I have been a corporate trained sales professional prior to becoming a professional recruiter.

I have learned over the years that being a sales professional is building positive relationships with people whether that be my customers, my employers or HR professionals.

All business professionals whether they are human resources professionals, purchasing managers or recruiters who are the ones selling themselves or their ideas to various corporate audiences whether that be clients, bosses, shareholders, creditors or qualified candidates.

Unfortunately in the Recruitment professional there is seems a preoccupation with the corporate customer rather than the job applicant customer who in some cases is treated with lack of respect or consideration.There is an element of lack of social skills that create a negative social encounter that impacts not only the candidate but also referrals associated with this candidates as well. I quite frankly don’t understand why a corporate client would continue to use a this type of anti social recruiter that creates a negative impression of not only the recruiter but the corporate client.

There is a simple cardinal rule to selling: People like to deal with people who they trust. People Like to deal with people who are a lot like them. The reality is that most people will not succeed in selling themselves or their companies by not being likeable no matter how legitimate the job opportunity.

The negative social encounters will not be forgotten by the candidate who will simply work with other recruiters or worse work for a competitor.

Alex Brown
Proposal and Federal Contractor Recruiter
Bethesda, MD and Baltimore, MD Offices
301.656.7744 Phone (Bethesda)
410.244.0944 Phone (Baltimore)
http://www.bossstaffing.com
Member of APMP (Association of Proposal Management Professionals)
Member of WGN (Washington Network Group)
2006 Best Places to Work: BOSS Staffing ranked 3rd among the Top 10 small companies in greater Washington — by the Washington Business Journal

For Corp Recruiters – you’re wasting your time if you don’t know the job.

Knowing the job is the key to being a great recruiter

I’ve heard so many recruiters call up potential candidates, pitch the job and ask if they might be interested. If they say no, then they ask who they know that would be a good fit. Every once in a while they might get lucky and find someone with superior talent, but this is only playing the numbers game. I guess they figure that the more people that they call using only this metheod, the better chances of someone saying yes. It works sometimes, but like it doesn’t typically attract the better talent.

The truth is that the better recruiters ask a lot of questions and do a thorough job of educating the candidate on the company, the position and the hiring process itself. The more that the recruiter knows about the candidate and the opportunity, the easier they will make it on themself.

Candidates that I call out of the blue will often try to rush me by persisting that I tell them what the job is, what it pays, etc. I quickly tell them that I don’t use the shotgun approach where I call people all day long and just pitch the job. I’d be bored to death. When I am recruiting sales people, I ask them if when they call on new customers do they say here is the product and here’s the price, are you interested? Of course they don’t. It’s a process.

Lou, you made some very good points!

Terry