And the Percentage of Recruiters Who Make Client Visits is . . .

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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Comment by Matt Lloyd on August 27, 2012 at 6:26pm: I honestly can't believe these numbers. Maybe I've misread the article but are those figures really based on a year. Those figures look right for us if it was based on a week, but a year? Assuming you work with 20 clients how can you possibily get an understanding of your clients business or build trust, meeting them face to face every few years. It may be different in Australia but we are required to do site inspections for contract workers and this means we have to go on a client visit on just about every contract placement.

Comment by Bill Schultz on August 27, 2012 at 6:34pm: It's the contract part that is different, Matt. When I did contract, we did about 5 visits a week. With Exec Search, I do about once a week. And I know that's high compared to most.

Comment by Matt Lloyd on August 27, 2012 at 6:38pm: But even one visit a week in exec still means you are doing roughly 50 visits a year, that's nearly 10 times the highest in this poll and only 14% of consultants are doing more than 6 a year. I don't know anyone in my team or my city for that matter that is doing less than 100 per year

Comment by Amber on August 27, 2012 at 6:42pm: Matt, I only have 1 client with a main office located near me. In general, we do not visit clients on person. Occasionally we have been able to meet with a few either during our vacation travels or if they are coming to this area. We do not do contract placements, but I don't think there are any requirements for site visits here in the U.S.

In your scenario the numbers would obviously be much different.

Comment by Bill Schultz on August 27, 2012 at 6:45pm: Yeah, Matt- it's pretty shocking.

Comment by Edward Goodeve-Docker on August 28, 2012 at 3:32am: I can't believe those figures... Every role I have had within recruitment you are looking at minimum targets of 2 per week, you have to get out there to meet your clients and the recruiting managers - Amber, even if you only have 1 client, have you met all the managers who are doing the hiring?

Comment by Ritu Chaudhari on August 28, 2012 at 3:50am: Matt, where are you based? I'm based in Singapore and I totally agree with you. We typically are doing 3-5 meetings a week.

Comment by Jerry Albright on August 28, 2012 at 8:39am: Asking for a quick visit is one of the first indicators as to whether you'll be working with a client who is interested in hiring from you. I would think anyone in our industry "asking" a company to pay them 10 or 20K should, at a MINIMUM, want to stop in to say hello.

I visit all clients if they'll let me.

Comment by Raphael Fang on August 28, 2012 at 3:27pm: I always make the time to meet with my clients because face to face meeting will bring working relationship to the next level.

Comment by Brandon Barber on August 28, 2012 at 6:39pm: Certainly depends if you are in sales vs account management vs full desk search.

Account managers should be getting out as much as possible. Lots of factors - multiple contractors on site? VMS account? Sometime I place 2-4 people per year for some clients and see them onsite 1-2 times per year, really depends.

Typically you will find out a lot more on client visits of course.