If you were going to ask someone to marry you, you would know almost instinctively that there are certain times when your chances of getting a yes improve dramatically. Asking on Valentine’s Day, for example, would most likely get a yes, while asking on the day a close friend died would not only be in bad taste ó it would undoubtedly generate a no. Smart recruiters realize that it’s not just the attractiveness of the offer that gets reluctant candidates to say yes. It’s also the timing.
Look at a widely recognized recruiting event as an example. Let’s say you are trying to attract Shaquille O’Neal away from the Lakers when Phil Jackson was his coach. You could literally ask him if he was interested in another team, and each time he would sincerely say no. However, the day after Phil Jackson retired as coach, his answer might be an enthusiastic yes. The same “right day” phenomenon occurs when you’re asking a friend for a loan or asking your boss for a raise. Every recruiter encounters individuals whom they’re trying to attract, maybe over a period of months or years, who consistently turn them down. The candidates are polite about it, but they always say, “No, I’m happy where I am now.” The lesson to be learned is that while they consistently say “no,” there will be some days where the they would say yes to an offer to interview even though they said no emphatically the day before. The key is learning how to identify the “right day.”
Right Days and Wrong Days to Offer Someone a Chance for a New Opportunity
Right day: The day after they were rejected for that promotion.
Right day: The day after your target candidate was not selected for that key job during the consolidation.
Right day: The day after the candidate gets the bonus and they can leave without a huge financial penalty.
Right day: The day after they receive their below-average performance appraisal which includes no praise or bonus.
“Right” Business Days
The first category of “right days” to focus on are days in a target candidate’s business life that change their perspective on the future. In particular, you’re looking for events or occurrences that excite them to the point where they would never leave (so that you can give up) or that frustrate them to the point where they might leave tomorrow. Business events that tend to increase someone’s vulnerability to a recruiting sales pitch include:
Other good recruiting opportunities related to business events present themselves when:
Right Days Related to an Employee’s Personal Life
There are obviously events in an individual’s private life which tend to increase their vulnerability to a recruiting sales pitch. I realize that some of these are generalizations, but they might give you some indication of what an individual you’re targeting is thinking. It is important however to find out for each individual what triggers their frustration in their current job and their willingness to consider new jobs. If you or your firm has privacy policies, only select the items that fit within those policies. Some of these “right” personal events might include:
Cookies, Days of Reflection, and Days When You Would Consider a Life Change
Days of reflection are days that people reconsider their lives and their jobs. On these days they ponder their future, and that thought process might cause them to seek out a new opportunity. When Michael Homula, the recruiting genius, was at FirstMerit Bank, he sent out cards and designer cookies to targeted individuals on their birthdays. These were individuals who were highly sought after but who had been reluctant to even come in for an interview. In one instance, 135 out of 170 individuals called the bank after receiving the cookie on their “right day.”
This is a phenomenal response rate for any group of individuals, but a stratospheric result for individuals who had already expressed little or no interest in FirstMerit Bank. The great part about the cookie was that it tasted very good and that it took a long time to eat, which of course meant a long time to ponder and think. Michael has been criticized for this approach, but these critics are probably ancestors of the same people who criticized Columbus, the Wright Brothers, as well as Starbucks for charging three dollars for a cup of coffee. Sometimes you have to judge your degree of innovativeness by the number and type of people that criticize your new approach. Universal days of reflection include:
Bad Weather Days Are Right Days
One California police department actually chose to run a videotape recruiting police officers on the worst snow day of the year in a northern city. Of course, the video showed police officers on bicycles and in shorts as well as some other pictures of what you could only call “attractive citizens.” It really wasn’t fair — and of course it worked like gangbusters. The same approach worked in Florida after multi-hurricanes hit in just a short period of time and in California after several earthquakes hit simultaneously. “Right days” relating to natural phenomena include:
“Their Location Is Going to Hell” Right Days
There are certain days and events that awaken people to the fact that they are living in the wrong city or region. If you’re trying to get a target candidate to relocate, there are just certain times when they’re more willing to listen. Identifying these occurrences can help you sell the candidate that now’s the time to move out of the geographic area. Some of those “time to move” events relating to quality-of-life include:
Each of these becomes more relevant if the schools, crime, taxes, or commute times are clearly superior in the region to which you want them to relocate.
