Self-Assessment – Candidates

What have you been up to during 2020? If you’ve been furloughed and not able to maintain communication with your talent pool then it’s totally understandable. There is a definite need to get your housekeeping in order and get on top of your talent pool. Set aside time in blocks to get your database up to date and create hotlists of your best candidates. A minimum of two hours per day talking to candidates to get a full up date on:

• Where are they working
• What are they involved in (think projects and work flow)
• What is happening where they work right now? (think leads)
• What is their appetite to change jobs? What will it take to tempt them?
• What else are they doing about finding it?

In some markets there will be people begin made redundant. We want to ensure we are adding value and providing good advice to all candidates. In 2020 some consultants made the mistake of not giving candidates enough attention, overly fixated on trying to find jobs. Candidates are the gateway to discovering where there is business. Build hotlists and maintain communication with your candidate pool. They will remember it and it will pay itself back.

Recommendations

Complete the remainder of My Action Coach

Discuss with colleagues as to what is going to be in demand over the next three months. Start with that part of your talent pool to build your hotlists

Make sure you attribute your candidates properly so you can find them quickly when jobs come in – from the Back From Furlough, Fit in Five Days Challenge look at the content from Day 2 – Candidate Pools and the associated downloads

Create a timetable to invest two hours every day calling and updating with your candidate pool – Day 1 of Fit in Five Days has a list of great Cardio sessions to get you recruitment fit

Set goals for each week as to how many conversations you are going to have and what you want to achieve from those calls

Send out an email to your talent pool to request an update from them. Responses rates will be high so create lists of 100 candidate to mail per day. Target geographical hotspots and key skills

Watch the Pillars covering Resilience, Planning and Cardio

Although mid range, this isn’t a great score. It suggests that perhaps you’ve not been using your time effectively to build your talent pool and engage with your database fully to prepare for 2021. There is work to be done to get this up to date and to position you as a trusted adviser to your candidate pool. Candidates are required to fill jobs and clients are required to give us jobs! A 360 consultant cannot live with one and not the other. Balance is required in every market place.
It is likely that candidates will behave with one of two behaviour types – ultra keen and hungry or uber passive and worried about change. Both will be more predictable and easier to manage with good quality, empathy driven relationships in place. If you’ve held back from talking to more candidates as you’ve not had the work for them then you may have missed out on some golden opportunities to develop relationships with PTRs (candidates who have the Potential To Recruit), engage with candidates who could provide you with reference details of managers with mobile numbers or simply talk to people who have more time to talk to you as they work from home. Of course, this may not be the case and you were mad busy filling lots of jobs from a small corner of your database and didn’t have time to talk to any other candidates…

Recommendations

Complete the rest of My Action Coach

Review your activity for the last three months. What has been the driver for you not fully engaging with your talent pool as much as you could/should have? Watch the live session The Candidate Experience

Based upon your client knowledge decide what you think will be the most in demand or the quickest skill set to recover from lockdown. Search the database to find all of the candidates who match the description and get hold of them with some urgency.

If you were a candidate looking for work, what would be most valuable a recruiter could share with you to keep you up to date and informed on the market? Create this as a cornerstone for your comms strategy. Create a mailing list for candidates to sign up to. As your job flow increases (due to knowing more about the market through the eyes and ears of your candidates) you will have a group of candidates who know you and trust you. Check out the short video Building a Lighthouse Brand

Who are your HVCs (High Value Candidates)? What are you doing for them proactively to help them achieve their goals? How likely are they to be willing to recommend you to others? Complete the Mission How to Spec Like the Dalai Lama

Watch the Pillars on Urgency, Resilience and Planning

Great stuff. The foundation of a high performing recruitment desk is often the speed at which talent can be found and presented to clients. With an engaged audience you’re in a strong position to make money. Your hard work will pay off. You have an opportunity to capitalise on your hard work by refining your client sales pitch to communicate the value you provide with an engaged audience of potential candidates. If you have worked throughout 2020 and the variety of lockdowns, whilst your competitors have either been on furlough or focused on other activities then you have a distinct competitive advantage. How you take this message to the client landscape will help separate you from your competitors and help you win committed business. It is important that you maintain this level of engagement and don’t lose it as your job flow increases. Seek opportunities to automate some of your communication to keep people engaged and receiving regular, relevant communication.

Recommendations

Complete the My Action Coach

Capitalise on your candidate talent pool and knowledge by developing insights to share with clients around availability, rates, skills, experiences and candidates’ motives for looking. Putting together an infographic and whitepapers will help you develop personal brand – Look at the two sessions on Using Prezi Design to create infographics and Running a Sales Meeting With Zoom

Segment your candidate pool so you can find your PTRs (candidates with the potential to recruit), HVCs (High Value Candidates) and active candidates so you can find them quickly (hotlists)

Create networking opportunities for your candidate pool – host online sessions/webinars to do one-to-many updates where candidates can then Q&A with you. This keeps engagement without needing to speak to everyone on a one to one basis. Check out the short video Becoming a Lighthouse Brand

Create video eshots of your best candidates to promote them to your prospects and existing clients. Get the most out of the buy in that exists between you and your candidates – From the Digital Sales Month, check out Covert Video and Video Sales Messages

Spec out your immediately available, next week’s finishers and next month’s available workers to those who hire temps or contractors. Make it a weekly update on the market and a menu that clients can hire from. The mission How to Spec Like the Dalai Lama will give you a fresh perspective on speccing