Is hiring the best recruiters for your business a key goal this year? It is for most of the recruitment leaders that I talk to. I was asked by APSCo to talk at their quarterly members meeting about how to attract and engage your own recruiters. Below are some of the tips I shared from my Internal Recruitment Workshops.
Are You One of the 61% Of Recruitment Leaders?
Recruitment leaders know that the key to growth in turnover and profit is having the right recruiters – and that means hiring the best recruiters out there. There’s a few recruitment stats knocking about which have made me stop and think:
61% of recruitment leaders are worried about attracting their own talent this year
Every recruitment leader I speak to:
Wants their teams to be more effective, successful, inspired.
They want them to have more phone and face time (critical sales tasks).
They are all worried about the technology paralysis that is preventing this precious phone and face time.
What Do These Hiring Stats Say About the Recruitment Sector?
There are stats like80% of talent placed last year was already on your internal systems before you spent time (often 4 hours per day) sourcing from external systems such as LinkedIn.
The recruiter demographic is getting younger – we assume that this demographic gets tech, but are finding out the hard way that this is not always the case. So, skills like digital marketing, CRM processes are becoming critical to the average recruitment consultant.
What Do Deloitte and APSCo Say About the Recruitment Sector?
The stats from APSCo and Deloitte’s annual study say it all:
68% of leaders want access to new recruiters
63% cited staff training as critical
89% told APSCo that use of digital marketing was either very important or important
86% said that they needed new technology to grow
But still there is a lack of strategy around internal attraction. I run Internal Recruitment Digital Marketing Workshops to tackle attraction and engagement and focus on 4 areas.
Attract (to Prevent Churn)
Engage (to Increase Speed)
Inspire (to Hire)
Train (to Retain)
I’ll talk about the first two in this blog and give some practical tips.
1. Attract to Prevent Recruiter Churn
The goal is NOT to attract – it’s to KEEP! I often find that the recruitment process is too heavy on the face time and not geared up to benefit from online.
“70% of candidates come to your website before contacting you too – what does your website say?”
Stats tell us that talent can spend around 2 hours engaging with you online BEFORE contacting you – do you have 2 hours of decent content about your culture, values, life chances?
“72% of applicants want to know about your values and culture… what is it and where is it?”
Or do you simply have a benefits list which include childcare vouchers and holidays (neither are benefits… they are rights…)
Think about the online platforms that you are live on and use them to attract – yes an obvious statement, but recruiters are so keen to mend their clients’ shoes and recruit for them, that they are walking around bare-foot and ignoring their own recruiting strategies!
Have a content plan aimed at attracting and hiring the best recruiters, not just a job advert and interview plan!
Ensure managers’ LinkedIn profiles look like they are great to work for… Yes, innovate your adverts (we know a lot about this) but also create some engaging videos to help your ideal recruiters see and hear who and where they will be working (Health warning… dump the 2 minute talking heads, overly produced, serious, looking-like-you’re-going-to-a-wedding videos and get real).
Pitch your business – don’t abdicate your employer brand to your marketing department and Rec2Rec firms – they are there to support you! Your goal in attracting is to attract people who won’t leave after 2 months as they made a mistake. You want them skipping into the interview, staring at their phone waiting for your call, being their best…
Can you honestly say that your attraction strategy attracts the best and most engaged?
Or does it attract recruiters who have you in a long list of prospects? If 61% of you are worried about your internal recruitment strategy, ask yourselves what % of your time you are spending proactively fixing the issue?
2. Not so Fluffy Recruiter Engagement
Now – this is a pretty fluffy word, which means many things to many recruiters. In my world, it’s pretty simple. What are you doing to get them to show their faces to you? They are unlikely to engage with you in a public place (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) – but Mailers?
Mailers that you send to their private email address?
Mailers that they can read on their mobile?
Mailers that they can click on and if you have used a decent mailing system you can see who is clicking on what?
You’d be crazy not to try this! And your internal recruiters would love to see the resulting call list from your campaign! Do you have a database of talent (ie. Recruiters) that you can mail about how to be a great recruiter, include tips for hitting target, demonstrate your culture, show your successes, survey their likes and hates, advertise your jobs and how much your clients love you?
You should generate call lists from the ones who click onto your mailers. “Cold calls are great, warm calls are better! (Greg Savage told me this!)”
There are other ways that you can engage. The marketing puritans out there would frown at my suggestion, but hey… I’m trying to be practical and fix a pretty significant issue.
I’ll tackle my next 2 points: Inspire to Hire and Train to Retain in a later post.
How about you try and tackle the first two points above and see how you get on?
Is hiring the best recruiters to grow your recruitment business one of your goals?
