You cannot step twice into the same river; for other waters are continually flowing in. — Heraclitus

There’s a huge controversy that raises itself now and then here in the Recruitosphere and that’s the idea that one type of candidate (passive) is better than the other (active). The thinking goes along the lines of “If they’re looking, there must be a reason they’re looking!” There’s probably something wrong with the guy.

On the other end of the spectrum glistens the shiny new: that person popularly known as the “passive” candidate. The accompanying reasoning goes something like: “If he’s out there and nobody’s talked to him before, I’ll be the first one at the table to get the best (and biggest) portion.”

In reality, both lines of thought are problematic.

I’m reminded of the Clay Walker country song line, “What’cha gonna do, When the new wears off And the old shines through…?”

In defense of the actives, there are good people represented in the mix – and they’re going to turn up in some of our “passive” searches anyway. It happens the more thorough we become in our sourcing skills. I try not to leave anyone “behind” when I’m phone sourcing, unless the customer asks for a specific number out of a certain company.

The reality is, passives aren’t always truly “passive” and actives aren’t always “active.” Some “actives” have gone to ground, so to speak, and are fully engaged in another job that really gives them those desirable “passive” characteristics again that are so highly regarded nowadays. Skipping over them in any job search is a mistake. Keep in mind that anything we put out on the Net is going to stay out on the Net, regardless of our efforts or desire to remove it. So if someone has a resume, say “out there” somewhere, at some time, he or she could turn up in a future search regardless of whether they’re looking at the present time or not.

There are passives who really aren’t passive at all. They know what they’re doing to market themselves. They know how to glisten beneath all that fallen snow that assures they’ll be the first snowflake picked out of the landscape. This is the person who’s active on the net, who does a lot of posting (or a little) that includes a lot of biographical information that, at first glance, appears innocent. It’s not, usually. Those tagline signatures that give us names, titles, addresses and phone numbers should be approached with some hesitation. The question to ask is: “If I found them, who else hasn’t?”

I know it’s exciting when your Boolean search ferrets out that exact title in the exact location that the job is calling for and it appears that all you have to do is dial the number and confirm that the guy’s still there. I know very well that temptation to end there and call it finished.

Don’t! Doing this is short-shifting your customer as well as yourself. This little “gem” you uncovered as a result of your knowledgeable Boolean entry (you did work so hard to learn Boolean, didn’t you?) sometimes is tantamount to someone’s resume being posted out there – it screams, “Hey recruiter, look at me – I’m what you want – call me for your new job opportunity –I’ll make it easy – here’s my office number and my cell!”

No one understands that you have given everything. You must give more. — Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

“Foul!” you cry. “They’re mine to find!”

Yes, they are yours to find if that’s all you’re interested in finding. That “passive-active” usually has a team of coworkers he interacts with everyday. The best way to set that little hard rock into your job setting is to build his organization out around him. And that usually means (actually I don’t know of any other way) that you must get on the telephone and call him, or call his Administrative Assistant, or call his manager, or call the guy in the cube next to him, or call someone in the Mail Room who delivers mail to him and his group everyday, or call the VP of Engineering’s Executive Assistant, or call someone, anyone that will give you the names of the other people in his group!

Chances are they’re the truly passive candidates in the mix!

You must remove (at least one hand, momentarily) from the alphabet portion of your keyboard to dial that number. These days, and it’s going to become ever-more-important moving forward, you must become an active names sourcer vs a passive names sourcer! If you don’t do this your research will suffer the consequences as more and more people are learning (and depending) on Boolean to fill their searches. Set yourself apart by honing your telephone techniques. They’re the ones that are hardest to master and they’re the ones that return the most unique results! They’re the ones that give you the only advantage to finding the truly passive candidate – the guy sitting at his desk doing his thing, 8 to 12 hours a day, too busy to even think about another job. The guy who doesn’t “post” for ulterior reasons or isn’t listed in some fabulous online gathering. He’s the guy who’s gainfully and masterfully employed doing what you need him to do for you – go get him!

Keep in mind the overall quality of the pipeline. Proactively adding both passive and actives into it at the same time is going to give you a healthy mix in the end.

I understand this line of thinking. It’s simple, concise, easy to categorize. A “sexy” pitch. In fact, it’s the same line of thinking that leads to the idea that anyone who hangs out with a communist must be a communist sympathizer, or that someone who fires a woman must be a misogynist, or who is accused must be guilty in some way. In short, it’s dead wrong.

What’s wrong about it is it’s incendiary, irresponsible, and extreme. One-sided. And it’s not like I believe the opposite line of thinking to be true either (that all recruiting should be focused on those who are unemployed). Quite the contrary. I have a problem with that version as well. I’ve read a number of articles (such as in Workforce Management Magazine lately, in this recession, that imply (or even overtly state) that passive recruiting is a “shameful practice” and contributes to the distrust of corporate America by the many millions of workers who are seeking employment. Passive recruiting shameful? Again, this reasoning is as misguided as the CEOs above.

“To suggest that passive recruiting in the face of a high unemployment rate is unethical is a misnomer that fails to take into account the bigger picture,” says Dr. Cheryl-Marie Hansberger, vice president of strategic development for Delcan, a global engineering firm. “It is true that most industries are seeing an increase in the number of applicants per position; however, for our company this increase has not equated to larger pools of qualified candidates. Instead this increase creates an additional burden for lean HR teams as we spend more time processing unqualified applicants. The fact of the matter is successful companies use the most cost-effective means to recruit qualified candidates, whether it is a direct hire or a passive candidate, period.”

And this is what I’m not hearing much of in all the chatter out there — the middle ground — where the truth lies.

“Recruiters … want to fill the job perhaps more than anyone,” says Ginny Eagle, director of talent acquisition for T-Mobile. “If the requisition has attracted what appears to be top candidates, we look no further. If not, we source. Sourcing involves multiple activities to find the perfect candidate. Professional networking tools are used, and we often can’t really tell if someone is still employed or not because people are not updating their profiles when they first leave a job. They sometimes wait, so they don’t appear to be unemployed.”

One of the themes that I’ve constantly referred back to is, when it comes to recruiting, one size does not fit all. As mentioned above, great recruiting requires both active and passive strategies and, in short, good, hard work. As with most things, to say that something is all or nothing simply isn’t true. For instance, the idea that active recruiting involves “damaged goods” is simply not always the case. It takes a great HR person to know the difference.

“There is no denying that many share the opinion that the best people don’t get laid off. To me, this is a narrow point of view as situations certainly exist, such as our current economic environment, that put even the best people at risk,” notes Jason Farr, vice president, global talent acquisition, Coca-Cola Enterprises.
“I believe it’s important to not limit ourselves and to be open to all candidates.”

To be sure, there are candidates who have been laid off for performance reasons, and companies do use an economic downturn to mask laying off people for performance issues. In this instance, companies know there are a lot more active candidates in the marketplace and thus, they can replace the individual laid off quicker. As a result, there are certainly individuals with professional red flags in the marketplace, but the successful recruiter will have a balanced view of this.

And there are undoubtedly specific roles whereby the chances are that 90% or more of appropriate candidates will be developed through passive recruiting. For certain roles, in certain professions, there are simply not a lot of candidates, and the best people are employed elsewhere. “While passive recruiting is very costly, it is essential in industries that have large barriers to entry and, as a result, smaller qualified applicant pools,” says Hansberger.

“Those in the healthcare industry know this quite well,” adds Christine de la Paz, human resources director, Aurora Behavioral HealthCare. “We are specific to what we are looking for, and not only through our whim … the requirements are dictated by government bodies and accrediting organizations. After all, our RNs need to have a valid license.”

Thus if you’re a company looking for these types of people, you have to know where they are and be able to convince them to come elsewhere. To not adopt this approach for these key roles would be corporately irresponsible.

But a vital element in all of this is you don’t have to pursue only one strategy. The different approaches do require different skill sets. Active candidate recruiters tend to have a “post and pray” mentality and are very assessment-focused; passive candidate recruiters are skilled at sourcing strategy and research, among other things.

The key is that as recruiters and HR professionals, we have to develop skills and techniques to do both and should not necessarily be single-strategy focused. Some (dare I say many) roles will require both an assessment and sourcing strategy.

Notes Chelle Wingeleth, director-global recruitment services, Research in Motion Ltd, the developer of the BlackBerry mobile device, “It is incumbent upon recruiting professionals to design and pursue strategies to find the best talent quickly. In today’s market it is true that there are more active candidates; however, this does not mean that we can become complacent and rely upon one source. Posting a job so that active candidates may apply is not a silver bullet. What if the right candidate does not apply? A good recruiter will focus on attracting active applicants and, in parallel, search for passive candidates.”

A question bigger than all of this lurks, however: As staffing and recruiting teams have dwindled in companies and the recruiting specialists have left, where do we go to identify candidates?

The answer, as you may have guessed, turns out to be not one place but many places. They include everything from using outsourced providers to developing appropriate sourcing methods in-house (as mentioned above).

Ultimately, according to Wingeleth, “Companies and recruiters are striving to do the right thing. Who among us does not want to see unemployment go down? But, the reality of our situation is this: The national jobless rate is 9.5%. This means that 90.5% of Americans are employed. No line manager or company playing to win in this economy would say they want to ignore 90% of the potential talent. Put another way, who would only want to consider 10% of the possible candidates?”

Thus, as I’ve mentioned previously, if your ultimate goal is to increase your value to your organization, and be the best recruiter possible, you have to stay away from only-one-way-or-another, all-or-nothing mentality. In the end, in this economy, it may get you nothing.

Here’s why: from a practical standpoint, only 20 to 25% of candidates are actively looking at any one time. This is a high-end estimate, with 15 to 20% more likely, and in normal economic times probably around 15%. This means that 80% of most candidates aren’t looking.

So despite my current fondness for Jobs2Web, and the possibility that TalentSeekr and First Advantage’s HireEngine will become powerful talent hubs, I’m concerned that too many recruiting managers are aiming at the wrong target. It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to prove the case that there are more top-10-15% performers among those people who aren’t looking than those who are. So why are we spending so much effort to find candidates we don’t want to hire, even if we’re doing it more efficiently?

The quick counter to this is that even if you don’t hire the precious few good ones you find, you’ll be able to pipeline these prospects into a talent pool and keep them warm for future positions. As long as there are sufficient numbers of A-level candidates in the active pool, this makes good sense, but this has yet to be proven for companies that don’t have a great employer brand. The other counter to this active/passive argument is that corporate recruiters have too many reqs to handle, and the hub and spoke model is the only way to productively deal with filling positions. This is a valid point, since the hub will be seen by far more people than an individual req, especially if you drive traffic here through dynamic spokes, like Twitter, niche sites, and Facebook pages.

Yet while valid, it’s a bit shortsighted to rely on one basket to put your talent eggs in. An ROI case can easily be made that B+ or A-level candidates outperform their less-competent counterparts by at least two to five times, so that any additional cost to acquire these people is insignificant.

While many corporate recruiters are successfully using LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, and Broadlook to identify passive candidates, their productivity metrics are far below their external agency counterparts. The “too much work to do” excuse is part of the problem here, and this is a valid point. It does take more time to contact, persuade, and recruit passive candidates into the fold. However, from what I’ve seen, even with enough time, most corporate recruiters would still fall short. In my opinion, this is totally due to the use of unsophisticated recruiting techniques. This is where the use of the hub and spoke model for passive candidate sourcing can have a significant impact on both productivity and quality.

