We all have our own personal communication style. As a salesperson it’s looking at how we can adjust that to build rapport with our candidates and clients. There’s an age-old saying “People like people like themselves”. To be able to utilise this, it means that we have to be able to adapt to other personalities and in essence be a bit like a chameleon, blending in with our environment.

Here’s a quick synopsis of just one or two traits of four common personality types, that can help you build a better relationship and achieve more in your sales communications;-

The Actor – When dealing with an actor they tend to be easy to spot. They like to talk about themselves and their successes. They’re happy to flaunt their achievements and are therefore likely to have certificates, awards, and trophies in full view. The aim when dealing with the actor is to ask them about themselves… easy huh? They will be happy to share and as long as you mention your success rates, the calibre of other clients you work with backed up with testimonials, they’ll want to join forces and work with you.

The Thinker – The thinker is the one that will take their time when making a decision. Very frustrating to a recruitment consultant, but this is the way they do business, so don’t rush them in your communication. They will come to their answer in the end. Give them time frames to work to, but make sure that you’ve also given them enough data and statistical information for them to make their reasoned decision.

The Doer – the doer tends to be the total opposite to the thinker when it comes to making decisions. They are ‘spur of the moment’ people, very spontaneous and happy to cut through any red tape to get things done. This means that they will try to rush you. Your communication has to be concise and to the point. The aim is to make sure they have all the facts before they make their decision and ask a lot of “What happens if…?” and “What would be the knock on effect?” questions, as they won’t always think through the consequences for themselves.

The Friend – Everyone wants the friend as their customer. Lovely to deal with, happy to answer all of your questions, willing to share about their personal life, but normally more comfortable talking about you instead. Sounds ideal…? Think again. You end up doing more of the talking, which means you’re not gaining the information that you need to be able to sell a solution to their needs. The friend is also very unlikely to tell you when things are not right or if they’re using another supplier because “they didn’t want to upset you!”

Try to analyse what your own candidates and clients personality traits are, and then adjust your approach to get the most out of the relationships that you are developing and remember, you’re the one that needs to change to make them feel more comfortable.  Do that and your sales conversations are likely to be longer and more successful.

Next week we’ll tackle structuring your sales calls and meetings to gain the most out of each event.

Posted by Angela Cripps

Did you find this blog useful? Then you’ll love our popular recruitment induction course Recruitment 101 which this recruiters tips series is taken from.

NEXT DATES: Singapore: 27th – 28th Febraury 2012 – see our other Singapore open course dates at our dedicated website

London – Weds 28th – Thurs 29th Feb 2012

A 500 word blog is not really enough to do this subject justice, so I’m going to look at 3 key aspects of communication, verbal, non-verbal communication (NVCs) and written in relation to recruitment.

Verbal

How we communicate changed dramatically with the advent of IT. We’re more likely to send a text or an email, than to pick up the phone to communicate with another person, but recruitment is a people business.

You have to have something interesting to say, but it’s actually the way that you sound that is more important. Who wants to talk to someone that sounds nervous, is hesitant or even worse, doesn’t sound enthusiastic about what they are saying. If you’re not interested, then why should they be?!

When speaking to someone new, we all get a little nervous, so it’s important to remember to slow down. Adrenaline will make your voice higher and your pace faster, so drop your tone and take your time… that way you are likely to sound more confident and they are likely to hear what you are saying, rather than thinking “This person sounds awful!”

NVCs

When communicating a message to someone face to face, it’s not really the words that are leaving an impression, it’s your body language whilst you’re speaking.

Ever thought that the person speaking to you is not telling the truth or maybe not the whole truth?
Ever met someone and instantly taken a dislike to them or just ‘clicked’ immediately?
Ever wondered why that is?

Our bodies give off a mass of non-verbal signals. When performing a polygraph (lie detector) test there are multitudes of bodily (non-verbal) responses that they are monitoring.  We as human beings have our own built-in lie detectors. We are able to pick up on small messages given off by others, even if we don’t realise it. That’s why we have those initial impression reactions.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Tip 1 – Plan your day, but don’t plan your whole day. Leave space for the reactive tasks that will inevitably interrupt your day. I always hear that “recruitment is a reactive business, so you can’t plan”. Well, knowing it’s going to be reactive, we can plan for that!

