I’ve always thought corporate recruiters could learn a lot from “headhunters” — not because I’m biased due to years spent in third-party recruitment (both as a recruiter and manager). It’s just that when I came to the “other side” I noticed one glaring weakness.
Corporate recruiters are very “process driven” and not very good, well, “hunters”; at least that tends to be the case for corporate recruiters newer to the profession. They get the procedures down quickly but they just haven’t been exposed to the world of recruiting and closing higher-level talent. More senior corporate recruiters, on average, have been exposed to both sides and may already use some of the principles I’ll discuss.
A few quick facts about recruiting top talent in the U.S. Currently in the U.S. unemployment is hovering around 8%, yet, more than 52% of employers (according to the Wall Street Journal) say they cannot fill their positions. How can this be? How can we have, in this economy, a jobs gap of nearly 4 million?
We have a lack of talented folks out there. In the U.S., we graduate nearly five times as many liberal arts majors as we do engineers. What this means for you (Mr. or Mrs. Corporate Recruiter) is that top talent is hard to find, and it’s only going to get harder. Before the “great recession” one of the greatest worries in recruitment was the “coming shortage of a skilled workforce” due to retirements of baby boomers. With Wall Street and 401(k)s rebounding, it’s no surprise to see that, in this market, a machinist can essentially “write their ticket.” Stop for a moment, read that again and let it sink in. Wow.
What this means for you, the corporate recruiter, is that Jane Engineer is in demand and knows it. Yes, unemployment is high, but for a Petroleum Engineer? It’s less than one half of one percent; wow. Your organization is depending on you to find these skilled folks and to close the deal on an offer. This is where “thinking like a headhunter” will help you. Headhunters only know recruiting the skilled, the sought after. If they didn’t, no one would pay their outrageous fees. While we can’t go over every trick and tool to snag top talent, here are three simple things you can do in your next interview to land the “prize hire”:
There are two types of questions (as anyone in sales can vouch): open- and closed-ended. Closed-ended questions are “yes/no” questions like, do you have a dollar to spare? Open-ended questions are of the philosophic variety (call me the recruiting Socrates!) and have no definite answer.
The reason this is so important to landing the “prize candidate” is the same reason it’s important in sales: open-ended questions get people talking. Ask questions that are pointed, but open, like: “If there were a handful of things you could change about your current position, what would they be”?
You can’t be afraid to ask that. As they indulge you, take notes, as these are what I call “doctor questions.”
Just like a doctor asks you “where it hurts,” you want to find the pain and write it down. The pain is what you will use to close the deal.
Side note: open-ended questions are great tools in general. Not just in landing a “prize candidate” but in increasing the quality of your talent pool and avoiding mistakes. They essentially give bad candidates “enough rope to hang themselves,” which is good for you.
A mentor (and a boss) of mine, years back, found me on a day when I was unusually ornery. He wanted to know why I was feeling so melancholy. When I told him I had had yet another in-demand candidate back out of a job on me, he gave me invaluable advice in this simple phrase: “the most important words in recruiting are: If, Then, is that Correct”.
I can’t tell you how much those words have helped me. In the short term, I stopped feeling like a victim but in the long term they meant much more.
Likewise, I hope they will for you too. The reason these words are so powerful is because it not only “closes” the candidate but it finds any objections they may have while you still have a chance to overcome them.
As you ask your open-ended, “pain” questions and find the pain along the way, you should try minor closes: “so it sounds like, Mr. Candidate, if you had a job with XYX then you’d make a change, is that correct?”
Those small yes’s will lead to the big one at the end when you finally ask for the offer. Just remember to use those magic words: “If, then, is that correct.”
Finally, you’ve done it. You closed the “prize hire.” They’ve accepted. Well done. Your work is still not done, since 1 in 4 employees making over $60,000 accepts a counteroffer. Know the math — don’t fool yourself. Before I end an interview I always address the issue of a counteroffer; again it goes back to those “pain questions,” which are like ammunition.
This isn’t exact, but my conversation to a candidate is kind of like: “Mr. CFO tomorrow, you’re going to go into work and tell your boss you’re quitting, so let me paint you a picture of what it’s going to look like. All of the sudden all will be well, the XYZ issues you told me about will be solved, and your boss will probably offer you a raise. When he does, I hope you ask yourself, ‘why didn’t he or she offer me this before? When this happens, what do you intend to do?’”
It’s not a comfortable conversation, but I’d rather put the very real scenario that they probably haven’t thought about in their head before they get there. When they do, I don’t want surprises.
No recruiting process will ever be perfect, and there are tools that both corporate and third-party recruiters could learn from each other. However, a lot of the corporate recruiters I’ve managed tend to treat interviews like interrogations. They focus on questions directing a candidate to proving themselves, such as “why did you leave your last job” or “why should we consider you?” They’ll mention some selling points about the company, but the real psychology of a sale lies in asking questions and listening, and then using that information to close your target.
If you’re a corporate recruiter and take anything away from this article, I hope it’s that in order to get the “prize hire” you need to sell them (and close them) as much as they need to sell you. If you take nothing else away, you’ll be a better recruiter for it. Best of luck.