First, let’s put the metrics of passive candidate recruiting on the table. As a minimum, you need to track outbound return call rates, the percent of prospects agreeing to talk about the job, the percent of these calls resulting in qualified applicants to send out for interviews, and the number of high quality referrals per call. (Here’s a link to a recorded webinar I prepared for LinkedIn with these metrics described.) It turns out that if you don’t get at least 50 percent of your outbound calls returned, the end results are pretty dismal. For example, if you get 50 return calls out of 100 people randomly contacted based on their titles, it’s unlikely that more than six to eight would be interested in your job, fully qualified (considering location, comp, ability, and availability), and ready to go out for an interview. While pretty good, this number would drop to two to three people if the initial callback rate is around 20%, which is a number we’ve found to be about average for most corporate recruiters. This is not so good.

In my mind, these kind of results are no better than any “dial for dollars” process and are what’s preventing corporate recruiters from competing effectively with their external agency counterparts. A hub and spoke approach to sourcing passive candidates changes the underlying rules here by leveling the playing field.

As pointed out in the LinkedIn webinar, if you consider the names of passive candidates not as prospects but as hubs in a network with dozens or hundreds of spokes of other possible contacts, you’ll be able to reap untold rewards. The secret of passive candidate recruiting, known by all the best third-party recruiters on the planet, is getting these initial contacts to give you the names of better contacts. The reason they’re better is that they’re dead-on hits for your job, they’ll call you back 80 to 90% of the time, and everyone will agree to consider your job opportunity. This means if you contact, recruit, and network properly with this hub and spoke mindset, you’ll get 20 to 30 sendouts for every 50 names called!

Too good to be true?

Not really, but there is a lot of technique and skill required to pull it off. For one, you need to leave very compelling voicemails to get the initial group of people to call you back. For another, you have to be someone worth knowing. This is the only way people you don’t know will give you two to three great referrals every time. My favorite technique here is to recruit them first, get them to give you a 10-minute overview of their background before telling them much about the job, and during this screening process build a 360° network of their connections. Then if the person is not qualified, I go back and ask about some of the people in this extended network. As part of this, you must be persistent and not hang up until you get at least 2-3 great names. This is obviously the critical step in the process, but if you’re worth knowing, these first level prospects will go out their way to help you. (Here’s an article with a detailed example of how to do this.)

While not easy, learning these passive candidate recruiting and networking techniques are much more productive than calling 100 people at random and hoping one becomes a candidate. This is equivalent to writing boring job descriptions and posting them on a big board where no one talented will find it.

Third-party recruiters practice this stuff and constantly hone their techniques on getting better referrals. Since 80% of the market is not looking, getting to these people first is the difference in being a good recruiter and a great one. It also represents the difference between hiring good people and great people. Companies are investing a great deal in becoming more efficient finding these good people. Surprisingly, few companies consider investing similar resources to find the best.

Many of you know I’m into whole brain interviewing, so focusing on the reticular activator makes lots of sense as a sub-specialty. Whole brain interviewing is based on the idea of controlling your emotional brain to remain objective and using the two-question performance-based interviewing process to map a candidate’s left and right brain responses. This isn’t as exotic as it sounds. In normal-speak it means asking candidates about their major accomplishments to see how they compare to real job needs. (Email me for more on this.)

The reticular activator is the part of the brain the separates the boring do-to-day stuff from the potentially important and critical stuff. For example, if you ask a candidate if she’d like to hear about a cost-accounting job in Topeka, you probably won’t get as favorable a response as if you ask the person if she’d would like to be considered for the last open cadet position at the Star Fleet Academy’s next class.

The point of all of this is that too many recruiters are boring when they leave voice mail messages for passive candidates. To get a top person to call you back, you can’t be boring. You need to tap into the person’s reticular activator to get them to call you back.

Back in the 90s I spent a year teaching a group of hotshot researchers how to get 100% of their voice mails returned. We got close to 85%, so this was a pretty good record. Here are some of the ideas we actually tried out. Some of them didn’t work at all; some of the them worked some of time; some worked all of the time. Modify the ones below to suit your needs and try them out. Track your results until you get to 80% or more. Don’t be surprised when people start calling you back, saying you’ve aroused their interest.

Some Great and Not-So-Great Reticular Activating Voice Mails

1. Your mother called and told me she wanted you to consider this job. (This actually worked.)
2. Your boss just called and strongly suggested you consider this job. (This didn’t work too well, but it’s worth a shot.)
3. You’re the 87th person I’ve called for this senior-level creative director level position, and I haven’t found anyone creative yet. I hope you’re not like the other 86. Even if you’re not interested in the job, I’d love a new idea for a better voice mail.
4. We’re trying to adopt the marketing concepts Obama used to become President. We’d like to talk to you, if you think you can help.
5. Our team of seven ASIC design engineers is looking for a new leader. Two of them said they’d like that person to be you.
6. We just opened a req for a new security analyst cadet for Star Fleet Academy’s Class of 2387. Is this something you’d like to explore? There is some travel involved.
7. Have you heard the story about the priest and the rabbi who went into the bar across from Fenway? If not, I’d like to tell you about it and what it has to do with our new Plant Manager position.
8. I call every person I’m referred to at least eight times before giving up. This is the 3rd call.
9. (Name) just suggested I give you a call. He said you’re one of the best people he’s every worked with, and while you’re probably not now interested in our executive marketing position, he thought you’d know someone who would be. (This one always works if the name is important enough.)

There are a bunch of points and principles demonstrated by these types of messages. First, they’re marketing-oriented. Since they’re not boring, the candidate’s reticular activating system won’t filter them out. This is the critical point. While the person still might not call you back, at least you’ll get noticed. As your callback rate rises, fine tune your messages to get to the 80% threshold.

Now when the person calls you back, don’t blow it and lose your mojo. Don’t be shocked. Maintain your composure. If you don’t, you might say something stupid, like telling the person about the job. If the job has no interest, or it sounds boring, you’ll shut down the person’s reticular activating system, faster than a bear trap on a frigid day in Montana. Not only won’t you secure a great candidate, but also the possibility of any good referrals. (Here’s an article on this critical point you might find useful.)

So instead of flubbing it, keep the candidate interested with more compelling information and clever pre-planned pitches. Think of this as the old carrot and stick approach by withholding some critical information to induce the candidate to reveal more about herself. Here are some ideas on how to pull off this critical step:

• Once you get the person on the phone, just ask if she’d be open to explore a position if it represented a significant career move.
• The candidate is sure to say yes since he called you back. Then say, “Great. Could you give me a super short overview of your background. I’ll then give a snapshot of the opportunity, and if it sounds like something mutually worth pursuing, we can schedule a time to talk in more depth later.
• Don’t push the process. If there’s a relo involved, or if you’re not sure the candidate is ready to move quickly, suggest another call in a few days, after you’ve talked to the hiring manager. Alternatively, suggest there are other strong candidates you want to contact first before setting up a detailed conversation. For a high-achiever, competition is a great way to maintain or increase interest.
• Don’t be the pursuer. The idea here is to switch roles. If you can get the candidate to pursue you, and sell you on her competency and interest, you’ll not only close more deals, but compensation won’t be the decider.

Whether you follow this process exactly as described, or not, the point is to understand how the reticular activator can be used as a switch to get and keep a top person interested in what you have to offer. Too many recruiters rush the process, lack an understanding of basic human nature, and complain that everyone they call says they’re “not interested.” You know you’re successful here, when you’re the one deciding if you’re interested in the hot passive candidate, not the other way around.

Things will get better for you when you get better.

Sage advice indeed, and now might be the best time to take heed.

When I assess candidates, this is one of the factors I examine — finding out how the person got better. Not surprisingly, the best people have this core trait in common, and in spades. They’re always getting better. All of them improved themselves and the activities they were directly responsible for. A good portion of these people went out of their way to improve things they weren’t directly responsible for, so you need to give these people an extra star.

A much smaller group went out of their way to improve not only themselves, but also the people they worked with, whether they were responsible for them or not. These were the true leaders of the bunch.

As you assess candidates in the future, look for the degree the person got better, which will help you more easily separate the best from the merely good.

Surprisingly, very few had the exact level of skills, academics, and experience requirements listed on the job description. While they all possessed enough of the requirements to do the work required, the mix was different than the “must haves” listed, and the level of experience in absolute terms was generally much less.

Offsetting this was something far more important — a track record of consistent high performance doing comparable work, often in different industries.

Just like top people in any field, recruiters needs to consistently change and improve, just to stay even. To get better, you need to change even faster.

With that said, here are some ideas on how to get massively better. With recruiting departments being cut 30%-70% on average, getting massively better represents a survival of the fittest mentality.

In my opinion, if you don’t want to get massively better, drop out of the industry and do something you want to get massively better at.

How to Get Massively Better

1. Become someone worth knowing. Recruiters need to be able to connect with lots of top-notch people on an ongoing basis. This is the best way to get referrals of great passive candidates. If you’re worth knowing, hiring managers and candidates will seek you out. They’ll refer the best people they know to you without asking. If you’re not worth knowing, you’ll only attract the attention of those desperate for the job you’re currently representing. This is a transactional relationship. Those who are worth knowing develop long-term relationships that span years, not just a few days. Here’s an article on how to become someone worth knowing.
2. Know the job. If you don’t know the job, the best you can do is screen on skills and experience. If you know the job, you can quickly become someone worth knowing. You’ll be able to counsel and advise your candidates and hiring managers alike. You’ll be more accurate in your assessments and you’ll be able to defend qualified candidates from those hiring managers who conduct superficial or narrow interviews.
3. Build a network of all-stars. If you’re placing similar type positions (e.g., developers, tax managers, ASIC engineers, pharma sales reps), most of your placements should come from referrals. To get these referrals, you’ll need to be considered an expert in your field. Part of this is cultivating relationship (not transactions) with every top person your best employees are connected with on LinkedIn. If you’re a third-party recruiter, build these relationships with the best people on your LinkedIn list. While they won’t give you great referrals right away, after a few months of professional nurturing and knowledge sharing, you’ll have a strong network to work once the req is approved.
4. Become partners with your best managers. Recruiters are at least 50% more productive when they have a peer relationship with their hiring manager clients instead of a subservient one. This recruiter/manager partnership is developed when recruiters have a strong understanding of real job needs, present a few highly qualified candidates in a timely manner, have strong assessment skills, and can influence the shape of the job and the person ultimately hired. You know you’ve arrived when your hiring managers see everyone you recommend without having to review their resumes.
5. Implement an early-bird sourcing strategy. During the first few days of a job search, the best active candidates contact their close confidantes, previous mentors, and a short network of influential people. In parallel, they Google for jobs by searching on the job title, the city, and the word “jobs.” The best of this group start interviewing within the first week. Time is now a competitive advantage, so being called first and being found first is the key to hiring the best as soon as they enter the market. Becoming an early-bird is an essential skill if you’re sourcing active candidates.
6. Become an expert in consumer marketing. The messaging (ad copy) is a critical aspect of implementing an early-bird sourcing strategy. Rather than benchmark other recruiting departments, benchmark the best consumer products companies. When you do, you’ll notice that their advertising is written to appeal to their target audience with a focus on the benefits of the product rather than the technical specifications. For recruiting, this means eliminating traditional job descriptions filled with requirements (comparable to the product specifications) and start describing what the person will do, learn, and become (the benefits). While there’s much more than this consumer marketing stuff, it won’t help much if you’re posting boring job descriptions.

These are just some ideas on how to get massively better, and it really doesn’t matter if you do these exact things. What does matter is that you start getting massively better at what you’re doing today. Once you get on the path of getting better — whether it’s more training, attending meetings, leading workshops, taking on more challenging assignments, or becoming more innovative — don’t stop. Getting continuously and massively better is the real goal here.

As Jim Rohn said, “Things will get better for you when you get better.”