To be able to plan for the reactive tasks, it means that you need to do some analysis of your normal day / week. There will be some trends that you’ll start to identify. For example, as a recruitment consultant working in the commercial sector 80% of my average Wednesday was proactive. Knowing this, I would persuade my clients to meet me on this day, as I knew I could be away from my desk without too much reactive stuff happening for others to deal with.

Tip 2 – Assess what % of your day is reactive and how much proactive. By doing the analysis, you can decide how much to plan and on which days, as they will be different throughout the week.

Each day it’s been proven that if you spend a few minutes writing out what you want to achieve; you’ll gain that time back – and then some – by being organised.

Tip 3 – Write a To Do’s List. Have it written before you start work each day and update it with the reactive tasks throughout the day in a different colour, so that you are able to do Tip 2 easily).

Once you have your list, plan the activities into your diary picking out the important and urgent tasks first so that you can get them cleared first thing. By organising your time and getting the important tasks done when they should, it means that they shouldn’t get to the ‘urgent’ stage!

Tip 4 – When allocating time to tasks, always add more time than you think it will take. If you end up finishing early, there’s always other work to be done in recruitment!

Tip 5 – Create a weekly calendar whereby you have repeating tasks and copy / recur it. Identify the best times to do things and aim to stick to it. Use this as your base each week and update with your variable and reactive tasks.

Friday afternoons and Monday mornings were the most successful times of the week for me to ‘market in’ candidates to potential clients. This is likely due to the fact that people are more likely to hand their notice in at these times and then may not return or Monday morning is the time people tend to call in sick, so great for temporary staff cover.

By incorporating the 5 above tips into my daily routine, I was able to run up to 100 temporary workers per week (mostly short term bookings) on my own.

We’ll be back in the New Year where we’ll look at communication skills and how they can impact your relationships with your customers.

Posted by Angela Cripps

Angela trains our popular recruitment induction course Recruitment 101 NEXT DATE: Weds 18th – Thurs 19th Jan 2012

There is a process to gaining commitment from your candidates and making sure that they represent your consultancy in a positive way.

If you are only spending 5 minutes or so when you identify a possible candidate before putting them forward to a role, the likelihood is that you won’t make an ideal match and you certainly haven’t done anything at this stage to gain commitment from this candidate.

Step 1: Spend 5 to 10 minutes in a conversation with them in order to qualify that they meet your standards and are not likely to let you down during the process

Step 2: Interview them fully (details later) to make sure that you understand their future wants and needs – not just what they’ve done in the past. You are looking at 30 minutes for telephone and 45 minutes for face to face interviews and during this time you would expect to do only 20% of the talking and 80% of the listening.

Step 3: Put an action plan together and make sure that there are activities on both sides to test their commitment to the process

Step 4: Market them out to your client base as well as trying to attract new business with clients you would want to work with

Step 5: Keep them updated and have a contact plan in place with timeframes. That could be them contacting you – it doesn’t always have to be the other way round.

During Step 2 make sure that you structure your interview.

• Plan and prepare what you are going to say as well as writing out key questions to gather the information that you require.
• Before asking detailed, probing questions, make sure that you explain the process and what you are going to be asking. This way the candidate is likely to be more open with you if they are not thrown off by a question they weren’t expecting.
• Ask some ‘low-order’ (easy) questions to start with that the candidate can easily answer to help to build rapport and make them feel comfortable talking to you
• Ask probing questions not only around their background, education and work experience, but also their needs and wants, their personal circumstances, the culture of company that would suit them best, their preferred style of management, their training and development request for the future, their interests (I have had a candidate win out over another very similar candidate because they had the same personal interests as the client!) and especially their achievements and accomplishments. Use competency based questions to establish their true level of expertise.
• Make sure that when you have asked the candidate all of your questions, you give them the opportunity to ask you some before moving on.
• Once you have clarified that you have understood what their requirements are, it is important that you now present the services / features of your business and close to gain commitment. Too many consultants spend time focusing their sales efforts on the client and forget that the candidate is also your customer.

