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As a recruitment leader, you're likely to be looking to improve your recruiters' performance.
What does a mere 1% a day improvement look like, and how can you drive these marginal gains?
Do More With Less
Now, more than ever, you need more from less:
Less recruiters - it's a challenge to hire.
Less systems - "all the gear, no idea", doesn't make for a great recruitment process or a profitable recruitment business.
Less data - sourcing everything, everywhere, all at once, isn't cost or time effective.
How can you drive recruiter performance through training?
Improving Recruiter Performance
Kaizen (aka "good change") is a Japanese concept around continuous improvement.
1% improvement a day equates to a whopping 40% improvement over a year. Nice!
What does 1% a day improvement to each and every recruiter in your business look (and feel) like?
And how can you ensure that recruitment training (and retraining) drives improvement and marginal gains?
The "Wrong" Recruitment Training
Is the recruitment training in your business driving the 1% marginal gain?
Are your recruiters copying copied behaviours which make best practice hard?
Training happens everywhere, all of the time, whether you like it or not.
We absorb what happens around us.
We mirror behaviours.
We are influenced by others.
Hope is never a great strategy.
You need to be sure that the “right” messages and behaviours are the ones which are trained. Recruiter training on best practice needs to be speedy, easy to access, and time-effective.
A 5-minute HIIT focused on job qualification tips, then getting back on the phone, can really move the dial.
Demand the 1% Gains from Your Recruiters
Accountable recruiters, continuously improving, using simple, speedy recruitment tools to improve, creates stronger pipelines, happier workforces, and sustainable businesses.
Improvement happens when recruiters are accountable for their performance.
Continuous training is key to maximising ROI from your people, data, and systems. Sales can increase by an impressive 50% when you continuously train!
Recruitment tools are needed. In our new hybrid world, recruiters need quick and easy on-demand training tools.
Ensure your new recruiters are onboarded speedily and continuously improve.
Ensure experienced recruiters hunger for continuous improvement, and demonstrate great standards.
Create a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. Give access to quick, easy, self-serve training. Otherwise, improvement will be a tough gig for you personally, and you won't be thanked for it.
Recruitment Training Driving Performance - WIIFM?
The WIIFM –“what's in it for me?" gives purpose and goals and encourages your recruiters to engage in training, and be accountable for improving their performance.
You’re a Recruitment Leader - What's your WIIFM?
Improved recruiter morale. Hence, improved performance and retention. (Less stress for you.)
Cleaner candidate and client data. Hence, less time wastage, reduced costs and time spent on external systems. (More profit through using monetised data.)
Creating your "way". Hence existing recruiters are role models for new starters. Speedier onboarding and time to bill. (Less reliance on you.)
Selling your recruitment business. Hence having a stronger process and generating ROI from your people, data, and systems is critical.
Your Recruiters - What's their WIIFM?
Better work-life balance? Hence, less time-consuming admin. Cleaner data driving speedier sourcing. Easier to win sales.
Paying off their mortgage, or getting on to the property ladder? Hence, they need more commission, or at least easier commission deliverables.
Promotion? Hence, better resourcing, sales performance, and leadership skills.
How Can Recruitment Leaders Drive Performance and Make Improvement Easy?
Make continuous improvement the goal. Make it your culture.
New recruiters need to know it's ok to not know everything at the end of their induction. Things they learned on day one are likely forgotten - continuous recruitment training is expected.
Experienced recruiters need to set the best possible example, and demonstrate best practice. Retraining is a driver towards best practice and 1% incremental gains.
Give your recruiters the tools to make training easy, on-demand, and quick! 10minutes a day may be all they need!
What can you do today to help your recruiters focus on improving their performance so that they can achieve their goals?
What tools can you give your recruiters to help them improve? And how easy are those tools to use, whenever, wherever they are?
Remember on-demand, quick and easy recruitment training is key to continuous improvement.
...Talking of Improving Recruiter Performance...
Recruitment HIIT trains recruiters and resourcers so you can speedily onboard new starters, and improve performance of experienced recruiters.
Job qualification, screening, sourcing, job advertising, and counteroffer immunity, are just some of the 10-minute topics our clients love.