Half of these cuts are probably necessary anyway, the balance most likely an overreaction to the dismal economic conditions most companies are now facing.

There is an expectation that along with the cuts these recruiting departments need to drastically improve their productivity by 30%-50%, almost overnight.

The good news is that while most corporate recruiters are working hard, the majority are not working smart.

As a result, getting 50% or 100% productivity gains isn’t that hard to do. With this in mind, here are some things recruiting leaders can do to increase overall productivity by at least 100%.

An Almost Endless Stream of Ideas on How to Increase Corporate Recruiting Department Productivity by Over 100%

1. Only hire recruiters who are, or can become, partners with their hiring managers. Recruiters who are partners with their clients get more time to discuss real job needs, they send out fewer candidates, make more hires, and overcome natural hiring manager resistance to see top candidates who don’t fit the bill on paper. Partners make twice as many placements per month than recruiters who are perceived as vendors to their clients, so this is a huge productivity opportunity.
2. Make sure your recruiters are competent to do the work assigned. One way to increase productivity is to ensure all of your recruiters are as good as those in the top 10% on your team. (Contact me if you’d like to check out our new online recruiter assessment tool we’ve created with Profiles International.)
3. Make sure every recruiter understands the jobs they’re filling. Sadly, most recruiters don’t know much about the jobs they’re representing. Whether it’s a call center in Chicago, a sales rep in San Jose, or a J2EE architect in Ashtabula, recruiters need to know what drives on-the-job success, why the job is critical to the company, and why a top person should consider it.
4. Make sure your recruiters totally understand their target market. Recruiters need to be subject-matter experts regarding the job, the industry, and especially the needs of their ideal “target” candidates. Creating candidate personas is the first step, including demographics, associations, first- and second-degree networks, conferences, recognition awards, academic connections, and motivating needs. This allows them to write compelling ads, post them in the best places, know exactly who to call, what to say, how to get great referrals, and how to convince the best people your job is the best of the bunch.
5. Make sure your recruiters know how to recruit. Recruiting means getting more candidates interested at the beginning, ensuring that few drop out in the middle, and 95% of all offers are accepted on fair terms. Effective applicant control is at the core of this and most recruiters don’t even know what this even means. Do you know how many candidates you’ve lost because your recruiters dropped the ball somewhere in the process?
6. Make sure your recruiters are respected by the candidates they represent. If recruiters aren’t seen as subject-matter experts and career advisors by their candidates, you’re losing some great people before the process even begins. You’ll get a good sense of this by calculating how many “A” level candidates your recruiters uncover and place on a typical search. If it’s not 70% or more, you’ve found a huge productivity improvement opportunity.
7. Make sure your recruiters can accurately assess candidate competency. Recruiters should be able to get this right 80% of the time with a 30-minute performance-based phone screen, at least to the point of not embarrassing themselves by recommending a totally unqualified person. Think of the time wasted sending out a candidate who shouldn’t be seen in the first place.
8. Make sure your recruiters are tough-minded, confident, and persistent. The best recruiters don’t take no for an answer, they defend their candidates from superficial assessments, and they close on career opportunities more than money. These recruiters are 2-3 times more productive than those who cave at every negative. Double your team’s productivity by making sure your recruiters are those who don’t give up without a fight.
9. Manage time. Cold-calling people you don’t know is a big time-waster. Calling people who are good who will call you back is an ok thing to do if a great ad didn’t work. A sequenced sourcing strategy based on the “low-hanging fruit principle” of selling should be established for every search assignment. Then, measure your recruiters on qualified sendouts/hour to start finding out where your team is wasting its time.
10. Don’t let your recruiters call people who won’t call them back. Start tracking voice-mail return rates. Those with the highest percentages (target a minimum of 75% to start) usually spend more time calling referrals, are seen as subject-matter experts or come across as extremely professional. To improve productivity 300%, either train your recruiters to increase their callback rate from 25% to 75%, or hire those who already do it without complaining how hard it is.
11. Make sure your recruiters get 2-3 high-quality referrals on every call. The ability to get high-quality referrals is the secret behind passive candidate recruiting. A great referral will call you back if you mention the name of the great person who provided the referral. Recruiters then need to prequalify every referral and only call those who are worthy. If you track great referrals per call, you’ll quickly know which recruiters are able to play in the passive candidate recruiting talent game.
12. Prepare a process-flow diagram of every step in your hiring process and calculate the yield at each of these steps. Look at each step in your hiring processes and see where you lose the most candidates. First, track ad response and apply rates. At the back end of the process, figure out how many good candidates were poorly assessed or excluded for dumb reasons. Then start working on those process steps that can double or triple your team productivity.
13. Make sure you’re attracting early-birds, not leftovers. When you examine the problems associated with most active candidate sourcing programs, you quickly discover that they’re attracting leftovers, or candidates who have been in the market a few weeks or more. If you’re not attracting the best of the bunch as soon as they start looking, you’re wasting time and resources going through electronic stacks of resumes of unqualified people. Implementing an early-bird sourcing strategy can increase your active candidate sourcing productivity by 100-200%!
14. Eliminate all barriers-to-entry. The best people, whether they’re active or passive, are more discriminating and don’t want to be pushed into filling in an application before they’re ready. To address this critical need, establish an open-door policy where you allow candidates to “just look around” before getting serious. This is what Web 2.0 is really about — establishing two-way relationships using a variety of entry points to attract someone’s attention.
15. Manage your 500-pound gorillas. A huge productivity loss is managers who can’t recruit, don’t know real job needs, or can’t accurately interview. If you’ve ever lost a good candidate for one of these reasons, or if managers refuse to see a top-notch person with a slightly different skill set, you know how much time is wasted here. Getting hiring managers inducted into the real world of hiring top performers will double your productivity almost overnight. Not doing it will diminish the impact of everything else mentioned here. (Contact me if you’d like to find out about our new gorilla taming programs.)

Doing everything described will absolutely result in a 100%-200% productivity gain. If not, you didn’t do them right, so start over and try again. Even if you did achieve the productivity improvements, start over again anyway to get another 100%-200% productivity improvement.

Things are changing so fast you need to keep at it by establishing a continuous improvement program. Bottom line, this is what this article is really about.

With this sobering news in mind, I offer those of you in all quartiles this short, 10-point personal evaluation guide. While some of them are a bit crazy, they’re based on comparing your performance to the best in the business. It will tell you quickly whether you’re in the top 25% and how to stay there.

If you’re not in this double RIF-proof group, you’ll find out what you have to do to get there. For those of you doing any pre-RIF assessments, it will help you figure out who goes, who stays, and who’s worth saving. What a crazy idea! (Note: your comments are being collected on my Recruiter’s Wall blog.)

Using Adler’s Crazy Metrics as the New Recruiter Scorecard

The world of recruiting continues to evolve faster than most of us can adapt. To see where you rank in the new age of recruiting, evaluate yourself on each of these factors on a zero- to 10-point scale.

This has been designed for full-cycle recruiters and it’s based on a curve, so you need to score around 65-75 points to be in the upper quartile.

1. Voice Mail Return Percent. If you’re calling passive candidates (those not looking) you should be in the 70%-80% range here. This is worth a full 10 points. Average in the current economy is about a 20% return rate and is worth about 3 points. You only score points here if you’re calling people who are fully employed or where your personal influence is the key to getting them interested. (Note: see point 3 for how to increase your voice mail return rate.)
2. Number of Days Looking. Getting people as soon as they enter the job-hunting market is a huge competitive advantage. So start asking your active candidates how long they’ve been looking. If you’re the first recruiter or company they’ve spoken to, give yourself all 10 points, but only if you had anything to do with pulling this feat off. You get a big donut if the candidate says they’ve already accepted another offer, they’ve got other offers pending, or if they’ve been in the market for more than two weeks. Give yourself 5 points if most of your candidates found your ad in the first 5-10 days of their search. If you had nothing to do with making sure the ad was found, that it was compelling, or in causing your candidate to respond, you don’t get any of these points. Instead, give them to the person who pulled this off.
3. Referrals Per Call. To score all 10 points on this factor, you need to average 2-3 worthy referrals per call. Someone is worthy if they are highly qualified and a strong candidate for your open job, or personally knows someone who is. An average score (3 points) on this factor is about one decent referral per call. I have a personal rule that has enabled me to increase my personal productivity by 300%! It goes like this: first, don’t call anyone who will not call you back! Second, don’t call anyone who’s not a top performer. Third, only call worthy prospects. The only way to pull this is off is to get 2-3 worthy referrals on every single call you make. (Here’s a networking tips article for help on improving your score here.)
4. The Maslow vs. Money Index. Here’s an article summarizing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s must-read material for recruiters. The key point here is that good candidates don’t take new jobs primarily for the money. They take them for some combination of growth, opportunity, a chance to learn new skills, to do something important, or to increase their personal satisfaction. Unfortunately, most candidates ask “what’s the money?” early in the courting phase, putting most recruiters on the defensive. Good recruiters quickly shift the conversation to Maslow-related ideas, suggesting that the primary reason a person should select one job over another is because of the opportunity for growth and personal satisfaction it represents, not the money received. (Caution: this will only work as long as your comp is reasonably competitive.) Score all 10 points if you handle this money question smoothly all of the time, and zero points if you stumble all of the time. Give yourself 2-3 points if you can convince a fair percent of your candidates to reconsider, independent of the pay.
5. Not Interested Conversion Rate. This is the percent of candidates who initially say they are not interested in your job opening but who reconsider. You score all 10 points if you phrase your questions in such a way that everyone says they’d like to talk with you about your open opportunities. Score zero points if you walk away from most of these candidates without some type of clever rebuttal. The key to good recruiting and scoring high on this factor is applicant control. You know you have it when you — the recruiter — determine if you’re interested in the candidate, not the other way around.
6. Partner vs. Vendor Ratio. If you’re a partner with your hiring manager clients you have a better understanding of real job needs, you’re more influential, they’ll see candidates who are a bit off the mark based on your recommendation, they’ll trust your judgment, and you’ll make more placements without wasting time. A vendor-like relationship with a client puts the recruiter into a subordinate and less-influential role. The recruiter typically has less knowledge of real job requirements, the hiring manager refuses to see candidates who don’t meet the exact requirements, and the manager won’t reconsider candidates he or she has incorrectly assessed. Divide the percent of your clients who are partners by those who are vendors (Note: 50/50 is equal to one and is worth 4 points.) A good ratio here is two, meaning two-thirds of your clients treat you as a true partner, so give yourself 7-8 points for this.
7. Unsolicited Referral Rate. If you regularly get great referrals without asking for them you score high on this factor. Great recruiters are known in their niche market and top people want to connect with them. Give yourself all 10 points if at least 50% of your placements are made from these unsolicited referrals. If you get 4-5 strong unsolicited referrals each month, whether you place them or not, give yourself 5 points on this factor. You get a big zero if you don’t get any good referrals, unsolicited or not.
8. Technology Utilization Factor. Whether it’s being an ATS geek, a Web 2.0 aficionado, a search optimization fanatic, or a CRM guru, recruiting in today’s era requires significant technology expertise. If you still advocate a tech-free environment, you earn a big zero on this factor. Googling for resumes is not a big deal anymore, so you get nothing for being good at this. If you’re training others in using the latest recruiter-tech stuff take all 10 points. If no one laughs at your lack of tech-expertise, score 5 points here.
9. Advertising Efficiency. To get all 10 points on this factor, you have to make sure your ads are found and at least 50% of the people who find them click through. This means you need to use reverse engineering to select the best boards and make sure your ads are so compelling top people are intrigued enough to respond. If you just post your traditional job descriptions on boards that have not been vetted, your score is equal to the number of great people who apply — zero!
10. Gauge of Persistence. Recruiting top people is never smooth. People always have concerns. Candidates always have other offers. Managers always want to see more candidates. Pushing through these issues is at the heart of great recruiters. If you can convince most of your candidates to reconsider, get your managers to see and hire people who don’t meet the exact requirements, and are constantly pushing the process forward, regardless of the challenges, you deserve most of these 10 points. Take them all if your candidates and clients thank you for persevering. You don’t deserve any points here, if you complain about all of the challenges involved, procrastinate, or make excuses about your lack of results.