In a candidate driven market, this last point is even more important. If a candidate is going to give you commitment, then they need to have a reason to. Even if they can’t give it to you indefinitely, then you can ask for a time period of a month or a week or even 24 hours if that helps you to get a head-start on the competition.

Once fully interviewed, you can then move on to steps 3 – 5 with the objective of finding them the requirement that they need.

So in summary, treat your candidates the same way that you treat your clients and if you want commitment from them, then you have to take the time to understand exactly what they want and show them commitment in return through the time you take to interview them, establishing  the right position for them and working with integrity.

Next week we will look at organising all of the activities that you perform as a recruitment consultant through time management and prioritisation.

Posted by Angela Cripps

Angela trains our popular recruitment induction course Recruitment 101 NEXT DATE: Weds 18th – Thurs 19th Jan 2012

It’s easy to get distracted by a job with a big salary or a candidate that initially looks amazing. The problem is that they aren’t the pre-requisites to making money in recruitment. A candidate with a great CV and top notch skills will not make you money if they are not motivated to move into the position that you are offering them. Similarly, the big salary might be because no-one else has been able to find a candidate either.

I’m going to tackle qualifying from three different angles:

• the candidate
• the role
• the client

Any one of which could cause the placement to fall through.

Candidates:

Spend 10 minutes in a conversation with them in order to qualify that they meet your standards. You are aiming to establish the following answers?

• What is their minimum bottom line salary? Push them down as far as possible. Psychologically, they’ll be thinking that’s what they are going to get offered and when you offer them more, they will take it more readily.
•  What are their motivations to make a move now? Ideally you would want 3 – 5 motivating factors, such as location closer to home, a company that values me, an opportunity to learn new skills, a new challenge in my current market etc. Money is one, but you need a lot more for this to be an ideal candidate otherwise they will take a counter offer.
• How motivated are they? Are they ‘tire-kickers’ just having a look around or are they really dedicated to the job of finding a new role?
• What have they done so far? If they are committed to this process, then they are likely to have updated their CV, looked for roles themselves, maybe applied to companies they wanted to work for, contacted other agencies etc. the exception to this is if they heard 30 minutes ago that they were being made redundant.
• What could possibly stop them from taking their ideal role? You need to know now before moving forward as to whether there is something that they are aware of that will mean they wouldn’t accept your role. This can be a spouse’s interference, a counter offer from another consultancy or their present company, a health condition, or even as I heard recently, the fact that the candidate’s dog would have to go into quarantine when they came back from their assignment abroad!
• Why would a company choose them over someone else looking for the same salary? They need to have marketable qualities to sell to your clients, preferably 5 outstanding points about their achievements and accomplishments to date. It is your job to establish what they are, but it’s helpful for the candidate to come up with them as they’ll then remember them when being interviewed.

Once you have your answers you can now decide whether or not to interview them.

Roles:

Whether you call it a vacancy, assignment, booking, job, placement or role, taking an effective one is the same for all. The more detail you have the better match you will be able to make with a suitable candidate. Understanding not only the day to day duties, but also the opportunities that will be available now and in the future and everything you can about the company, as well as what are the characteristics of the ideal person, and it will be so much easier to sell.

The key is to find out very early on – is the client committed to finding the right person for this position? If they are unwilling to give you 30 minutes to establish all of the information you require (this will get less the more you work with the company), then how much of a priority is filling this position to them?

Working on minimal briefs from the client means that you will make bad matches and the client will not value your service, which means you will struggle to earn your fee. Why should a client pay you for badly matched candidates that they could have found themselves?

Clients:

It’s easy to get distracted by a client giving you some business. It’s not easy to get new clients on board, so when they approach you, it’s likely you’ll jump at the opportunity. Stop. Is this business that you want associated with your own brand?

