What is your first response when a
prospective candidate tells you “no”? Remember in the movie, The
Terminator, when Arnold said his famous line, “I’ll be back”? All recruiters should take this to heart… it
should be our mantra, especially in this market. How many times have you had candidates tell
you that they were not interested in your job?
Maybe they were happy with their current role, not the right time to make
a move, looking for a different type role, couldn’t relocate, looking for a
higher level role to make a move… we have heard them all. If you haven’t then you aren’t doing your job
properly. And by your job, I mean
building relationships with your prospective candidates.
Being trained as an agency recruiter
has many advantages. We are taught never
to take “no” for an answer. In fact, on my
first recruiting job they told me that I would hear “no” at least 5 times
before getting to a “yes” and they gave me a long list of how to overcome
typical objections. The key learning
here was that if someone said no, they were engaged in the conversation and
giving me the opportunity to turn that no into a yes. The rule of thumb was that you make your
pitch and then shut up… the next person to speak loses. This brings back memories of very, very long
silences over my desk telephone while I was waiting for the person I was
speaking with to say “no” or “not yet” or “not now”. (Yes, I said telephone… we used to actually cold
call prospective candidates to recruit them.
Does anyone else remember dialing for dollars???)
Fast forward many, many years to
today and these principles still hold true as a corporate recruiter and perhaps
even more so in the executive search world.
My world now is all about building relationships with the people I talk
to, promoting my company, creating awareness, being a brand ambassador and
helping them find the right opportunity here.
Just having conversations about our company values, new products and
technologies, global expansion, company culture and personal growth and
development can keep me talking to people for 10 – 15 minutes. And they really get excited when they hear these
things! (Of course it doesn't hurt to
work for one of the best companies in the world.)
Many times just having that initial
conversation with a candidate will get them thinking about outside
opportunities and before you know it, they are looking at what else is out
there. Especially when they had a bad
day, a change in work or family situation, were passed up for promotion… you
get the idea. It all goes back to
building that relationship with the prospective candidate. Really listen to them and figure out what
they want and the best path to get them there.
These days I’m finding that more and
more of the candidates that told me “no” the first time are now actively seeking
me out and asking for my help, even people I haven’t’ spoken with in
years. This is a win/win because it
saves me time when they come to me with resumes in hand (most times they have
seen a job posting that they are interested in and are asking for my help
getting them to the hiring team) and I’m better able to help navigate them to
the right group or business leader.
Bottom line… the next time you hear “no”
your response should be “I’ll be back”!