Free BONUS ADD-ON: Buyer vs. Seller Quotient

Divide the percent of the time your strong passive candidates are selling you (meaning you’re the buyer) by the amount of time you’re selling them (i.e., 50/50 is equal to one and worth 5 points). If you sell more than you buy, you get 1-2 points, and if you buy a lot more than you sell, you get 7-8 points. Good recruiting is about getting a strong candidate to sell you on why he or she is qualified for the job. They’ll only do this if they believe your job represents a strong career move for them. This is also referred to as applicant control and is a core competency of every top recruiter.

New-age recruiting is about influencing people who have multiple opportunities to consider what you have to offer. While there is more technology now available to find people, this is now the easy part. Getting on the phone, recruiting them, and networking is now the real skill involved with being a great new-age recruiter. That’s a crazy idea, isn’t it?

As embarrassed as I was to hear that then, my accusers were right! I had dropped the ball and not gotten back to them. What I had not realized (even though I had experienced the same thing during my own period of being laid off), was that during recessionary times, everything we do as recruiters gets magnified.

As a result, to me, times of difficulty do put us under a microscope in which perceptions are skewed. However, so too do they present great opportunities to build even better relationships with candidates and third party search providers, to sharpen our skills and give ourselves greater tools as recruiters, and to further enable us to be unique professionals who stand out from the pack.

But to begin, let’s be clear: It’s an ugly world out there. Your company may have gone through layoffs and decimated its recruiting department. And now you’re the one that’s left — and you still have to fill requisitions and hire people.

On top of all that, for many roles you need to fill (such as in sales, operations, and general management), it can be harder to attract “in-place” people during difficult times than in good times.

Thus for starters, challenging economic times require a greater focus on candidate management. With so many people looking for work and resumes coming in at a much faster rate, there are simply more candidates to manage. Thus it’s easier for recruiters who are usually very good at this to drop the ball (and for those who usually don’t do so well to begin with, it’s doubly worse). And, as mentioned above, since as a rule people magnify their experience during difficult times, any slip-up will be judged much more harshly during a downturn than when things are good.

But the converse is also true (which is why this is a great opportunity for relationship building): Those with whom you followed up and treated well will never forget how you stood out from the rest of the pack of potential employers who never called them back.

And remember, since the way you act reflects your employer brand, how people are treated during this time makes or breaks your employer brand!

Thus for all candidates who have submitted a resume for a role, an email should immediately be sent as a common courtesy. This can be automated through an applicant tracking system.

However, for those who have come in for an interview but did not get an offer, they should be followed up with personally. Sending an email in this instance is not only bad form; it’s cowardly. Emails are a one-way form of communication that provide no interaction, can be passed onto others and, importantly, don’t allow you to develop a broader relationship with candidates overall.

For these candidates, prioritize which candidates to contact first and then set aside time to make the calls. Block out time at the end of the day, at 5:00. Since it’s later in the day, you may have to leave a message. But if you do so, don’t leave the reason you’re calling on their voice mail (it’s the same as sending an email). Rather leave a message saying simply to call you back. Then once you do get them on the phone, be straightforward and genuine (although I’ll comment in a later column on what to say during that call).

To review, here are some reminders for candidate follow-through:

1. Prioritize which candidates to call first
2. Set aside time to make the calls
3. Don’t send a letter or email
4. If you have to leave a message, don’t say why you’re calling
5. Once you talk to them, be straightforward and genuine
6. Network with them for the future
7. Don’t worry about the legal issues of turning them down in on the phone

Recruiting during this time also forces you to hone and sharpen your skills. For instance, with active candidates, economic downturns require more investigation skills and a greater focus on candidate evaluation. Simply because someone is laid off doesn’t mean they are a bad candidate. However, it does require greater investigation to insure that there aren’t performance issues.

And, as mentioned, “passive” candidates can be harder to recruit than in good times. Actively recruiting someone in a sitting position from a competitor is harder because there has to be a compelling reason for them to take your call. In addition to likely being overwhelmed (since they’re the people doing all the work), passive candidates will be a lot more risk-averse. Thus they will have less patience for your inquiry and will need to know a lot of information up front (this doesn’t just apply to senior executives, but to lower-level employees as well).

For instance, a passive candidate will likely want to know on the first call the risks, rewards, and the reasons they should consider making a move. They will definitely have a “show-me-the-money” attitude. This requires that you talk to your hiring managers ahead of time about a range of issues, including compensation, severance, relocation, change in control and layoffs, and have many “tools” in your toolbox, before making the call. And when you make the call, be legitimately open and empathetic with candidates, and to hear their concerns.

Candidate relocation, in particular, is a hard issue to deal with during this time, but again with every challenge comes the opportunity to think out of the box and have more tools at your disposal for the future.

Companies need to be prepared to pay more than they normally would for relocation. A candidate will typically not want to take a financial hit on their house and will need to “made whole.” Some companies will guarantee a buyout of a house at its appraised value (and some will even offer more than the appraised value). Another option is a company can provide rental assistance for a candidate’s current home (helping them find a renter), while the candidate looks for a buyer, and if they can’t sell it in six months the company will buy it. And there are many variations for how to deal with this issue. The key here is to be open-minded and come up with creative solutions. Work with internal or external relocation experts to come up with options and then educate senior leadership on this issue.

Lastly, these challenging times enable you to deepen and improve your relationships with third-party recruiting partners. Let’s face it: we can’t do everything ourselves. There’s no reason you can’t leverage your relationships with outside recruiters for help in ways you hadn’t before considered. And because they’re hurting too, many outside recruiters will likely be more flexible in partnering with you.

For instance, many search firms will be more open to unbundling their services and perhaps discounting as well. But the key is to reach out to them and figure out a way to work together. And, as with candidates, outside recruiters too will remember which companies reached out to them to try to find a way to work together during these challenging times, and which never returned their call.

Thus these challenging times are, in fact, opportunities for you to build your skills and relationships as a recruiter, which will enable you to continue to stand out from the pack, add value to your organization, and have greater tools at your disposal for when the tide turns and the good times once again roll!

“Talent Pipelines.”

“Talent Networks.”

All of these buzzwords describe the same thing — the idea of building a community of individuals whose skills you will need before there is an immediate opening for them. The idea is to strengthen the bonds between these people and the organization so that when the need arises, it’s a simple matter of picking up the phone.

In theory, of course.

In practice, I’ve seen too many software solutions aimed at creating these “communities” turn out to be little more than databases with candidate names and contact information. I’ve seen too many companies fall in love with the idea (which is a really good one), but not put in them time necessary to implement them in a way that realized the concept’s potential.

This Tuesday, I attended a NY Recruiting & HR Network Meetup and had the pleasure of hearing Linda Paul, the Director of Team Development at Meetup talk about her work.

As background, Meetup is a software company that enables group organizers to create and manage events.  It helps people organize more than 100,000 face-to-face events each month. Its site is simple to use, and with only 58 employees the company, has developed a passionate fan following.

With such a devoted base of users, it’s not a surprise that many people want to work at Meetup. In a classic example of eating its own dogfood, Linda has developed the Working@Meetup group in order to develop relationships with potential employees.

The group currently has 424 members. Each month Linda organizes a face-to-face Meetup with 25 new people from this group at the Meetup headquarters. Those attending the Meetups get the chance to talk to current employees, get wowed by their cool office space (which is just up the block from ERE’s not-quite-as-cool digs), and get a feel for the culture of the company.

Early in the program, Meetup was getting a lot of very excited and very unqualified people signing up for the events, so it adapted. The current process prequalifies people to make sure that they are local and have skills in areas that the company needs before they can join the group.

The candidate experience is a seamless interaction with the Meetup brand; they sign up via the company’s product; get to tour the office, and meet the team. The people at Meetup get the chance to evaluate a group of prospects, develop relationships with them before they are critically needed, and leave a great impression.

Meetup found a way to run their program without expensive software, and they also did not forget that there’s no replacement for good, old-fashioned human touch.

Its program is simple, but I think it’s a great example of a company that’s done things right.

I’d love to see other examples of organizations doing this well. If you know any, let me know in the comments!

We spend so much time pursuing the passive candidates that we overlook the ones knocking on our door. Something about the stigma of someone who’s out there looking. But in this time when literally tens of thousands of people are losing their jobs, it’s crazy to assume that everyone who is out there looking for a job is “damaged goods.”

Some people I’ve met even look for reasons to devalue the candidacy of active candidates who are still employed. I’ve heard recruiters question why people are responding to ads while they still have a job. This train of thought goes something like, “In this day and age if you have a job, why would you be considering making a move? Are you about to be fired or laid off?” What is it that makes us question the motives of people looking for jobs? Aren’t we making our jobs harder by only looking for the flaws in active candidates? I’m all for screening applicants, but lately I’ve seen recruiters time after time shooting themselves in the foot.

Are we back in high school playing “hard to get”? As Todd Raphael put it when we were discussing this topic, “It’s a silly game where a candidate is supposed to be pretending they’re not looking.”

And what makes someone a passive candidate anyway?

The same person can be both a passive and an active candidate. If you find someone on LinkedIn and it says they’re “open to new opportunities,” is that person active or passive? Some might say that if they are employed they are passive, and if they are not then they are active. But it’s the same person you found when you were searching a person with that skill set. What difference does it make if they are unemployed if they’ve got what your organization needs!

If you call someone in your network talking about your current search and he says, “I know this guy named Peter; you should call him, he’d be perfect” — is Peter a passive or active candidate? If Peter happens to have his resume on Monster and CareerBuilder, does that mean he’s less valuable because he needs or wants to find a new job? Maybe you overlooked Peter’s resume because he has experience in a different industry, but now that he has been recommended by a trusted source you’re willing to ignore that deficit in his experience. You may have disregarded a perfectly viable candidate because you were intent on finding so-called passive candidates.

We also make our jobs harder because right now lots of passive candidates are less likely to take your calls or consider a move. People are trying to ride out the storm. I have yet to meet the recruiter who says they need to make their job more difficult.

There are all kinds of reasons that people are actively looking for work, and most of them do not cast a pall on the applicant. What if I need to find a job because my wife is being transferred to Chicago? What if I need a job because my company is going out of business or laying people off? What if my company just merged and I’m being proactive in positioning myself on the market before the company starts making up their RIF lists or transferring departments and people to other states? These are all attributes that make the person a more, not less, desirable candidate. The man who is looking because his wife transferred has shown that he is a good team player who can support others. The person who’s lost a job due to a business folding has learned valuable skills about how to survive in a difficult environment. The woman staying ahead of the curve by looking before the merger RIF’s hit has demonstrated a keen business sense and the ability to be proactive and in control. We may find ourselves ignoring proactive, experienced team players with solid business experience just because they are actively looking for a job. Since when did looking for a better job become the mark of Cain?

Many of us assume that the passive candidate is better because these are the people who are currently employed and therefore, employable. They are doing a good job for someone. Why do we assume that they’re doing a good job? Because they are not out there looking. How circular is that logic? Unless you have access to their personnel file and can review their last three performance evaluations, how do you know this person is doing a good job? If you use only one metric — employed — to validate their candidacy, you may be putting too much weight on a flawed criteria. Most successful recruiters use multiple metrics to determine the viability of a candidate.

