When training new recruiters I often find they are looking for a secret that unlocks the mysteries of selling.  Most of our recruiters at least initially, are a little disappointed when I tell them I have no “secret” to share.  Instead we focus on things like treating the customer like they are our only customer.  How well would you treat your customer if you only had one?  How responsive would you be with only one customer?  I’d like to share a small, seemingly insignificant example of how…

It amazes me how few recruiters truly understand their recruiting ratios.  Early in my recruiting career I would hear things like “we need to get your deal count up so come in a half hour earlier and stay a half hour later.  That gives you an extra hour a day to work harder.”  For me, “working harder” didn’t get to the root of my recruiting issues.  I was fortunate to have a strong manager/mentor who taught me to understand my recruiting ratios which allowed me to pinpoint the areas that I…

Many of us have experienced the logical candidate becoming illogical in a matter of days (or hours) when it comes to making a career decision.   When I was new to the business this happened more frequently than I or my boss liked.  Needless to say I would get pretty upset – never at me of course – but at the candidate who was blowing a career opportunity.  As I matured as a recruiter and as a person I came to understand why candidates would become illogical or irrational - FEAR. 

I…

Like many of us, I stumbled into recruiting (I was a golf professional teaching some of these “headhunters”). Two years later I was sitting at a desk, staring at a phone, terrified I had made the biggest mistake of my life. I worked for a large, successful company with a few of “those guys” in the environment. You know the ones I’m talking about – the Bobby Big Wheels and the Johnny Shooters who knew it all.

Bobby and Johnny would walk around the office doing the wink and the…