The first call to a new candidate
So, you are making a call to a person you haven’t spoken to before. How do you do this in a way that maximises your chance of a successful engagement and acts as a first step towards building a trusted relationship for the future? Before discussing, it’s important to take time to mention candidate experience as making the first call is where the candidate experience begins.
Candidate Experience
Candidate experience can be defined as : “the perception of a job seeker about an employer, based on the interaction during the complete recruitment process. This includes all points of contact during recruitment — job search, the application process, interview process and onboarding”
Candidate experience is a huge topic and one that needs to be understood — it’s complex and made up of many components. Broadly speaking, a good or a bad candidate experience is measured by the sum of all of the interactions that you have with a candidate throughout a recruitment process. To build a successful and long-term career in recruitment, you must strive to work in a way that makes your job easier to do over time and working in a way that delivers an exceptional candidate and client experience is key. If you excel in the quality of the service you deliver to everyone you engage with, a candidate or indeed a client will recognise this and always find the time to reply or respond to your call as they know that there is value to be had. Consider how much more pleasant and effective your day job will be for working in this type of environment compared to the situation you will face if you fail to deliver when it comes to customer service. Treat people badly and they won’t forget next time around and so you can say goodbye when it comes to call backs, asking for assistance or market advice. The attrition rate of staff in recruitment is high and in my view one of the major reasons is that young people are sometimes thrown straight in at the deep end and encouraged to sell from day one rather then time being taken to teach the skills required to consult and the long term benefits of delivering a great customer service and an exceptional candidate/ client experience. Candidates don’t want to be sold to when it comes to their careers, they want to be consulted .
The first call — the approach
Approaching a candidate for the first time, especially a passive one, is a little like a courtship and you need to have patience. If you look to jump in too quickly and only focus on what you want out out of the call before first finding out all about the candidate and what they want out of their career then you will run the risk of being seen as a salesperson which is not a good place to be. Building a long term relationship with someone you don’t know takes time and involves a number of stages so be patient and engage in a way that allows you to listen rather than speak. If you have contacted the person via email and the introductory call is scheduled then you can assume that the person can speak freely and without compromising themselves or their job. If you are approaching someone cold and its the first time you have spoken then a different approach needs to be taken. Put yourself into the shoes of the person that you are approaching. The likelihood is that at the time you call they are extremely busy and highly engaged doing their day job and therefore not in a position to speak because they are with a customer, a colleague, or a boss. They also get multiple calls a day from recruiters, all offering them a “great job” with a “big salary” and so they are primed to shut you down quickly if you don’t make a positive impression quickly.
When you make the call, you should assume that the person you are calling is not able to speak freely and so you must control the call in a way that means that they only need to listen rather than speak. Asking questions of someone, especially ones to do with potentially moving job when it is awkward for them to speak will not go down well and most likely end the call quickly. When you get through, the approach could be along the lines of :
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“Hello, please excuse the unsolicited call as we haven’t personally spoken before, my name is **** and I’m a head-hunter. I was prompted to call you as I am working with ( a generic and seductive description of the client without divulging their name) who are looking to make a critical hire. I don’t know if now is the right time , but I was hoping for us to get into a situation where we can have a two-way chat.
I am assuming that you are happy right now but, like most people, always open-minded , especially when it comes to your future? ”
This approach, finishing with a closed question should hopefully get you a YES as not too many people want to admit to being closed-minded. You have dangled the carrot and created curiosity by mentioning that you have a key role to speak to them about with an important client. By saying that you haven’t spoken before and assume they are happy, you also provide them with protection — just imagine they are in the car using Bluetooth and sat with a manager, customer, or colleague when you call.
It’s important that you then listen very carefully to what the person says and how they say it, as this will help you build a picture of who you are speaking to and how best to pitch the call moving forward. One thing you shouldn’t do at this point is let the candidate drive the call by asking you to tell them more. Before you know it, you have shared the company and the job and received a polite no without you getting anything back in return. Remember you are building a community and as a bare minimum you want to understand the experience and career next steps of everyone you speak to so a two way call is essential.
As soon as you get a YES to your introductory statement, the next step is maintain control of the call and so follow up immediately:
“When would be a convenient time for us to schedule a time for the two-way chat? I’m very interested to understand more about you and your plans for the future and to check if there is any common ground with the opportunity I am recruiting .
Of course, the call can go in many directions, and you need to be ready to be flexible and change your approach depending upon the response. If the person says now is a good time to chat then start the interview otherwise they may prefer to schedule a time to call. If the person says they are not looking , then agree with them and explain how you work specifically in their space and ask if they would be prepared to put time aside to get to know each other more for the future. Circumstances can change quickly and there may be mutual value in them knowing you and you them. It can also be the case that once you get into a conversation, both you and the candidate may decide that you can in fact offer something that would tempt them. Again, it’s all about building trust and being consultative.
The next step in the process is the Candidate interview which I will look at in more detail next week and I’ll focus not just on how to interview someone who turns out to be right and interested in your job but also how to handle and close off with people who don’t make the shortlist.
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