The recruiting landscape has changed once again. We need to change our thinking about candidates. There are Boomers who thought they were going to retire looking to extend their careers; there have been a flood of layoffs; companies are closing their doors. There are going to be a lot of candidates, good candidates, available to us. Very active candidates who need our jobs and are anxious to fill them. We ignore active candidates at our own peril.

And don’t forget, passive candidates often cost more to attract, to recruit, and to retain. If you want to find good candidates less expensively and more quickly, open your doors to active candidates. They will be grateful for the opportunity; anxious to show they can do the work and just may be the keys to solving your staffing problems.

The difficulty in getting individuals actively engaged in their industry and performing at top levels to apply increases significantly during tight economic times because even the best-of-the-best are more reluctant to leave the relative security of their current job.

If you want to overcome a candidate’s reluctance and increase your recruiting function’s “convincing capability,” consider a friends program. It can add a powerful convincing tool to your arsenal and leverage your best employees to help you sell your opportunities to hard-to-convince targeted talent.

A Groundbreaking Program

The concept was developed in the late 1990s at Cisco Systems by Michael McNeil, whom I consider to be the father of employment branding and modern marketing-based recruiting.

The program is based on the premise that everyone wishes they had “a friend” inside a firm they could call and get the real, honest scoop on the job and the firm prior to applying. When the program was first launched, it was so innovative and different that Fast Company magazine wrote about it, as did a number of other management publications.

US West, now Quest Communications, employed a similar program. The approach was one I applauded at the time because it specifically addressed the insane level of competition for top talent that firms were encountering and acknowledged the impact of providing a better candidate experience on a firm’s success rate. While the program would probably not be as effective today if it were plucked from history and implemented exactly as it was, it could very easily be modernized to be even more effective today given the advancements in person-to-person and person-to-group communication technologies.

Employees as Supplemental Recruiters

“Friends programs” are similar to employee referral programs in that they both solicit your employees’ help during segments of the recruiting process. The premise is a simple: you get a small group of targeted employees to volunteer as “recruiting boosters” to communicate directly with preselected potential or current applicants who need an extra boost to excite them. The employee agrees to communicate with them (usually on the phone) for a short, honest conversation about their job. The applicant can view the opportunity to talk directly with someone in their job as having a friend that works at the company. Also, the informal nature of the conversation with a “friend” is less threatening because it’s a conversation among colleagues or equals and is more about addressing the talent’s issues versus those of the employer.

The friends concept is powerful because it utilizes the best salespeople for convincing hard-sell individuals…top employees who currently work in the job. Current employees in the job are more convincing because they “live” the job every day. They can discuss at length how the work actually gets done as opposed to the summary the job description provides and the overly rosy characterization of the work environment recruiters push. The willingness to coordinate an honest/candid conversation makes the company more credible.

If your employees love their work, the friends program provides them with an opportunity to share their enthusiasm and the knowledge that they have about working for a great company. You might find that they have information or sales points that most recruiters and even some managers wouldn’t be aware of. By getting a group of your best employees to volunteer to assist in recruiting top candidates, you can stretch your limited recruiting resources while increasing your capability to excite potential candidates.

Key Program Design Elements for an Updated Friends Program

If you want to implement an improved version of Cisco’s “friends program” (now discontinued), there are 12 design elements to consider:

1. Focus on key jobs. Focus effort only on high-impact and hard-to-hire jobs. Only offer the option to talk to a “friend” for key jobs, so that you don’t use employee time when a recruiter can do the convincing adequately.
2. Limit participation to top-performing employees. Obviously, you want your most convincing employees to hold a “friends conversation.” As a result, there needs to be a selection process which limits employee volunteers only to the most convincing individuals who work in the targeted jobs. Selection criteria should include their performance level, their ability to communicate and excite, as well as their knowledge of the job and the company.
3. Limit applicant participation. Only offer the “friends conversation” to potential or current applicants who are highly desirable and at the same time, are also particularly hard to convince. Candidates for “friends conversations” need to be selected based on the likelihood that a one-on-one conversation would have a significant impact on their level of interest and excitement.
4. Vary the time. Withhold the “friends conversation” until the time where it can have the most impact. Normally, it is scheduled early in the recruiting process when it is needed to convince reluctant individuals to make a formal application or to convince individuals to agree to come in for an initial interview. However, the “friends conversation” can also be effective later in the recruiting process where it can be used to persuade applicants to continue on in a long, drawn-out hiring process or at the very end to convince them to accept an offer.
5. Educate employees. You shouldn’t assume that even top performing employees know how to effectively “sell” their job or the company. As a result, you should require the selected employees to review web-based educational materials and to utilize a “do’s and don’ts” checklist during their friends conversation.
6. Offer multiple communications options. Although most “friends” connections are telephone conversations, you could also give applicants or employees the option of communicating through text messages, Facebook, email, or on rare occasions, in person.
7. Limit the number of conversations. In order to ensure that employees don’t spend excessive time holding these conversations and to avoid employee burnout, the program should limit the number of conversations that any employee can hold in a given month. The time of each individual conversation should also be limited.
8. Vary by region. The cultures of certain countries can make some employees or candidates more reluctant to participate in your friends program.
9. Rewards. Employees are generally willing to voluntarily participate in a “friends program,” but consider giving them a reward. Offer a simple “thank you,” enter their name into a separate “friends” prize drawing, or offer a partial referral bonus if the candidate they contact is eventually hired.
10. Consider an assessment option. Employees who agree to hold “friends conversations” can also be asked to assess a candidate both for their skills and for their “fit”. Their assessments however should only be a part of the overall assessment process (because they are not trained assessors).
11. Feedback loop. After successfully hiring a candidate that participated in a “friends conversation,” you should ask them in a survey during on-boarding what impact it had and which elements were the most and least effective. Use this information to improve the program.
12. Complementary approaches. Additional ways to increase the number of conversations between your employees and applicants should be used as a supplement to the “friends program.” These additional approaches might include distributing referral cards, employee blogs, profiles on social networks and providing employees with “ask me about my firm” buttons to wear at professional events or when traveling. Some healthcare organizations use a related concept known as “peer interviewing,” where rather than just interviewing exclusively with managers, candidates get to interview with, and ask questions of employees that “live” the job every day.

Potential Concerns

The effectiveness of a “friends programs” can be reduced if they are too broad and unstructured. It’s also true that employees need to be educated about what they can and cannot talk about in order to protect critical company information.

In addition, some managers are concerned that their employees might add some negative comments about the job or your firm.

However, contrary to popular belief, a few negative comments could actually be a potential benefit. Why? Because any source of information that’s 100% percent “positive” is generally viewed by applicants as corporate propaganda. By including a small percentage of the negative, you actually increase the credibility of the overall message.

Final Thoughts

Recruiting managers are constantly saying they want to be more strategic. If you are among that group, the “friends program” is an opportunity to strengthen the selling and convincing components of your recruiting effort utilizing “other people’s time.”

By involving your employees, you increase their understanding of recruiting issues and you increase the likelihood that they will assume more ownership of the recruiting process. The startup costs to the recruiting function are minimal and if you design it correctly, it can produce significant results almost immediately.

I recently had the opportunity to speak at a recruiting conference whose major theme focused on technology and its application in the recruiting lifecycle. As I stood in the back of the room waiting for the speaker in front of me to finish her presentation, I was shocked at what she had to say. She stated that “there is no reason to actually talk to a candidate today.” She continued by saying that “email and text messages should be the only means we use to contact and recruit candidates today because that is the medium they use.”

As this well-known speaker’s comments began to sink in, I realized the cause of many of the problems we face today — it’s people like this speaker who teach us to rely almost exclusively on technology! I may not be a doctor, but the last time I checked, every candidate is a living, breathing, human being with the innate craving to have a relationship with other living, breathing, humans.

Within the recruitment profession today, technology has moved from a tool to identify candidates and create efficiencies to a mechanism that replaces real relationships. If we all rely on the same technologies to identify, engage, and recruit candidates, what will be the differentiator from company to company? Are candidates to be treated as a commodity?

Have we forgotten that recruiting is sales? That sales is what builds real relationships? That technology should enable us to be more efficient but cannot engage a candidate in the way a recruiter can? Obviously these are all rhetorical questions aimed at pointing out how our near-reliance on technology is only exacerbating the problems we face today.

As I surveyed the room after I heard these ridiculous statements, I realized the impact this speaker had on the audience of seemingly young, inexperienced recruiters who were attempting to learn at least one nugget of information they could apply when returning to their respective companies.

It is direction like this, from supposed leading authorities in the field, that are causing recruiters to lose touch with candidates and treat them like a number instead of a person.

Let’s break down the obvious: Most exempt-level candidates, whether active or passive, have many choices today of where to work. When an active candidate submits a resume to your organization, you can assume they have applied to your top competitors competing for the same talent. Likewise, passive candidates know that they are in demand and can choose who to speak with.

This reliance on technology has created a ‘post and pray’ and ‘email and wait’ mentality for most recruiters. Sending broadcast emails, blogging, and social networking sites are the same tools your competitors are using to engage the same exact candidates that you want. Although these are fantastic tools to identify potential candidates, engaging them is the challenge. It is difficult to establish a relationship of substance when you have never spoken to the candidate or all of your follow up is done through non-personal means.

If recruiting is sales — and it is — what do we know about the sales process? Every Sales 101 class teaches us that there are five main steps in the sales process:

1. Develop a relationship
2. Identify the need
3. Overcome objections
4. Fill the need
5. Advance the sale

Identifying the true need of a candidate is done by asking emotional, open-ended questions, overcoming objections, and then tailoring the opportunity to the individual’s stated need. Posting a job description, emailing the same description to your social network, or blogging about your great opportunity skips the key steps in the sales process — identifying the need of the buyer (in this case your candidate).

We are also taught that consumers of any product or service are initially attracted emotionally, and later justify their purchase rationally. Candidates are no different; if we engage them emotionally, we have a greater chance of having them buy into the position we are selling. There is no substitute for a trained recruiter developing a personal relationship with a candidate to identify their emotional wants and needs in order to present what the candidate wants, not what the recruiter has to sell. This is a common mistake made by recruiters today, resulting in a lack of qualified candidates that they can generate for their companies.

Understand how technology can benefit your recruiting process and hold your recruiters accountable for establishing meaningful relationships just like we expect our salespeople to do. Technology is by the far the most effective way to source potential candidates. The real challenge is what to do with them once you find them. With all of the options passive and active candidates have today, it is even more important to engage them in a manner that builds a stronger bond with them than your competition.

Once you start combining the efficiencies of technology with the expertise of properly trained recruiters skilled in the art of sales, we can reverse the trend created by the ‘silver bullet’ mentality. With 70% of a company’s assets in human capital, talent acquisition should be the most respected shared service within an organization.

Version two of the popular Perpetual Sourcing web-based sourcing and CRM system was released last month. That might not ordinarily be news, but the enhancements and improvements are the result of a collaboration of Todd Davis, who developed the program, sourcing guru Shally Steckerl, and vendor Intelestream.

“This product is especially unique due to the level of industry expertise found at its core. As a senior recruiter with companies such as Microsoft, Google, Starbucks, and Yahoo, Todd Davis offered his knowledge to help us create his ‘dream solution.’ Shally Steckerl, founder of JobMachine consulting has also played an intricate role in collaborating on this project,” reports Intelestream’s Director of Marketing Stafford McKay. “It’s great to be right in line with the best practices taught by the experts.”