Whether it’s a new client you are trying to convert or one that approaches you, it’s important to establish some criteria of the business that you want to partner with. There are occasions when taking positions from a company with a reputation for treating their staff badly or having a high turnover, will actually damage your business and reputation in the long run. It might be a positive initially that they have a high turnover – lots of opportunity for us, right? Wrong. In the long term your own placements will also leave and are unlikely to thank you if it was a bad experience and therefore won’t return for you to place them again.

The aim would be to have the discussion with the client, be honest. I have been able to turn around the reputation of the company by working with them. It’s worth a conversation, but if not, then it’s time to walk away.

Determine your own criteria for the type of companies that you want to work with and then go after the ones that fit the criteria. Don’t waste time with companies that are going to ruin your reputation.

Next week we’ll look at key tips for interviewing candidates. 

Posted by Angela Cripps

Angela trains our popular recruitment induction course Recruitment 101 NEXT DATE: Weds 18th – Thurs 19th Jan 2012

Often, employers are unsure as to the specific development needs of their teams, which can cause them to adopt a “sheep dip” approach to training. Whilst this may undoubtedly be more beneficial than no training at all, the impact of the training can sometimes lose momentum after the event.

This may be for a number of reasons;

• Did that individual actually need that training?
• Was there a direct link between the subject material and their day job?
• Was it pitched at the right level for them?
• Did anyone talk to them before and after the training about how they were going to put their new skills into practice?

These are common pitfalls which can lead to difficulty in seeing the personal and financial benefit of the training to the individual and to the company.

When considering training, the key is to adopt a systematic approach. Firstly, focus on identifying individual needs by measuring an employee’s performance against the requirements of their current or future role. This analysis can also draw upon business competencies, reviews and achievements against objectives to identify a tangible gap. These criteria help the employer to narrow down the specific training needs which may vary greatly from one employee to the next!

Once the training need is established and a solution is selected, the importance of a pre course conversation cannot be underestimated. This is an opportunity to find out exactly what the employee wants to achieve from the session and how this will improve their future performance.

Following the training, the most important (and often missed!) step is to evaluate. We sometimes wonder why a person’s performance doesn’t automatically improve as an immediate result of the training and yet often a follow up conversation never takes place! There are several stages to evaluation; an initial catch up after the training means that a solid plan of how to implement any new skills can be put into place. The second stage is then a further review around a month later with this as an ongoing process that can clearly also link into company appraisals.

So at Lander Associates, our top tips for nurturing your talent are to identify the specific training needs of each individual, select the correct course and ensure that you discuss its application both before and several times after the event!

Posted by Rachel Partington 

New to Lander team Rachel Partington specialises in Building High Performing Teams, Nurturing Talent and Train the Trainer amongst others. She has been developing and delivering training for over 7 years. After working in Leisure and Retail Management, Rachel then moved into HR focusing on areas such as Recruitment, Training & Development and Coaching. She has also worked within a number of different industries such as Local Council, Retail, Engineering, Hospitality, Customer Service and Trading  so is able to flex her style to the needs of the group as well as bring some fresh experience to the training room.

To start off with I’m going to review the first 3 months in recruitment from my own experiences. My first memory when joining the recruitment industry was that of a headache for the whole of the first week! There was so much to remember and I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what all the acronyms and abbreviations stood for.

So my first tip when joining the recruitment industry is write everything down. This job isn’t like any others that I’ve come across when recruiting. I see it as 9 jobs in one. Let me explain.

In your first 3 months you are likely to be asked to be the following: -

a)    Telesales representative

b)    Field sales executive

c)    Customer service representative

d)    Administrator

e)    Advertising and marketing executive

f)     Public Relations representative

g)    Careers Officer

h)   Payroll administrator and Tax Advisor

i)     Counsellor!

This is why recruitment is such a challenge. If you like your working day to be full where you don’t have to clock watch every minute, but get to check the time every now and again and wonder “where did that last 2 hours go?!” then maybe the job of recruitment consultant could be for you.

I put the two sales elements at the top of the list, because it is in essence a sales role. Too many people join recruitment not realising this and then leave the industry in the first three months. Ultimately this means that there is a lot of rejection in recruitment, so if you are the type of person that takes rejection badly, then reconsider.

