This is a great article, with some top tips from Erika Clifford, Managing Director of Just Recruit.
It can be easy to overcomplicate things. Your website. Your CRM. Your business development plan. And, well, pretty much anything and everything when you’re starting a recruitment agency. While I of course encourage you to work smart, also try to be aware of where you may be over-engineering things in your process and make sure you don’t lose sight of the basics.
Plan… but not too much
Striking a balance here is key. If you don’t strategise enough, you run the risk of becoming a busy fool but too much leaves you with little time to actually execute your plan.
Plans can be scribbled in a book or fleshed out in a whizzy powerpoint presentation and everything in between – the most important thing is that you know where you want to get to and plot some sort of path to getting there. There’s tons of tools and well-known acronyms you can use here – operate at a level that’s right for you and is sustainable as the planning never stops.
Planning isn’t just restricted to macro strategy – don’t forget to plan what you want to achieve in a week or even as short-term as a day.
Get on the phone!
Don’t do on email what can be done on the phone. Speaking to somebody helps you to skip to the end far sooner than you would over email, you’re building more rapport and a deeper understanding of the person you’re speaking with (handy for both clients and candidates) and you can clear up everything you need rapidly.
It can be easy to put phone calls off, instead busying yourself with other tasks. Ultimately, the quickest way to clients and candidates, is by picking up the phone and dialling. And if you don’t love talking to people, you should probably reconsider your career!
Go above and beyond for your customers
One of the many great things about having your own business is that you are likely to care about doing a good job far more than a competitor that works for somebody else. Channel this. Remember your brand and livelihood is at stake and use this to your advantage.
Offering to do things outside of usual hours (earlier in the morning or in the evenings / weekends) often goes a long way and even if people don’t take you up on it, they’ll appreciate the fact it’s something you were willing to do for them.
Little things can go a long way, a few examples of many include:
Celebrate / toast a candidate’s success – congratulations card, drinks, dinner…
Create a candidate information pack for hard-to-fill roles – clients love this (contact me directly for more information on this)
As well as the usual sell, share with clients where you think candidates might fall slightly short of the brief and perhaps topics they should focus their questions on – be an ally, not a sales person
Spend time getting to know your customers and their journey
In the early days more than any other time, you just want to make fees. It can be all too easy to charge head first towards that first placement without paying attention to all the important elements of the journey for both your candidate and client.
With clients – use the funnel and before diving into the details of the role and what they’re looking for, understand where things stand today and where they want to get to. Understand the journey the company is on and where their team fits in to that. Where are their pain-points now and what challenges do they see ahead?
With candidates – really seek to understand their motivations instead of just what their experience is. Not taking the time to do this may land you in a situation of lots of offers but no placements. Take time to understand a person’s drivers – from assessing historic decision-making and future aspirations – SPOILER , the drivers and aspirations somebody thinks they have may not be accurate so don’t be afraid to challenge on this. Making your candidates aware that you’ve understood their motivations will not only make them feel listened to and valued but will also put you in a stronger position to get them into the right role and company that will be a successful long-term partnership. Even if you don’t place them, they’ll be impressed with how you dealt with them as a candidate and will be more likely to use you as a client in the future.
Work your ass off
This doesn’t mean putting in 60 hour weeks but it does mean maximising the hours you dedicate to working. Stay completely focused on the job in hand during work hours. Don’t get side-tracked or distracted. Don’t try to multi-task your home-reno project with your new venture but instead ringfence your working hours sacredly. Work smart, work intensely and focus on a delivering a high amount of quality output every single week, day, hour and minute you’re in the office.
It can be easy to make your focus finding the money but if you do the basics well and work hard while recruiting in an ethical way, the money and success will come as a beautiful bi-product of that.
Written by Erika Clifford, Managing Director of Just Recruit.
Just Recruit provides CRM/ATS functionality on a slick, modern system, with the option of a fully integrated website – an affordable package perfect for start-ups. Baffled by extortionate fees for clunky, over-priced systems, Just Recruit was created with the belief that the best things don’t need to be the most expensive.
Chat to our team today on 0203 475 1789 or email us on hello@justrecruit.co – we can’t wait to help you on your journey. www.justrecruit.co
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