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It’s not against the law!An unsolicited message is any message that has not been specifically requested. So even if the customer has ‘opted in’ to receiving marketing from you, it still counts as unsolicited marketing. This does not make all unsolicited marketing unlawful. You can still send unsolicited marketing messages – as long as you comply with PECR.This is interesting – note the word “often”:You will often need a person’s consent before you can send them a marketing message. But,You must not send marketing emails or texts to individuals without specific consent. There is a limited exception for your own previous customers, often called the ‘soft opt-in’.🥰Recruiters Now Need to Rely on Being Soft!Is this a proper “get out of jail free card”?The rules on electronic mail marketing are in regulation 22. In short, you must not send electronic mail marketing to individuals, unless:they have specifically consented to electronic mail from you; orthey are an existing customer who bought (or negotiated to buy) a similar product or service from you in the past, and you gave them a simple way to opt out both when you first collected their details and in every message you have sentHold on – you mean that if you have been dealing with someone already, they are a “soft” op-in? And you can mail them? Yes – as long as you make it easy to unsubscribe.The term ‘soft opt-in’ is sometimes used to describe the rule about existing customers.Existing customers, recruiters! What does this mean to you?The idea is that if an individual bought something from you recently, gave you their details, and did not opt out of marketing messages, they are probably happy to receive marketing from you about similar products or services even if they haven’t specifically consented. Probably happy! (Yes please!)The soft opt-in rule means you may be able to email or text your own customers.Read this:You can also email or text an existing customer who has bought (or discussed buying) a similar product or service from you in the past – but only if you gave them a clear chance to opt out of getting marketing emails or texts when you collected their details, and in every message.💡So Recruiters! What’s the Best Way to Create a Marketing List and Use Automation to Drive Comms? This paragraph had me clapping my hands… According to the ICO:You may want to compile your own in-house marketing list using details of people who have bought goods or services in the past, or who have registered on your website or made an enquiry. However, you should not assume that everyone is happy to receive marketing just because they have provided their contact details.So, basically, you can create email marketing lists from people who have not specifically consented!But have a little think! Your goal is longer term to create consent, and to create really good email marketing campaigns to get them to say “don’t delete me – I think you’re great!” Then you can take that engaged mailing list to your sassy clients and ask them to pop that in their pipes and smoke it –whilst you place lots of candidates with them at your rack rate fees!🏃➡️Now to Start Building an Email Marketing and Automation Strategy to Attract Your 3CsRecruiters!Candidates, clients, and colleagues (your 3Cs) need to hear from you!You need to maintain your legitimate interest in holding their data. You need to give them compelling reasons to stay on your mailing list - and your recruitment marketers have the keys to this!Automation Buddy / Bullhorn RoIWe are Automation Buddies set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses who want to increase speed and sales.We coach to inspire, and build your automations so you can recruit and sell!Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.READ MORE ABOUT OUR BULLHORN VISION SERVICEREAD ABOUT OUR AUTOMATION BUDDY SERVICEBOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION
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Wayne Barclay
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Stop Automating Chaos: Why You Need a Strategy for Recruitment BD Success
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Setup trials with a small, engaged group first. Test the message cadence, measure the response rate, and iterate quickly. This limits risk and generates early success stories you can use to persuade the rest of the company.5️⃣ PR: Celebrate SuccessesRecruiters are motivated by success.Use your test group’s wins—a faster BD conversion, a higher email open rate, or a cleaner call list—as internal PR. Celebrate these successes openly to generate FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and drive wider adoption.6️⃣ Data Wealth: The Opportunity to CleanseAutomation and data quality are two sides of the same coin.Automating outreach to a dirty database only accelerates your move toward the spam folder. Use the setup phase as an opportunity to cleanse data, confirming emails, purging old contacts, and identifying incomplete records. Clean data is not just healthy; it's profitable.7️⃣ Cadence: Establish Weekly BD SessionsAutomation is a tool, not a replacement for human effort.To embed the strategy, implement weekly BD sessions. Use this dedicated time to review the automated pipeline, address bottlenecks, practice outreach, and ensure the technology is being used correctly to drive human conversation.8️⃣ Score! Set KPIs and GamificationWhat gets measured gets done.Set clear KPIs for your automation success—not just activity, but results (e.g., number of re-engaged clients, contacts moved to the "warm" status). Use Analytics to gamify the process, creating healthy competition that encourages consistent use of the new platform and strategy.9️⃣ Turn A No into Some $£€! Monetise Bounces and UnsubsDon't view hard bounces and unsubscribes as dead ends; view them as sales intelligence and opportunities.Monetise the bounces and unsubs by investigating them. A hard bounce might mean a contact has moved companies—a prime BD opportunity! An unsubscribe could be a flag for a poor sales approach. Use this feedback loop to keep your data fresh and your strategy sharp.Strategise the CashflowBy following these 9️⃣ strategic steps, you ensure:Investment in BD automation delivers maximum return,Saving your recruiters a whopping 64% of their non-selling time...Allowing them to focus on what they do best......Building the relationships that drive placements and profit.Nice! ☎️I'd love to pay it forward to chat with you about your automation / BD strategy.BOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION👇Scroll down for a cute graphic of my 9-point strategy.🏃➡️PS. Want to go even further?Check out our "Unlock Bullhorn with Automation" and Optimise Bullhorn for Recruiters webinars here.Automation Buddy / Bullhorn RoIWe are Automation Buddies set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses who want to increase speed and sales.We coach to inspire, and build your automations so you can recruit and sell!Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.READ MORE ABOUT OUR BULLHORN VISION SERVICEREAD ABOUT OUR AUTOMATION BUDDY SERVICEBOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATIONGrab My 9-Point Strategy for Automation Success Below - Which can you tick off or need to do?
