Every recruiter everywhere is doing everything they can to drum up new clients—and keep existing ones.

Should that include making client visits?  If so, how many client visits should recruiters make?

To be sure, there are many factors involved.  Below are a few:

1.The industry and niche in which the recruiter works

2.The business model of the recruiting firm

3. The proximity of the recruiter’s clients

This is a rather deep subject, but to gauge recruiters’ general practices regarding client visits, we conducted a poll.  (Of COURSE we conducted a poll . . . we love polls.)

We polled recruiters from all across the country by posing the question below:

How often do you go on client visits?

The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of recruiters who selected each one:

• One or two client visits per year—35.8%
• Three or four client visits per year—17.9%
• Five or six client visits per year—4.5%
• More than six client visits per year—14.9%
• I don't make client visits—26.9%

As you can see, nearly three-fourths of the recruiters who participated in the poll go on client visits.  Of that number, 35.8% go on one or two visits per year, the most popular frequency.  Nearly 18% go on three or four visits annually.

Here’s what’s interesting, though: while only 4.5% of recruiters go on five or six client visits, nearly 15% go on more than six visits per year.  It seems as though there’s a rather sizeable contingent of recruiters who have made client visits a regular part of their process.

That being said, 26.9% of recruiters indicated that they don’t make any client visits at all.  What about YOU?

Do you go on client visits?  If so, how often?  Why do you visit your clients?  Do you plan to go on more visits this year, fewer visits, or roughly the same number?  And if you don’t visit your clients, why not?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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(Matt Deutsch, the Communications Coordinator at Top Echelon, is a regular contributor to the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog.)

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