Some interactions with candidates almost seem to be divinely inspired, while others feel like you’re trudging though mud and muck, getting nowhere fast. What’s the cause of these very different scenarios?

Inspired Recruiting, an almost effortless interaction with a candidate, always has two components: trust and compulsion. Without both of these, recruiting becomes a more difficult task.

Without trust and compulsion, you experience Shields Up, the recruiting equivalent of the shields in spaceships in science fiction. Candidates deploy a variety of shields to protect themselves from recruiters, especially when they feel mistrust or they lack a compelling need to speak with you. Trust must be built first before compulsion can move the conversation towards a mutually beneficial relationship where the needs of all parties are met.

If a candidate can benefit from what you do and trusts you, yet, doesn’t feel an irresistible urge to pursue your opportunity, you have someone who is just going through the motions. He feels good, you feel good, yet these good feelings are doing nothing to benefit either of you long term. In order for a trusting candidate to gain the compulsion to pursue what’s being offered, the recruiter must engage a collaborative dialogue where the candidate sells himself on buying into the job or assignments at hand.

You get a resistant candidate when she has a need to make a change but doesn’t fully trust you or your company. Time, energy, and effort to build trust are the next course of action.

Trust and healthy compulsions are each, in and of themselves, valuable commodities. In combination, they create an alchemy that produces golden results for everyone. The task of every recruiter who wants to make more lasting matches is to ensure that both elements are part of every relationship.