Davis has described Perpetual Sourcing as a pre-ATS applicant tracking system. An apt description for a system designed for the passive candidates found through LinkedIn, Spoke, Hoovers, Jigsaw, and ZoomInfo, all of which the system can automatically assess. It also can help source candidates via the search engines, managing your search strings for you. It also helps with OFCCP and EEOC compliance, by saving search histories, including locations searched, search strings used, and candidates sourced .

Because it is a CRM tool, it also manages contacts with the candidates. It synchronizes with Outlook and has direct email campaign capabilities.

Perpetual Staffing is based on SugarCRM, the commercial open source customer relationship management software that is in use worldwide by customers as varied as GoDaddy and North Carolina State University.

Davis developed Perpetual Sourcing in 2007 and offered it through PerpetualSourcing.com before transitioning the operations earlier this year to Chicago-based CRM consultant Intelestream.

Web 2.0 Candidates Are:

• Faster. Candidates can gain access to more available jobs within minutes on any day.
• Smarter. Access to salary, compensation, and corporate performance data is everywhere.
• More Connected. Social networks help candidates identify insiders at any employer before or after they apply for any position.

Web 2.0 Candidates Are Faster

When job boards came on the scene 10 years ago, they made accessing available job information much easier for candidates. No more digging through the classified section of the Sunday newspaper, crafting up witty cover letters on fluorescent letterhead to get attention and postal mailing resumes. Remember when we’d put our fax numbers on our ads? Come on: how many candidates really had fax machines in their houses? Today, there are “job aggregators” such as indeed.com and simplyhired.com which put all the jobs from multiple job boards into a single search engine that stream directly into any candidate’s personal home page on Google via RSS feeds every day.

I think one of the main reasons that recruiters are after “passive candidates” is that we think we have more time to get them through the interview process, versus “active candidates” who machine-gun apply from job boards to a dozen jobs on any Monday. With the latter, we have to get them setup with an interview within 24 hours and make a hiring decision within two to four days. That’s how fast the market is moving with so much job data available online.

Web 2.0 Candidates Are Smarter

In addition to having access to an ocean of jobs, most candidates tap into salary and compensation data via sites such as payscale.com and/or salary.com. Not to mention that the younger generation of workers aren’t shy about sharing their comp levels in the lunchroom or over beers, unlike our parents’ generation who considered salary discussions to be so taboo they would only share this information with the IRS when filing their annual tax returns.

Many recruiters have candidates show up with a salary report printed from one of these salary sites and demand that their pay be at or above the level on the report. Candidates don’t care if our job descriptions aren’t perfectly matching the ones on those websites; they just see the numbers and get an expectation that’s usually out of line with our compensation levels. Regardless of how you handle this situation in your interview process, employers are under pressure to know how their pay grades compare to other major employers in their markets.

Web 2.0 Candidates Are More Connected

Remember when you would get an applicant resume, see which companies a candidate previously worked for, and then quickly find which of your internal employees had worked with the applicant in the past, in order to get “inside information” to determine if they were a good or bad prospect? (Never mind that 51% of people will comment positively or negatively on someone because of how they liked their personality — and not their actual work performance.)

During the interview process, candidates were lucky to run into a former colleague in the hallways. Or if they get lucky in the interview, they will discover who they might know in common with the interviewing managers and try to discover which “moles” they could find within the prospective company, which would help them do their own due diligence on the employer — not to mention that they will try and gain advocates to help them get the job should their interest grow.

Well, because of the growth of social networks (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Jigsaw, and many more), the minute most candidates apply for any job (and sometimes even before they apply for a job), they can now instantly see who they know at any prospective employer, all the way back to their old high school or college buddies.

This tilts the access of information toward the candidate community — who can now see if there are bad previous bosses or old enemies working within your company, which they may wish to avoid. The candidates’ reasoning will be if your company hires personalities the candidate disliked, it indicates that your culture prefers those types of individuals, which will have an impact on your employer brand whether you get a chance to enter the conversation or not.

This puts a new pressure on employers to create a working culture that will attract these more web savvy candidates. These Web 2.0 candidates don’t believe most of our career sites’ language about having an exciting work environment. They want to find out for themselves (via networking) what it’s really like to work within the sub-cultures within our company, which are driven by management personalities and business cycles which are exciting to certain candidate types, and a turnoff to others.

This was a waste of time.

Not that my soul isn’t worth saving. But it was a waste because I am very firm in my religious beliefs and am not about to change them because of a 90-minute conversation with someone.

It was not an unpleasant conversation. He seemed like a delightful man and we laughed at times as we talked. He was not going to change my mind, but I did respect his commitment. His dedication. He did not let go. Our flight took off at 5:45 in the morning and he was in full swing. He started the conversation before he had his seat belt buckled and he kept it up even as people were deplaning.

He was recruiting.

I was impressed with his zeal. Then again, he is recruiting for a very important cause. It occurred to me that he probably started up these conversations whenever he traveled. He was always looking for recruits, and to put this in recruiting parlance, he is frequently looking for “passive candidates.” He never rests in his search, as there are always openings in his organization. Was he effective? Not with me, but I wonder how many people he has successfully recruited. Lots, I would guess, from the extent of his travels. He has been all around the country and all around the world. He finds people wherever they are. That’s his mission, and that’s what his organization needs.

What’s your mission? Professionally speaking, what are you trying to accomplish? There’s a lot we can learn from Ted. Are you constantly recruiting? Do you strike up conversations with people on planes, in malls, or at events? Are you always trying to meet new people? In the movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” the sales manager says selling is as simple as ABC: Always Be Closing. There are lots of similarities between selling real estate and recruiting, but that’s for another article.

Perhaps we need to create acronyms to remind us how to be successful recruiters. Maybe, if you’ve been finding yourself lax in the networking department, your ABC is “Always be connecting.” If your pipeline is drying up and you’re feeling frustrated, JKL – Just Keep Looking! Or NOP – Never Overlook Possibilities. But don’t compromise your standards. Remember PQR – Persistent Quality Recruiting. But be sure to MNO – Make Numerous Overtures if you’re going to EFGH – Effectively Find Good Hires. OK, I mean, okay, maybe I’m getting carried away, but we do need to remember that candidates don’t always present themselves neatly at our office door. We find them when and where we least expect them.

When I was a human resource generalist for a large organization, I used to say that HR people never take off the HR hat. Whether you are at a meeting, on the phone, or at the holiday party, you are always on duty. Same goes for a recruiter. You never know when or where you are going to find that next great candidate. Ted had no idea about my religious background, my views, or the depth of my belief. That didn’t stop him, and he never lost his good humor as we talked. He did get a little more earnest as we began our final approach because he realized that he had precious little time left to complete his mission.

We can follow his lead. It’s easy to get turned off by a candidate. If we stop recruiting at the first “not interested” from our candidates, we’re going to have a lot of short phone calls. Ted didn’t give up. He made sure to get my business card early in the conversation, so I’ll be very surprised if I don’t hear from him. (Note: before I completed this article I had received e-mails from him.) He sincerely cares about what he’s doing. He’s good at what he does because he has a passion for recruiting. Do you? Do you find yourself getting burned out? Too many candidates, too many openings, or too many rejections?

I remember one time when a friend of mine was returning home from a college-recruiting trip. He did not usually take part in the college visits, as he was primarily an executive recruiter. His focus was management positions. But this trip included a couple of business schools from which his organization hoped to recruit people to be part of the management-trainee program as well as recruiting at other schools. So Mike went along for the whole trip. Now he was on his way back. He was tired, he was cranky (he always said that he didn’t care particularly for campus recruiting because it reminded him of how old he was) and he just wanted to put on his headphones, recline his seat, and close his eyes ’till he landed.

Well, you know what happened. The seat next to Mike was empty until just before the door closed. Mike was anticipating having a little extra elbowroom and then this guy came down the aisle carrying just a briefcase and a trench coat. He looked stressed out. Mike assumed it was due to his almost missing the flight. The man stashed his coat and case overhead and flopped into the seat next to Mike. Mike could sense that he wanted, or perhaps needed, to talk. Fighting every urge to close his eyes and pretend that he was listening to music, Mike removed his headphones and asked, “Rough day?” That was all it took.

His name was Bob and he was out of work. He’d been looking for about six months. He’d had a few leads but nothing had panned out and now he was returning home after a trip that he had hoped would result in an offer, but it didn’t look good. He had made this trip at his own expense to follow up on a lead and a phone interview. He thought that by making the effort and covering the expense of the flight, he might impress the company with his interest in the position and commitment to this opportunity. Bob wasn’t keen on relocating. He would rather stay in the Northeast, but he hadn’t been having any luck so he took a chance on casting his net a little further even if it meant uprooting his family.

But the interviews had gone terribly. The person he’d spoken with on the phone was too busy to spend more than a few minutes with him, he had to start from scratch with every person he met (hadn’t they prepared at all?) and several had no idea why they had been called in to meet with him. It was a frustrating day all around, and right now he didn’t have a particularly high opinion of the company he’d visited. He even said at one point, “I was going to pull my daughter out of the school she loves and away from all her friends for a company like this? Seems like this day was a total waste of time and, unfortunately, money too.”

In the fairy tale version of this story, Bob was perfect for a hard-to-fill position that Mike was working on. No, that didn’t happen, but they did exchange cards and Mike met with him back in New York. Mike didn’t have an opening, but he was very impressed with Bob’s strategic approach to finding a job, his clear analysis of the organizations with which he had met, and his insightful manner of summing up a complex situation, looking at it from all perspectives. Mike referred him to a colleague who was recruiting for someone with Bob’s skills, and he succeeded in securing a position. Mike succeeded as well. Bob always had good things to say about Mike’s company. The recruiter to whom Mike referred Bob has become a more valuable part of Mike’s network, referring several good candidates, a few of whom Mike has hired.

There’s a lot we can learn from Ted, and from Mike. Never stop recruiting, wherever you are, no matter how tired you are, no matter what time of day it is. You never know where that next great candidate will be, or who will lead you to that person. Would you have caught the signals that Mike picked up on? Guy comes on a plane looking stressed, carrying nothing but a trench coat and briefcase, dressed in a suit appropriate for an interview — this might be a guy worth talking with. Maybe it’s just someone who needs to talk, not someone we can hire or refer. It never hurts to hone our networking skills.

To best serve our organizations we need to be constantly on the lookout for talent, and we can never predict where we’re going to find it, or when. Very often candidates will present themselves when we least expect it. By keeping an open mind we increase our likelihood of success. Maybe not immediate success, but somewhere down the line. Gary Player used to say, “The more I practice, the luckier I get.” I tell people, on both sides of the interview table, that the only way to get good at interviewing is to interview. The best way to keep our recruiting antennae honed is to constantly look for signals and indicators, then to test our assumptions. The more we practice the more we’ll succeed.

And don’t close yourself off the next time someone plops down next to you on a plane. It might be your next great hire, or it might be Ted. Either way, you’ve got something to learn and possibly a lot to gain.

You may not save a soul, but you may help someone and you may even fill a job. And for a recruiter, that’s a pretty good day.

Some companies have made hires that way for years. It’s just that those “special” candidates are the boss’s relatives. For the rest of the world, the new site is an experiment in anonymous sourcing. It’s called Scopings and it sort of reminds us of those old computer dating programs. Candidates put in a little bit of information about themselves; employers put in a little more information.

The computer compares the candidates to the job description and suggests possible matches. Then the courting begins.

Only when both of you show enough signs of interest is the cloak of anonymity dropped.

That’s the essence of the site. As might be expected it has bells and whistles to manage the courtship, including the ability to create “rounds,” which are elimination questions. These rounds of questions can be done online or by phone. The downside to the latter is that you have to listen to a bunch of voicemails. The plus is that you get a taste of a candidate’s communication skills without an interview.

