These tips aren’t going to seal the deal every time, but they sure will help you to open a few more doors and have a few less hang-ups.

“Everyone Eats Cookies”

Hillary — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:14:40 +0000

Jon Picoult, recently wrote an article in the New York Times that caught my attention. Not simply based on the fact that a cookie was mentioned, but more so because he spoke of the current discourteous nature of the recruiting industry. It seems that, despite the growing number of unemployed out there, recruiters and human resource departments are, shall we say, less than communicative with applicants. That goes for job finalists who leave an interview feeling they’ve nailed it and then never hear back from the company again, all the way to candidates who are simply rejected and never receive notification of such a decision. The general absence of follow-up calls, status notifications, or even responses to inquiries, seems to be the M.O these days.

In his article, Picoult wrote about a story of a manager from Nabisco who, when at an HR industry conference, shocked the audience by stating that his company responded to each and every resume they received. When a dumbfounded peer asked why on earth the company did this, the manager responded, “Because- everyone eats cookies.”

This response struck a chord. It made me think about CareerPlug and our approach to communicating with candidates. I can happily say that we are no-doubt, a company who recognizes that “everyone eats cookies.” In fact, our specialty is personalization. Everyone wants to feel they’ve been heard, so we make sure that happens; it’s less a rule of business but rather a simple gesture of kindness and human decency. As soon as we know the status of a candidate, they are notified, within moments. This concept of attentive correspondence seems to have slipped through the cracks within the industry.

So, if very few recruiters are doing it these days…does that make us in style? I think it does. Personalization is the new black.

(Preoccupations “Be Nice to Job Seekers. (They’re Shoppers, Too.)”, By Jon Picoult Published: May 30, 2009)

CareerPlug » recruiting etiquette

Phone recruiting- Back to basics

“Everyone Eats Cookies”