I read two great blogs this past week; they are from Mike Nale, Managing Partner of The Brand Management Group, LLC in Hawaii, http://www.ere.net/blogs/The%5FRookie/.  The first is Job Search, Persistence Pays Off, and the second is Probing Effectively.

Persistence is something I live by, and having been in a pure sales role, and now in a slightly different sales role as a recruiter a key asset that will dictate your success is persistence.  I used to coach a Dale Carnegie class and the woman who taught the class would quiz everyone on the greatest sales book ever written.  Give it some thought; SPIN Selling, How to Make Friends and Influence People, Think and Grow Rich, Zig Ziglar on Selling…  All of these are great books, but I think an argument can be made for a non-sales book by Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham.  How many times does this guy ask if his friend wants the green eggs and ham, 25 -30 times and each and every time the answer is NO.  Does he take it personally, not at all, he tries to find ways to add value, in a car, on a boat, in the rain, on a plane.  When he FINALLY gets to a yes his friend is glad he tried them and appreciates the persistence.

Next, probing effectively I believe is one of the most important skills of a recruiter.  People have been trained since they were 5 yrs old to tell us what they think we want to here, and many people are good at this.  For us to be successful we need to find out what we need to know, which is what we are not being told.  This includes taking a job order or interviewing a candidate.  Hiring managers tell us what they hope will make us go away so they can get back to their job.  This is a short-term gain that can lead to long-term pain.  Candidates will try to snow us if they think we are blocking them.  Mike talks about the need to ask as many questions as necessary to get to the meat of an issue.  I would suggest taking it a step further and asking a couple of questions they demonstrate your expertise, develop a bond with the manager or candidate and provides you with a deeper understanding of the requisition or the person.

With the hiring manager I may ask, “The job description says 3 plus years, but I know you have no time to train someone new, would 5 or 6 years of experience be better?”  He or she may now see you as someone looking out for their interest, not an HR person going through the motions.  I may ask an account, “How many days are in your monthly closing process, or are you running a soft close?”  I am letting him know, in his language that he cannot get over on me, and we can get into some details without wasting his time.  I think of these as the under the table questions, like a wink and a nod that I am looking out for his or her best interest.

When selling someone a job, or a candidate we need to be persistent.  But to be successful we need information, which will require asking good probing questions.

Thanks Mike for some great points. 

Top 10 Reasons Employees Change Jobs

1.   Career Advancement

2.   Exciting Work/Challenge

3.   Compensation

4.   Work Life Balance

5.   Professional Development

6.   Job Security

7.   Contribution can make a difference/Impact

8.   Better Manager

9.   Better Benefits

10.        Better Commute

Take a moment to review the above list, which items are offered at your company.  Choose the 3 or 4 items that are strengths of your company, those that are recognized by outsiders.  These items should be part of your elevator speech when talking about you organization.

When you are screening, and interviewing, and following up, and extending an offer remember to reinforce these points each and every time.  When your candidate asks for more money, you can go back to these points, which he or she should be able to repeat back to you by the time you are extending the offer.

If these points are valid and carry weight at your company, you are probably not paying the most in the market place, which is a good thing.  You do not have to, you have a compelling story to tell, and this needs to be communicated to the candidate. 

The challenge is, your story will not carry weight if the first time they hear your story is at salary negotiation.  If they hear the story for the 4^th time during salary negotiation they know your story is not a negotiation ploy, but is part of the value they will receive when the come to work at your firm.

Know your companies value proposition, know how to tell it well and tell it often.

How well do you know your companies Employee Value Proposition?  If your company does not have a formal value proposition, do you at least know what keeps your companies best employees engaged?  Are you able to communicate why your best employees come to your company, and why they stay?  When you discuss the value proposition does it come across as a sales pitch, or are you sincere and believable.  Is this value in line with the desires and goals of your candidates? 

I have had some great conversations these past few weeks with candidates who were choosing between our offer and others.  It has been great to redirect the focus of the conversation from compensation to career growth and professional opportunities.

Are you communicating this on a regular basis, is this part of your initial phone screen when you determine why they are leaving their current position.  Is the employee value proposition in line with the stories employees are telling their referrals.  Is the value proposition sinking in and in line with their desires?

Or is the first time they hear about the reasons people join your firm when it comes time to extend the offer and your candidate tells you, “I have a slightly higher offer from your competitor, what can you do for me.”  If your candidate has heard your repeat your value proposition they are prepped for your response.  You now get to explain why your competitor is has to pay more, and you do this without being negative.  The negotiation is reviewing why he wanted to interview in the first place, not a back and forth over a couple of bucks.

I had a great conversation today with a candidate as we walked through her offer.  My candidate was looking to be compensated for a raise she could have been receiving in a few months.  As we all know, once it gets to offer time, your candidate is looking for a payday.