Scopings is both a site and a service. Candidates can stumble upon Scopings to register and set up a scope, creating a database that will be owned by Novologies LLC, the Brooklyn company behind the site. (For the moment, Scopings is offering jobs only in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, and Boston.)

Or employers can engage Scopings to handle one or more reqs. In that case, Scopings becomes the candidate entry point for applying, anonymously of course, and let the matching begin.

What we like about the concept is that a candidate who is not actively looking, but may be receptive, can ask the recruiter or hiring manager enough questions about the job and the company culture to know if it is something worth pursuing. That works the other way around, too.

In practice, we wonder how many recruiters will take the time to provide anything but stock answers. It’s seems unlikely that a hiring manager would engage in a Q and A with prospects whose identities (and complete CV) they don’t know. Even today, when every run-of-the mill ATS system has the ability to acknowledge receipt of an application, candidates complain of the recruitment black hole. So expecting a recruiter to respond thoughtfully with a personal note to anonymous candidates has as much chance of happening as a politician making good on their promises.

This would imply that during recessions there are fewer good people actively looking and it’s tougher to get the best passive consider to even discuss your career opportunity. If this is the case, one could conclude that the bulk of the people who are looking during economic downturns tend to be those who are unemployed or marginally employed.

Since this group does not represent the best-of-the-best, you’ll need to rethink your entire sourcing strategy to make sure it’s targeting the people you want to hire. Here’s a short video describing how good people enter the job market. Now here’s a quick test to determine how well you’re doing: if you’re seeing less good people than last year using the same sourcing techniques, stop using them!

However, if you do find a few good people, regardless of how you’re finding them, expect these candidates to have more objections and concerns than usual. And the better the candidate, the more objections the person has. So, if you can’t smoothly and professionally handle objections, you won’t be placing many top performers.

Here are some ideas on how to deal with some common objections. They’re more prevalent with the economy on shaky ground. The theme behind them all is to reveal very little information about your assignment until you have a complete understanding of the candidate’s background. By withholding information, you’ll gain candidate interest. This is the key to applicant control.

Handling Common Early Stage Objections

1. What’s the compensation? When someone asks, don’t tell! Say, “Before I tell you that, I’d like you to think about the best jobs you’ve ever held, those that gave you the most personal satisfaction. Were the reasons they were the best due to the amount of money you were making or due to the work you were doing?” (PAUSE and wait for an answer.) “Now, if the job I’m representing offered you a chance to maximize your personal satisfaction plus offered a competitive compensation, wouldn’t it make sense to at least discuss it for 5-10 minutes?” Most people will say yes.
2. First, tell me about the job. You must never tell the person about the job, even the actual title, until you have conducted a quick work history review. Start the conversation by asking your prospect if she’d be open to discuss an opportunity if it were clearly superior to what she’s doing now. Most people will say yes, then immediately say “Great. Could you please give me a quick overview of your background, and I’ll then give you a quick overview of the job. If it seems mutually interesting we can schedule some time to talk in-depth.” You have applicant control when the person says yes. You lose it if your job is less appealing than the one the person has now. By having the candidate talk first, you can look for potential areas where your job is bigger. If not, you’ll have developed a relationship with the candidate that will allow you to ask for referrals.
3. I’m not interested. If anyone says this, you’ve violated a fundamental law of recruiting – the candidate must tell you about their background before you tell them about the job (see Point 2). To recover from this faux pas, say, “That’s exactly why you should consider this job.” Just the fact that it’s illogical helps gain the person’s attention. Follow up by asking, “Are you aware that you just made a major career decision using minor information?” Describe a few strategic nuggets about your job that make it worthy of a short discussion. Something like your company has just invested in a start-up to exploit a new market opportunity, so growth should skyrocket over the next few years, would be a good example of how to get someone to talk a few minutes. Here’s a YouTube video podcast describing my “Magic Bus Theory of Recruiting” which will provide you some insight on how to better handle the “I’m not interested” objection.
4. I don’t like the company. If your company is struggling, or has received some bad press, you’ll need to conduct some preventive PR to offset the recruiting damage. Describe the impact the person could have in restoring the company’s image. It’s also possible the company’s reputation is based on old info, and a turn-around has begun. In this case, make sure you have some real evidence you can use to offset the negative beliefs. As you begin these damage-control efforts, make sure you understand the candidate’s concern and then ask, “If we can demonstrate that your concerns while true in the past have been rectified, would you be open to explore an opportunity with our company?” Of course, then you have to prove your case, but at least you’re moving the process forward.
5. I don’t have time to talk. Calmly say, “Let me rephrase my question then. If the job opportunity I’m representing is clearly superior to what you’re doing today, would you have some time later today to discuss it on a very exploratory basis?” (This is an example, of the “close upon a concern” solution selling technique.) If the person says “no” to your suggestion, something else is really the issue, not lack of time. It could be you gave away too much information when you initially described your reason for calling.
6. I’m happy where I am. When confronted with a happy camper, say something like, “That’s great. You’re the first person I spoke with this week who actually said that to me. Most people nowadays are just hanging around due to the bad economy. Is this really the situation for you?” Then dialogue with the person a bit to understand if she is really happy, or if it was just a brush-off. Then ask, “Under the possibility that if the situation I’m representing is clearly superior to your current job on (causes of happiness), would you at least be open to explore it for a 5-10 minutes.” Then conduct a mini-work history review as part of the phone screen.

You can’t afford to accept these negative responses without a formal rebuttal. This is the only way you’ll be able to find enough candidates to fill your requirements. All good candidates have concerns. It’s the recruiter’s job to ferret them out and address them properly.

While you won’t overcome them all, you’ll probably recover at least 50% of the candidates you would have formerly lost. And if the techniques are done properly you’ll probably wind up with some great candidates for future assignments and plenty of referrals for your current ones.

When filling a job order, most recruiters search through virtual stacks of resumes hoping one stands out, matching most of the skills and experiences listed on the job description. When calling a person, the recruiter attempts to gain this same information by first describing the job and then asking the person to describe his or her background. If there’s a fit, the selling process begins.

If you want to hire more top performers, this is exactly what you shouldn’t be doing.

A little understanding of human nature and solution selling offers some guidance on how to approach passive candidates and quickly get them more interested in what you have to offer. If you follow the instructions closely, you’ll even be able to get two to three great referrals on each call. You’ll want these, especially if you decide you’re not interested in pursuing the candidate.

In the last sentence, pay notice to who decides to move forward or not. It should be the recruiter, not the candidate. If you’re letting your candidates decide if they’re interested in your opportunity, you’re not recruiting, you’re just box-checking and order-taking. Making this decision is the first part of the applicant control process essential to good recruiting.

For the sake of brevity and making a point, let me narrow the passive candidate recruiting process down to two small, but critical, first steps. The first relates to a candidate saying they’re not interested in considering your opportunity, even before you’ve told them anything about it.

The second relates to those who don’t say “no” right away, but instead ask about the comp, title, and location.

I’m sure you would agree that getting past these two pivotal points will dramatically increase the number of top candidates you put into your pipeline.

Being familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will give you some of the insight you’ll need to address these candidate roadblocks. Abraham Maslow was a mid-20th century psychologist who studied the behavior of high-performing individuals. In a 1943 paper, he suggested that people make fundamental and predictable decisions based on different behavioral needs. These needs range from primitive, e.g., requiring water or food, to being completely fulfilled. He separated these states into five distinct levels and referred to them collectively as a hierarchy of needs.

The first level had to do with satisfying basic human needs including biological, food, and shelter. The second level related to fulfilling security needs like a steady income and healthcare. The third level addressed social needs like friendship, intimacy, and family. The fourth level covered esteem needs including achievement, self-respect, and confidence. Maslow referred to the fifth and highest level as self-actualization, growing and becoming as well-developed as possible. According to Maslow, one could not move to a higher level until the lower-level needs were met.

While Maslow has his distracters, and this is certainly not a complete summary, knowing this basic “needs concept” can be useful when a candidate says “show me the money” or something equivalent. Instead of responding, you might ask the candidate directly where she is on her hierarchy of needs scale.

This probably won’t work in such a direct fashion, but these two comparable questions might:

“Considering your current and past few positions, which one gave you the most sense of personal satisfaction?”

Pause and let the person respond. Then ask whether this satisfaction was due to the type of work or the amount of salary. Phrased properly, this can only be answered with something about the quality of the work, not the money being earned.

Unless the person never had a great job or never did anything worthwhile, the candidate will select a situation that addressed a higher order or self-fulfillment needs. With this as the setup go on to ask:

“Under this basis, wouldn’t it then make sense to talk just five to 10 minutes to determine whether the job I’m working on provides both satisfying work coupled with a competitive compensation?”

Done properly, don’t be surprised if 90% of your candidates agree. Of course, you’ll then need to prove your case, but at least you’ve started conversing on a positive note.

I call this the Maslow advance. When confronted with a recruiter or any cold-call from a salesperson, a person’s normal reaction is to say no or ask questions that allow them to get out of the conversation as rapidly as possible. Good recruiters know this.

To overcome this roadblock you’ll need to use some type of decision-shifting question that allows you to engage with the person in a brief-but-meaningful dialogue. As you begin the discussion, don’t provide much information about the job other than a vague title. The key here is to get the person to tell you first about her background. If you describe the job first, you risk the chance the candidate will respond with a “not interested.”

The reason I call this an advance and not a close has to do with the concept of SPIN Selling. Knowing SPIN Selling will also allow you to overcome the “not interested” hurdle.

SPIN Selling is a sales technique developed by Neil Rackham and thoroughly described in his 1988 book of the same title. SPIN refers to a four-step sales process relating to first understanding the situation (S), determining whether there is a problem (P), figuring out the implication (I) of the problem and situation, and asking a need-payoff (N) question to engage the person in another step.

Rackham refers to this step forward as an advance, as opposed to a close. In larger sales or influencing someone into making an important decision (like changing jobs), obtaining more information in a logical series of steps is the key to ultimate success. Good candidates, especially the passive ones, tend to be reluctant to move quickly, so it’s important to engage with them in a series of conversations and interviews sharing more and more critical career and job information at each step.

Another aspect of SPIN Selling is to avoid asking questions that can be answered by a “no” or “not interested.” So for next time, don’t ask the person if he’s interested in a senior firmware job; instead, ask if he’d be interested in exploring opportunities on a new state-of-the-art project your firm is launching. Then get the person to tell you a little about himself (understand the Situation), find out if the person is fully satisfied in his current role (is there a Problem), find out if there is anything in the short term likely to change this (determine the Implication), and then ask the person if he’d be open to talk for 20-30 minutes to see if one of the opportunities you have open would be more satisfying. Of course, the last question combined the Maslow advance with Rackham’s Need-payoff question.

If you forget to do this, and the candidate says “not interested,” you might want to try the “deer in the highlight” advance and say something like “that’s exactly why we should talk.” (I heard this on one of Brian Tracy’s Nightingale-Conant audio selling programs.) This will get the candidate’s attention.

If he doesn’t hang up, but in the dead silence that follows, suggest to the candidate that he just made a long-term decision with short-term data. Continue by suggesting that if it could be demonstrated that your open position represented a great long-term career move, wouldn’t it make sense to discuss it for five to 10 minutes, even if the title isn’t exactly perfect? At least 50% of people will agree to proceed on this basis.

Now, while Maslow and Rackham can keep you in the game, you won’t make the sale unless your job truly offers a better career move than others the candidate is considering. For this you’ll need to have a thorough understanding of real job needs and future opportunities for the firm you’re representing. In addition, you’ll need to use subsequent phone screen and interviews to probe for gaps and voids in the candidate’s background. In this way, the interview can be seen as the SPI part of SPIN selling, with the N the recruiting part.

