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Permalink Reply by Tina on June 3, 2008 at 9:02pm

What do you tell the client when he says I don't want to deal with recruiters..... How to break the ice?

Any ideas....

Most of the time the gatekeepers only pick up the phone and will not transfer saying manager will call you back and then no one calls...... How to deal with it ...any ideas

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Permalink Reply by Tina on June 3, 2008 at 10:02pm

Thanks for all the advise. What do you mean by walk in cold calls. Also you suggest that the best way for them to call us back is to send them Starbuck card.

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on June 4, 2008 at 9:53am

Tina,

I actually love this part of the job! What kind of recruiting do you do? Perm or Contract? At the large agency I used to work at, the temp/contract group would do some in-person cold calling, where they'd go to an office park or building and just go door to door and drop off brochures. We never did that on the perm side because it just wasn't an effective use of our time and the feedback we got was that it wasn't well received, hiring managers felt it was intrusive.

For perm cold calling, what has worked really well for me is to make less calls, but really well targeted ones. If you call a company and they tell you they have a policy of not using recruiters, don't try to overcome that, just move on. There are far too many companies that do use recruiters, so focus your efforts on that 'warm' market rather than trying to convert uninterested parties.

Do you have a particular niche that you focus on? One thing I've done that worked amazingly well was to send emails to people I thought might be hiring managers. I did a test run of 8 emails, where I just introduced myself as someone who focuses on senior level product management and marketing searches. It was very short and sweet, and from that initial 8 emails, I immediately got three new clients, a candidate and a month later, a $28,000 placement.

Another very effective way to get new clients is to use Indeed.com and search on local openings at companies you'd like to work with. Use linkedin and google to figure out hiring manager or recruiter contact names, then call and introduce yourself and a great candidate who matches the opening. This tends to give better results than a generic introductory call with no real 'call to action'. Having a hot candidate that fits an open need tends to create curiosity to at least learn more.

Another key way to get into new clients is to always be gathering applicant leads. Every time you talk to your candidates ask them where else they've been and if it was through a recruiter. General rule of thumb is if they are interested in and still pending for the job, you do not call and try to get it. Once they are out of the loop or not interested, then you call with a candidate who fits and as long as you are confident, you'll likely get a shot at the job. This is by far, the easiest way to get into a client that you know works with recruiters, has an active need and has potential to be a good client. This is how I initially got many of my first clients.

Timing. Timing is everything. One of the clients from my intial email blast got back to me to say he wanted to work with me, but I didn't actually get a job order until a few months later when he had an approved req. But, he had my information from the email.

Voicemails can be great too. One thing that has worked really well for me is to call very early in the morning, so you know they are not there, and leave a short sweet voicemail usually following up an email, "Hi this is Pam, just a quick message to followup the email I left yesterday about my Java software engineer. He lives in Burlington and is a star, I'd love to see if we can discuss his background." Or something like that....anything really. But, calling early in the morning means they get it when they come in, and will often respond at that time, before their day gets busy and you are an interruption...this way, its on their timetable. I'd leave a message like this once a month or an email once a month, mix it up, as long as you somehow 'touch' them once a month so you're top of mind. I recently sent an email to most of my contacts updating them on a change in my email address, and got an immediate job order from it..."Oh, your timing is perfect, we just had a new search open up, can you help us?"

Good luck!
Pam

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Permalink Reply by Tina on June 4, 2008 at 10:50am

Thank you Pam and Maren for you help

We do both permanent and contract.

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