Well my candidate was no different, however, I was lucky enough to do my homework up front and walked through her dominant motives.  She was looking for a career track and career growth.  My candidate could picture herself working with my firm, and she saw herself taking on new challenges and opportunities.  The growth we offered was what she was looking for.  What I focused on was her current situation, I asked about her growth opportunities at her current employer, I asked what challenges they would provide her, the career path she was on and where it was taking her.

As I tried to sell my candidate on the reasons she should stay at her current job, and asked how her career would turn out if she stayed, she worked to sell me, and sell herself, on the position I was offering.  Once the conversation was completed she was accepting my offer and we were discussing a start date.

As long as I focused on what she wanted, from our first conversation, I didn’t have to get involved with a debate over salary.  Preparing for the offer discussion during our first phone conversation, helped me help her get what she ultimately wanted, a long-term career.  She was able to accept my offer without feeling like she was settling for less than she deserved.  In short, I was able to get her what she wanted.

Today was a great day, one of the candidates I interviewed had a bit of a revelation about herself during the interview.  The smile on her face and the pride she felt energized me for my entire afternoon.

When I interview a candidate I focus on behavioral questions.  I ask a candidate to talk about a project or two they enjoyed and I dig deep into the work they did on this project.  (If you are interested see Lou Adler for in depth information on behavioral interviewing at http://www.adlerconcepts.com.)  This helps me get an understanding at a granular level what this person is capable of accomplishing.  The reason this is important to me is because I am not interested in what they have already done, and a good candidate does not want to focus on the past, they are looking towards the future.  I want to hire for potential, what they are capable of doing for my company, the candidate is looking for an opportunity to grow and to take on new challenges.  Well, all of her prior interviews focused on what was on her resume, and she would walk through each of the bullets, repeating each of her daily job responsibilities.  Well I can read, and if a candidate is lying on their resume I will not be able to determine this by asking them to repeat what they have written.

I ask this candidate to discuss a recent project she was involved with.  She begins to walk me through a project in which she played a role.  As I ask her about the difficulties she faced, how she overcame some problems, and what success looked liked.  During this discussion it became clear that she played a meaningful role in this project.  Well near the end of our conversation, having reflected on this project for probably the first time, she realized how much she had accomplished at her last job and the impact she was able to make.  When I asked about the effectiveness of her solution, and what the lasting impact of the project was, the light went off that her role in the project made a difference.

While it was not my intent to provide her with this insight, the project was not even on her resume, it was great to have a positive effect on someone’s day today.  My suggestion is to looking into keeping your interviews fresh, adding a new question or two to your interview process.  This may keep you present with the candidates you are with, and it may help you make a human connection.

Well today we finalized 6 offers, some of these offers are to candidates who interviewed over a week ago.  Each of the offers is being accepted, the challenge has been, keeping each candidate excited and involved.  The process has taken a little longer than normal, and is not what was expected. 

Constant communication with each candidate has helped.  Regular status calls, anything changing on their end, next steps with their offer.  By being proactive and driving the process to them each candidate feels the love, and is as excited to start as the day they interviewed.

By focusing on the candidates I have been able to drive towards the results that matter.  The challenge has been to avoid chasing after the non-productive activity.  This has also required daily communication with my hiring managers, updating them on candidate status, offer status, and updating them on the candidate pipeline. 

Over communication seems to be the bare minimum required.

Today was a struggle with two candidates.  Please provide me with some feedback and insight.

As you know, I work very hard to make a connection by seeing things from the other person’s point of view.  My belief is, if I understand their perspective, and the other person knows that I have honestly worked to understand their perspective, they will be more likely to listen and to trust me when necessary.  Well today I failed a couple of times.

I had one candidate who returned my call and immediately tell me how excited he was to hear from me.  The firm I work for and the position I had for him was always a dream type job.  Well, off to a good start I am thinking.  Then the poor questions started, how much travel is involved, would he be required to work in downtown, is there a bonus, who is the manager.  All of these questions were asked in the first 5 minutes.  I could not see things from his point of view and I gave up.  I let him talk for another 15 minutes while I checked my email.

I know these things are important to people, and they will have to be answered, but after recruiting for so many years, and having talked with so many great candidates, this guy was an incredible turn off.  Please respond to this post with suggestions on how I should deal with this type of a candidate.  Let them go on, end the call quickly, thanks but no thanks.  Please what are your thoughts.

We all know the importance of employee referrals; they are the quickest hires, the lowest cost of hire, and the greatest quality of hire.  We want more employee referrals, but how do we get more.  Constant communication and reminders, awards, cash payments, begging, pleading, free food.  All of these strategies work, but requires a lot of effort, and can be a full time job.  (At most organizations this is a full time job.)  What can we do to make the referral process easier, and painless from the employees’ perspective?