For example, at the end of the interview, convert a gap in experience into a test of interest by asking the candidate if she’d be open to meet the hiring manager if the job offered significant learning even if the comp increase was modest.

A series of methodical advances like this is how you can use SPIN Selling techniques and an understanding of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to engage more top performers and make more hires. Recruiting is a form of highly sophisticated consultative selling. Unfortunately, too many recruiters try to use transactional selling techniques and wonder why their candidates aren’t interested.

I was never very good in science class, which is probably why I’m not a doctor today. Yet, I remember vividly the exercise on heated atoms. The experiment started with a flask of water and a Bunsen burner. When the flame from the Bunsen burner was applied to the flask, the atoms would dart all over the place in excitement. The excitement was uncontrollable. The energy remained as long as the heat was applied. As soon as the Bunsen burner was removed, the atoms moved back to a static state. All movement stopped.

This science experiment teaches a lot about recruiting “passive” sales candidates (those not presently looking for a job). All companies want to recruit the top-talent salespeople from other companies. However, that talent is usually locked in pretty tightly. The top salespeople are the best earners of the company, so they probably aren’t looking to leave. What would get them to leave? How do you find these candidates? What would energize passive sales candidates to be excited about another opportunity?

Years ago, my father used to take me deep-sea fishing off the Jersey shore. When we went fluke fishing, we used one kind of bait. When we went blue fishing, we used a different kind of bait. Thus, you need the right bait to attract a particular type of fish. You certainly won’t catch a shark using a worm for bait.

Once the baited hook was in the water, the fish didn’t usually grab it in a way that allows you to reel them in right away. There was a dance. You had to make sure the fish had eaten all of the bait and was firmly on the hook. Professional fishermen talk about all of the different techniques involved with playing this game well. On any Sunday morning, you can find television shows on ESPN that walk you through the steps on how to select bait and tackle, as well as techniques to bring the fish into the boat.

So, what is the right bait when looking to catch passive sales candidates? How do you motivate them into action? There are two fundamental motivators of salespeople: fear and greed. Very simply, it’s just those two. Thus, the two types of bait for recruiting passive sales candidates are fear and greed. Sales managers use techniques to direct their sales team based on those two motivators every day. Guess what happens when a “greed” technique is used on a salesperson motivated by fear? Nothing! Thus, it is critical for the sales manager to figure out the right motivator for each of his team members.

The wrong bait is also an issue for sales recruiting. Many recruiters rely strictly on the “greed” motivator. “Come to our company, and you can make oodles of money.” That will work with some sales candidates, but certainly not with all.

As sales managers have come to recognize, there is an equally-sized population motivated by fear. I might argue that the “fear” population is larger than the “greed” one. For those folks, the “greed” factor does not motivate them into action. Some of you may be thinking that some salespeople are motivated by both, which is true. However, one of those two is more dominant. One of those two drives them into action.

As you can imagine, I talk to salespeople all the time. Most lament about the goings-on in their companies. So, I ask them if they are looking for another job, and they say no. Then, an event occurs, something that gets their attention, and they call me and say that “today” they have decided to make a change. That event is different for every salesperson, but it always falls into the category of either fear or greed.

To motivate a passive sales candidate into action based on fear, do your homework to effectively use fear as a motivator. The media provides most of the tools you need to do this well. Here are some examples of the fears salespeople have:

Leadership Change

As a whole, salespeople don’t like change. They like their territory and compensation to remain static unless they are getting more. When there is a change in leadership at the top, they get very uneasy about what happens next. Will the territory change? Perhaps the compensation plan will change?

Thus, top salespeople could be open to listening to you about a new opportunity. How do you know when there is a leadership change? The business journal of that city announces promotions/new hires at the management level of companies. A weekly read of this tool gives you new ponds for your fishing expedition. You also may learn that information from an active candidate who cites that as a reason for looking for another job.

Company Acquisition Rumors

For the larger companies, the financial news (print, online, television) broadcasts rumors like this. Whether the company is going to be acquired or is the “acquiree,” there is uncertainty in the sales team. Salespeople don’t like uncertainty. Post-acquisition, there will be changes to the sales team, but who will still have a job and who won’t?

Just like kids who, during the week before Christmas, wonder what is inside the wrapped boxes under the tree, salespeople wonder what their “gift” will be. For some, the uncertainty of the future is just enough to lead them to be receptive to a job exploration.

Company Financial Woes

Again, this information is shared in the financial news media. It is also in the local business journal. Salespeople panic when they hear this kind of news. For one, they wonder if their companies will survive. However, they also connect a few other dots. “If the company isn’t doing well, I bet it will lower the commission rate.” Or, “I bet they cut the size of the sales team. Even if I survive the cut, I’ll have to do twice the work for the same pay.”

Compensation Change

How can you possibly know when there is a compensation-plan change in another company? This information is certainly not shared in the media. When “active” candidates are asked why they are looking at other opportunities, they usually cite compensation-plan changes as one of those reasons. Hearing that should trigger a campaign to find the top performers of that company so you can apply your “Bunsen burner” tactic.

To motivate passive salespeople into action, you need the right bait. With research and technique, you can apply the heat that sends these candidates into a frenzy.

Lack of planning and poor execution are the two most common causes of failure, whether it’s fighting a war, launching any type of business initiative, or reallocating recruiting resources. When business conditions change, appropriate planning and reallocation of effort becomes even more important. When done properly, you’ll be able to anticipate problems before they cause too much damage. From a recruiting perspective, this planning needs to start by understanding the mindset of potential candidates while they contemplate switching jobs as economic conditions worsen.

In a slowing economy, consumers tighten their belts a bit, reduce discretionary spending, eat at home more often, and decide to take fewer investment and career risks. This is a natural reaction to a negative change in economic conditions. Typically, those who have lost their jobs or those in jeopardy of losing theirs get more aggressive hunting for something new. They also become less discriminating as the steady paycheck becomes more important than the future opportunity.

Those who are fully employed, but who are looking, become less active in the job market and wait for conditions to improve. Those with above-average jobs become reluctant to switch, since there will be little else available if the new job doesn’t work out. Under these conditions, the quality of active candidates responding to ads declines, and it takes increasing effort to attract passive candidates. Bear in mind that even if your company is not directly affected by the slowdown, your future candidates will be, since they all read the news.

Under current business conditions (Q1, 2008) here are some ideas you might want to incorporate into your upcoming sourcing and recruiting planning process. When executed properly, they’ll allow you to handle an economic slowdown without compromising candidate quality. Even better, when the economy begins expanding, you’ll be in a position to increase your share of top performers at exactly the right moment.

Sourcing, Recruiting, and Hiring Ideas to Offset the Economic Jitters

1. Convert Jobs into Careers. Top people aren’t about to switch jobs unless they’re convinced the new position offers a dramatic increase in scope, responsibility, impact, and growth. You’ll need to be able to describe this in clear detail and be able to prove your case. As you know, I recommend the use of performance profiles to define real job needs rather than job descriptions. These are even more important in slow economic times. Everyone on the hiring team must not only agree to what the job entails at the project and detail level, but also be able to communicate the importance of the job and the long-term aspects. Candidates will become more concerned and less likely to accept an offer if all of the interviewers aren’t on the same page.
2. Job Branding. When you tie a job to an important project or major business initiative, the job has more perceived value. This is a process called job branding. For example, a call-center job can be made more important when it’s described as the primary interface with a company’s customers. A sales rep position focusing on opening a new territory critical to the company’s business strategy enhances the value of the role. This concept must be incorporated into every job, every ad, and every conversation with your candidates. Collectively, it will go a long way into reducing the risk associated with a job change.
3. Define a Career Path and Prove It. It’s unlikely a top person will accept your offer unless you can convince the person your opportunity has more upside than does the person’s current situation. This means you have to tell the person how he could be promoted or how the job could be expanded. Not only can’t you be evasive here, you must also introduce candidates to others who have taken on these larger roles.
4. Leverage Your Employee Referral Program (ERP). Top performing passive candidates are more likely to value the input of someone they personally know, especially when there’s risk in changing jobs. Ask your employees to sign-up for LinkedIn, link to you, and then proactively build a network of all of the best people they’ve worked with in the past. Since you can see the profiles of these former associates, you can quickly determine who are the best people to target for your critical job openings. Have your employees make a pre-call introducing you, the company, and the importance of the opportunity. Here are some other tips on leveraging LinkedIn for recruiting passive candidates and how to link to me to get an instant network of 250,000 people.
5. Lengthen the Process. Slow down. Top passive prospects will need more time to evaluate the risk of changing jobs. Not only will they need to convince themselves but also their circle of advisors. Use this extra time to present more specific job and career information and get the person to meet more people in your company. As long as everyone’s on the same page, the candidate will become more comfortable with the new team members and the hiring manager. She’ll also view your hiring process as more selective, recognizing that you don’t want to make a hiring mistake either.
6. Move to a Consultative Selling Model Versus a Transactional One. Too many interviewers still think the interview is primarily about assessing competency. When dealing with top performers, this is less important than using the interview to find gaps and voids in the candidate’s background that can be filled by taking your job, if offered. (Here are some articles describing how to use the interview as a recruiting tool.) As long as they’re not too wide, these gaps and voids represent learning and growth opportunities for the candidate. This is how you use the interview as a consultative selling tool. When done properly, the candidate will sell you on why she’s qualified for the job and, in the process, convince herself why it’s a worthy career move.
7. Provide a Safety Net to Minimize Risk. Broaden the use of employment contracts to offset some of the risk with the job change. These need to cover a wider range of positions, including mid-manager and senior staff and offer more coverage. The contract needs to reflect the idea that the person being hired will only be entitled to a payout if the job is eliminated, not if the person is terminated due to sub-par performance.
8. Differentiate Your Jobs and Expand Your Sourcing Efforts. Stop writing boring ads with generic titles filled with skills and experience requirements. This is one sure way to turn off good candidates on the margin. Instead, start writing compelling ads that incorporate some of the job branding and career focus ideas mentioned above. Then, email these compelling ads to everyone in your resume database and send them to your employees, asking them to e-mail them to those in their network. This is a good way to reach top people who are sitting on the fence hoping something better comes along.
9. Increase the Comparative Risk of Not Changing. Use the idea that the decision to stay in a current job can be a bigger risk than changing jobs when first contacting prospects. As part of this, suggest that you’d like to present to the candidate a unique career opportunity that offers both current stretch and long-term growth. Mention that you’d like the chance to prove your case and, as a minimum, include the person in your network for future opportunities. If the opportunity you’re representing is truly a better short- and long-term opportunity than the person’s current role, the person would be hard-pressed not to seriously consider it. During the evaluation process, you might uncover areas of risk in the person’s current job that weren’t initially considered, including company stability and industry growth prospects.
10. Source from Companies and Industries that Are in Worse Shape. A performance profile allows you to shift the sourcing decision from identical jobs from competitors to comparable jobs in other industries. This alone expands the candidate pool. From a passive candidate sourcing standpoint, you need to proactively seek out top people in equivalent jobs in industries that are faring worse than yours. This immediately offsets the risk factor of changing jobs. For example, we recently placed an executive in the construction industry into a comparable job in the alternative energy field. It didn’t take much convincing to demonstrate the positive aspects of our job in a more stable and fast-growing industry.

While many of these ideas are applicable regardless of the economic cycle, the emphasis here is to clearly focus on the idea of minimizing risk and emphasizing the long-term opportunity. To pull it off, you’ll need a game plan, trained recruiters, and more involvement by every member of the hiring team. But when things get tough, the people involved need to get tougher to handle them.