Read and practice what is written below and you will likely make more placements

Over the years we have stressed that branding creates an impression of how you are perceived by your candidates and clients. Never-the-less, most recruiters do little or nothing to enhance on how they are perceived by their candidates and spend most of their time romancing clients and chasing "me too job orders."

Recruiting Members of USRN suggests that because of that change in attitude, candidates are passive candidates and are cool to our initial recruiting calls!

Just for the record, if you type in the adjective "passive" and then click on your thesaurus, the following words come up: inert, inactive, unreceptive, submissive, reflexive and flaccid.

Interestingly enough, the antonym of passive is pro-active.

• Could it be that since candidates are at least 50% of the placement process we should spend more time with them?
• Could it be if we allotted more time coaching and guiding the candidate through the interviewing process we would make more placements?

I can just about hear most of you, at least the ones who are still reading this "EXTRA" saying "Wait a minute big guy, I don't have the time to do extensive coaching of my candidates."

 Well How's that working out for you?  

I am just curious, when you make your initial call to your MPC, (Most Placeable Candidate), what kind of reception do you generally get - When you announce who you are, does your MPC say "Hi Tom, it's good to hear from you" or does your MPC respond by saying, "Who did you say you were and why are you calling me?"

I think it would be save to say that most recruiters have more candidates in their database than they possibly can every place.

Fact is, most of the candidates in most recruiter's databases are there for name gathering purposes only. No, I really don't believe that, most candidates in your database likely have little to no value at all.

Having said that, hopefully you have 100-500 candidates that you know who are uniquely qualified and have features that your clients would view as assets - by the way, I would label those candidates as MPC's.

Assuming you have a stash of MPC's tucked away in your database, I am curious, what have you done to develop a relationship with your MPC's? Well, here is one of my suggestions on how you can make more placements.

We all know that this business is about building relationships, so, with that thought in mind, I encourage you to call one to two of your MPC's every day with the goal of launching and building ab on-going relationship with them.

If you agree, the purpose of your that initial call to your MPC is to let your MPC know that their name was given to you by a mutual friend within the industry who said that you are one of the best sales reps or (whatever) in the medical field.

Then tell your MPC that as an industry consultant you have nothing specific to talk about today but you would appreciate knowing if the MPC every wished to change jobs, what he/she would consider the most important aspect of that new job?

If the MPC seems interested in developing a relationship, stress the fact that you respect his/her privacy and suggest that in the future you communicate via the MPC's cell phone.

FYI - here is an interesting fact about texting to a cell phone - unsolicted email is rarely opened whereas nearly 100% of all text messages are read!

If the MPC provides you their cell number then strive to also get their email address, preferably the MPC's home email address.

That email address can be a useful tool in developing a long term relationship as well.

Once you make the initial call to your MPC you need to rekindle that relationship on a regular basis; once a quarter will generally suffice until you surface an opportunity for your MPC.

You might start with another call some time during the next quarter followed the next quarter with some promotional material, etc.

Once again, I can hear voices grumbling again! "You'd got to be kidding, I don't have time to do that, it sounds like a complete waste of time - whoops, I got to go know, I just received a LinkedIn update telling me who is now linked to whom."

To each his own, but I would bet if you don't at least try the above, the next time you call one of your MPC's, your MPC will not be a pro-active candidate but a passive, inert, inactive, unreceptive, submissive, reflexive and flaccid candidate.

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Biography

Bob Rystrom, CRPC became part of the employment industry in 1976 when he joined a Twin Cities based  temp-to hire agency  as their sales manager. In the spring of 1979 he accepted an offer with Sales  Consultants (MRI) of Minneapolis as the assistant manager and recruiter. 

At the 1980 MRI National Conference Rystrom was named as  MRI National Rookie of the Year and the following he was recognized as the MRI Account Executive of the Year. 

In the years that followed Rystrom won every award offered  by MRI and was honored by being named to the MRI Hall of Fame. 

• Rystrom was presented a “Life-Time Achievement Award for his contribution he made while he was a member of the Minnesota Association of Professional Services (MAPS). The award was particularly significant in as much it was the first "Life Time Achievement Award" ever presented by the organization.
• Rystrom took early retirement as a recruiter but he remains active within the employment services industry via his association as Managing Director of The US- Recruiters Network.

Robert L. "Bob" Rystrom
Managing Director
The US Recruiting Network
Primary Phone: 715.263.3233
Cell: 612.414.6072
mailto:smtp@us-recruiters.com
http://www.theusrecruitingnetwork.com

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