There are amazing highs – when you get someone a new career that will change their life or advise someone to speak to their own company first before looking elsewhere and they end up being really happy with the outcome. It’s a great feeling, but there are the lows too – trying to get business with a company that you know you can help, but being rejected at the first hurdle every time by the ‘gatekeeper’, because of your lack of experience as a recruiter. Even worse is placing someone with a client that you have finally got commitment from and then finding out that your candidate hasn’t turned up for the first day or the interview.

In my first 3 months I can remember two big mistakes that I made. They were my first job take and my first placement!

My first job was 3 times the average salary that my colleagues were working on – I thought I was the ‘bees knees’. It was for an AS400 RPG programmer. Now remember that this was the late 80s and our office had never dealt with IT positions before – we didn’t even have a fax machine yet… it was either telex or send the minibus driver round with the CVs! After 2.5 months I had to admit defeat. I didn’t know any AS400 RPG programmers and neither did any of my colleagues or contacts.

My first placement was an accounts administrator in a local company with a candidate called Alison C. It’s amazing how over 20 years later I still remember her name (I’ve not put her surname to protect her!). She didn’t turn up on her first day and when I finally got hold of her she said she was sick and couldn’t start. I apologised to the client and said I would update them tomorrow. Day 2 and I couldn’t get hold of her. Day 3 and she had disappeared off of the face of the earth. At this point I was still hoping everything was OK and tried to keep the client happy. By the Friday I had given up and was now apologising profusely. I found another candidate for them, but I’m sure my reputation had taken a big knock and I’d only just started in recruitment.

So where did I go wrong? The answer is Qualifying. I had taken on a job that wasn’t my core category and I knew nothing about the market. I didn’t question the client enough and was just blinded by the possible fee I would make. I hadn’t learned to say “No” yet. With the candidate I had given her a half an hour interview and hadn’t asked the key qualifying questions. She therefore had no commitment to me and certainly didn’t keep me informed.

I learnt many lessons during those first three months and realised it’s easy to get distracted and not follow the whole process. Whether it’s temp, perm or contract there are 26 steps in our A – Z of the Recruitment Process and I had failed at the first couple.

Next week I’ll go into the detail of how you qualify your clients, jobs and candidates.

Posted by Angela Cripps

In part 1 we looked at the key sessions within our recruitment induction courses and I gave you tips for each. These included key result areas, communication, sales, taking a vacancy and sourcing candidates. This week we will look at the remaining sessions.

Profile and Qualifying Candidates
Before you register a candidate, decide whether they will represent your company well and whether they will work with you and not against you! Just because they have a fabulous CV, doesn’t mean they are a great candidate. Tip 6 – Spend time profiling the candidate before you decide to register them. This will save you a lot of time later. You won’t clog up your database with people you can’t help.

Interviewing Skills
It’s important to remember that it’s all about them. Spending time gathering as much information as possible on what your candidate wants, will help you make the ideal match for them. Tip 7 – Plan your interview. Review the CV and construct relevant questions, but essentially find out their needs and wants for the future. It’s also a key time to sell relevant features of your company. Too many consultants forget that they need to sell to the candidate, as well as the clients.

Presenting Candidates
Too many consultants wait for vacancies to drop in their lap. Presenting your candidates to your clients is the quickest way of building your business. Tip 8 – Plan your presentation with what the benefits are for the client at the forefront. Focus on what your candidate could do for that client.

Controlling the process
There are many steps in the recruitment process (we cover 26). Keeping control of the process as well as the people involved is a skill in itself. Assertive communication is required to make sure things stay on track. Tip 9 – Set out a Recruitment Plan. When taking the vacancy and registering the candidate, set expectations as well as timelines for each stage of the process, this way you can refer your customers back and remind them of what was agreed initially.

So my final tip is simple – it relates to every single stage. In the tone of ‘The Spam Song’ … plan, plan, plan, plan.

Posted by Angela Cripps  (If you missed part 1 read it now)

Angela will be training our next Recruitment 101 course 9th – 10th November 2011 in London. Call 01582 791 838 to book your places or email julia@landerassociates.co.uk