Slow Moving Clients

Nothing is more frustrating in this industry than a client that is slow to act. If you are anything like me the first person you want to blame for the lack of action is the client. However if you take a step back and really look at the situation ask yourself did I do any of the following?

Did I find out if the person I am working with is truly the decision maker?

Are you going through HR instead of dealing directly with the manager?

Did you educate the client on the current market conditions?

Did you get any commitment from the client to interview in a timely manner?

Do you know if the position is a priority?

If you are not getting this questions answered up front or if you have to deal with HR first on an open position you are going to be in for a frustrating time. So remember take the time to get early commitments and you will reduce the amount of no commitments from your clients.

Good sources for who is hiring

Some of my favorite sources for finding out who is hiring are:

The Boston Globe
Boston Works
Monster
Careerbuilder
Boston Business Journal
Mass High Tech
Crunchboard
Techgigger

Please feel free to add your own favorites to this post.

Slow Moving Clients

In todays job market Clients that take to long to make a hiring decision are going to lose out on candidates. This of course directly effects the recruiter for obvious reasons. That is why you need to educate your clients about the current job market, because believe it or not they dont always know how tight things are. You also need to get interview commitements ahead of time from your client. If you cant get them to commit to interviewing in a timely manner you have to ask them how important filling this job really is. If this job you are trying to fill is not a priority for them you will have a hard time keeping the interview process moving.

The days of having four interview are over. If a client wants to entice a candidate to their company they need to keep in mind that the candidate is interviewing at other places. They need to keep the interview process as short as possible. Again it all comes down to education. Recruiters need to think of themselves as consultants that are providing their client not only with potential employees but advice on the hiring process. When you are looked at as a consultant they will value your opinion that much more.

Power Of Linkedin

If you are a sales professional you need to be using Linkedin. It is a great way of generating sales leads and approached properly it can be a source of warm calls as opposed to Cold Call. To sign up for Linkedin go to www.Linkedin.com In case you dont know, Linkedin is a social networking site geared towards professionals. By making connections with other professional within and outside of your industry you can gain access to more and more names. As your network grows you can find out valuable information about who is working at what companies. You also can find out the title and other valuable information about people that work with an organization.

What Is A Strong Contract Candidate?

The fact of the matter is some candidates are better than others. Skill set aside some candidates you can work with and others you can't. The question is how do you tell. I try to get seven committeemen’s out of each candidate I work with. If I can't get at least five from them I begin to question whether or not they are worth working with.

1. Commit to a start date. - If the candidate can't commit to a start date how can you market them for a contract position that may need them to start right away?

2. Reasonable expectations regarding rate.

3. Take and Return calls. - If they don’t return your calls don’t work them. Their is nothing worse then having a candidate up for an interview that disappears during the final hour

4. Interview in a timely manner. - Things move quickly in contract staffing and if they need a week notice for an interview they are not going to be a good candidate

5. They need to call you after an interview ends. - Right after an interview is the most dangerous time as a recruiter because at this point everybody knows more than you. Your candidate must commit to calling you right after the interview so you are back in the know.

6. Willing to complete a contract and take themselves out of consideration with other positions.

7. Give names of manager of previous positions. - If they can’t give you one manager reference then they probably have performance issues

Those are the seven commitments that strive to get from all of my candidates.