We need to look at employee referrals from the employee’s point of view.  Most companies have made the process as efficient as possible.  How can we increase the employees desire to submit a referral, we have already made it easy to submit the referral.  A good question to as is, “why would an employee not want to submit a referral.”  I suggest you sit down with a number of employees and ask why they have not submitted a referral.  Also, ask an employee what prompted them to submit their most recent referral.

A recent conversation I had with one of my managers was rather revealing.  He was very willing to submit a referral, when he knew there was a very high likelihood of the candidate being hired for a position he was familiar with.  If there was not a high probability of a hire, a friend or neighbor will not be referred.  As I spoke with more people it became clear, a referral was dependent on the probability of an offer.

I asked the employees to take the perspective of the candidate.  The candidate is looking for an introduction, they are not asking the employee to get them a job.  I explained that making a simple introduction is what the candidate is looking for.  When I talk with a candidate they are not expecting a job waiting for them, the candidate appreciates the chance to learn about opportunities.  The candidate is asking the employee to help them get their foot in the door, very simple, without a lot of pressure.

The employees are much more willing to submit a referral when they can manage the expectations of the candidate they are submitting.  And they feel at ease when they recognize the candidate is looking for an introduction, not a job.  Take some time to explain to your employees what is expected form all employees when a referral is submitted, it will help to take some of the pressure off to submit the perfect referral.  I also point out to the employee; they get points for being a good friend, even when there is not a hire.

One of the recruiters I work with had a great success today that is worth sharing.

Last month she had a great candidate, who was interested in her position, and more importantly the hiring manager and his Director were very interested in this candidate.  She came to me for some advise when it became clear that closing this candidate was not going to be easy.  This candidate’s current compensation was $30,000 outside of the range the hiring manager could pay, and the candidate had an interview in NYC the following week, which he expected to be rather lucrative.

I asked my recruiter questions about the candidate and his needs.  He is looking for a long-term opportunity, stability, growth, a company he can be proud of, and he does not want to explain to his spouse why he is taking a pay cut to join a new organization.  The candidate was reasonable, new what he wanted, and was certainly rational; no one should take a large pay cut if they do not have to.

Her hiring manager was excited about the candidate, saw the opportunity for this person to make an immediate contribution, and felt they would fit in with the rest of the team immediately.  However, the offer we had was fair and equitable, and unfortunately much less than his current salary.  We discussed the ability for this person to add greater value for the additional pay, and that was not likely.  We discussed the possibility of not hiring this candidate and the effect of lost revenue, and this was not a significant issue.  We wanted this candidate, but not at the cost of disrupting equity within the team.

The conclusion was, this candidate is well compensated and in his industry deserved his pay, however our industry has a different career structure and different comp. When the recruiter spoke with him she discussed our desire to have him, and acknowledge his great situation.  She educated the candidate that going outside our comp structure was not feasible, and while we were very interested, this opportunity may simply not be a match.  The candidate appreciated the honesty, was surprised that there was not a hard sell.  The recruiter made the point that he was well paid felt it was not in anyone’s best interest to ask him to take a cut.  She also made it very clear that she wanted to keep the door open, if anything changed on our end or his they should talk.

Well this candidate had his interview in NYC last week and gave the recruiter a call back.  The NYC opportunity was not as attractive as was hoped, although the compensation issue had not changed.  While asking more questions it became apparent that the candidate did not fully understand the long-term career path of the position being offered.  She set up a quick conference call with a member of the management team and 45 minutes later he was ready to accept the offer that was originally discussed.

The candidate told the recruiter that one reason he is excited to start is because of the process.  He does not feel like he is settling for less than he wanted, recognizes we were putting forth a best effort during the process, and better understands our employee value proposition.  Honestly seeing things from his point of view, and helping him learn about our point of view is what made this offer a reality.  

This afternoon I had a great conversation with one of the sourcing managers about our need to develop a scalable recruiting program.  As we have all heard from our hiring manager, I need to see more resumes.  The response to this request has been to leverage technology to find more resumes, and to find them faster.  We are on Linked In, Monster, CareerBuilder, Facebook and Twitter, sending more resumes to our hiring managers.  And feeding their demand.

We are becoming efficient at feeding resumes to hiring managers, when we need to become more effective at hiring candidates.  Is it possible to develop a plan to target 10 – 20 candidates who we desire for the open position, and then work on these candidates?   Determine their needs, desires and goals, find out what their unmet needs are, and sell them on our job.

Is there a place in recruiting for selling a candidate on our job, convincing them on our opportunity meeting their needs?

The need for this type of recruiting still exists.  Personal one on one recruiting is effective and is what fills jobs.  There is a place for high volume recruiting, but to be effective high volume also needs high touch.  A candidate wants to feel needed.  Our job is to make sure the feel like a valued employee, not another in a long list of resumes.  Remember, we are hiring people, not paper.