Read More About My Internal Recruitment Strategy Workshops
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Recruiter Productivity Series: Optimise Bullhorn Part 1 ~ Engage, Nurture, Place, and Re-Place
Recruiters! I know that recruitment has never been so competitive— even your own clients are competing with you to place candidates!We're launching a new series of recruiter productivity webinars focussed on optimising your use of Bullhorn and driving speedier sourcing, recruitment, leads, sales, and commission! Part 1 is focussed on managing candidates.Let's show you some tips to engage with candidates effortlessly. Let's build stronger relationships using Bullhorn’s nurturing features: communicate, optimise, protect, PLACE! (And repeat!)REGISTER NOWBullhorn MythsIn today’s fast-paced recruitment world, having a powerful ATS/CRM is essential. It saves time, improves efficiency, and drives a profitable desk. But often, we hear:I use Bullhorn when I get a minute.Bullhorn is just a database, not a business growth tool.We have Bullhorn, but we’re not seeing a return on investment.The data is a mess, so I need to advertise and use LinkedIn too.These statements couldn't be more wrong…Bullhorn:💓 Can be your recruitment Buddy if you let it!😱 Reduces admin workload.💪 Keeps you organised.🕒Helps you source, sell, and place quickly!…and so much more when used effectively!Register Now for Our "Candidate Engagement" Bullhorn WebinarRecruitment leaders! Don’t invest in Bullhorn only to underutilise it and then wonder why you’re not getting results.Recruiters! Don’t create unnecessary "busyness" with messy data, inefficient workflows, and poor adoption, leading to a lack of return on effort (RoE).What You’ll Learn in Our Upcoming Bullhorn Optimisation Webinars:📌 23 April 2025: Engage with candidates effortlessly. Build stronger relationships using Bullhorn’s nurturing features: communicate, optimise, protect, PLACE! (And re-place!) Register Now📌 Date TBC: Leverage Bullhorn to source and track qualified candidates faster with less effort.📌 Date TBC: Maximise lead generation and improve conversion rates with smart Bullhorn strategies.📌 Date TBC: Optimise recruitment workflows for maximum efficiency and profitability.Whether you're new to Bullhorn or looking to refine your ATS/CRM strategy, this webinar series will provide you with actionable tips and real-world insights to immediately benefit your recruitment team.By the end of our 4 Bullhorn Optimisation sessions, you’ll have the tools and knowledge to:⏳ Save time (and sanity) and be more productive.🤝 Engage more candidates effectively.💸 Place candidates faster and increase your sales and commission.Don’t miss out! Register now to secure your spot in this free, must-attend event.We look forward to showing you how Bullhorn ATS/CRM can elevate your recruitment ROI (return on investment) and ROE (return on effort) and drive business growth!REGISTER NOWRecruitment and Bullhorn TrainingWe deliver the best live Bullhorn ROI webinar training, and you'll find other tips and tricks in Recruitment HIIT, our online recruitment training platform.Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.TRY HIIT FREE HERECONTACT US ABOUT BULLHORN ROI
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Protect Your Pipeline with this Antidote to Backdoor Placements
Backdoor placements are often an "invisible" pipeline killer. Yet they are also a great opportunity to recover lost revenue. Silver linings! Are you missing out on smashing target by not actively managing backdoor placements? 20 Years Ago, in a Land Far Away...In Lisa and my younger days (20 years ago), we created a report to track theoretical backdoors, and had a team calling candidates at the employer they'd recently had an interview with. If they answered, they were put through to the recruiter to begin recouping the lost fee.Surely time has moved on and there are more effective and tech-driven ways of doing this? Plus, surely recruiters are better at sales admin and relationship management now, so back doors are less common? I'm not so sure... If anything more data and tech has actually created a less robust process in many firms.Let’s explore why tracking backdoor placements is critical and how to implement best practices and technology for spotting and reducing them.The Financial Impact of Backdoor PlacementsWhen a candidate you’ve introduced to a client is hired without your knowledge or agreement on fees, you lose the fee. This often happens when terms of business aren’t adhered to, or when a client chooses to go behind your back. Consider this: one recruiter we’ve worked with reported uncovering at least one lost fee per consultant annually. For a team of 30 recruiters, that’s a staggering £150,000 in potential net revenue. In one instance, a single backdoor placement resulted in a recovered fee of £32,000. These numbers are too significant to ignore.Additionally, recruiters often spend resources sourcing candidates from external platforms instead of leveraging their databases. Tracking and addressing backdoor placements encourages better use of internal resources while ensuring you recapture fees rightfully owed to your business.Building Trust and Strengthening Your Recruitment ProcessClients: Actively managing backdoor placements helps you optimise your client relationships. Clients who circumvent your terms of business do not value your partnership. Using Bullhorn to flag these incidents creates transparency and helps you spend time on clients who value you.Candidates: Additionally, having a proactive backdoor placement management process complements your silver medalist strategy. Silver medalists are candidates who reached advanced stages of the recruitment process but were not placed. 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