Today’s tight employment market means that potential employees have a lot more power than many recruiters may be used to. Changes in work culture, expansion to remote work, and the need for increased flexibility have combined with a low labor force to make the job market an employee’s market. Employees have their pick of jobs.
Sales teams are adept at talking to prospects who have the upper hand and dealing with contacts who don’t immediately need the product. Here are 5 tactics that recruiters can learn from sales teams on how to attract and close the deal with new hires.
Understand and target candidates’ needs
So often when we think about getting the right candidates in the door, we forget that it starts with the basics. A good job description, clear expectations, and perks that speak to a diverse set of worker motivations can help you deepen your candidate pool.
Pinpoint candidates with your job description
Michael Knight, Co-founder and marketing head of Incorporation Insight says that hiring the right candidate begins with the job description. This is the first glimpse the candidate gets of you and the position, so it has to be right.
“One strategy we use is to write clear and specific job descriptions. Candidates are more likely to understand the job description if we specifically outline what the job entails and what we’re looking for in a candidate. This reduces the number of applicants who are unsuitable. Most of the time, candidates misinterpret job descriptions because of how broad they are written, causing them to apply for a position for which they are not a good fit for. We also avoid asking for too much or too little in our job descriptions by being reasonable in our expectations. To avoid turning away qualified candidates, we only list the items that are actually required for the job.”
Also read: Best Practices for Writing the Perfect Job Descriptions
Tap into candidate motivations
Julio Chavez of Sales Conquest suggests thinking of a potential candidate’s motivations throughout the recruitment process. “As a sales manager and trainer one of the best tips I can give to any recruiter would be to understand the motivation behind the individual’s wants when interviewing.
For example, Paul is motivated by money. When Paul hits certain sales goals, giving Paul a bonus will make him happy to continue to work hard for the company. Jeff, on the other hand, values his family time more than anything monetary. When Jeff hits certain sales goals he should be given extra time off as a way to continue his loyalty and motivation for the company.
This can also be done preemptively when constructing job listings. Doing it preemptively can allow a company to find people that have motivations that align with that particular company’s culture.”
Understand candidate expectations
Eropa Stein, founder of Hyre, a recruiting and HR platform for temporary staffing. Hyre coaches its corporate customers (employers) on how to identify and fulfill the needs of their candidates — in this case, the particular needs of temp staff.
“Our strategy for recruiting is sourcing regular shifts from employers. The more they post on Hyre, the more job seekers we attract. We constantly publish these opportunities on social media or job sites to let contractors know that these jobs exist. Recruit effectively by ensuring that your offer is appealing (compensation and job-wise), building trust, and responding quickly to inquiries. Respond to the challenges of COVID-19 with excellent customer service and communication.”
Soft skills make for good candidate experience
While tools and best practices can get you a long way with candidates, how the candidates feel when they speak to company representatives will dictate their experience. Consider scheduling an introduction meeting and working with recruiters on their tone of voice for calls.
Schedule some face time
Jon Bregman at AWS suggests that recruiters work with existing employees to facilitate an introduction.
“While most companies offer referral compensation, most employees don’t invest the time nor effort to actively reach out to their network due to different priorities or information overload.
A successful tactic we deploy is to block one hour in the calendar and invite both people from the domain of the background of the desired candidate and people from other domains. Pre-covid days we would conduct these sessions as happy hours with pizza to ensure that plenty of people attend and invest time and effort in the task. Today we offer different types of incentives to ensure that employees attend the session and share the Linkedin profiles of the candidates.”
In-person (or remote via video) introductions put all parties at ease, which can take some of the pressure off the initial outreach.
Consider your tone when speaking with candidates
Maya Rotenberg, marketing manager for Stoke Talent, suggests coaching your recruiters on how they sound to candidates on the phone. “I think that the biggest crossover between the needs of sales and recruiting is tone: you should never sound desperate to the people you’re trying to convince.
There are lots of practices that we teach our sales team when speaking to clients over the phone. For example, watch the pitch of your voice. If you fluctuate from low to high, it makes you sound panicked. No one wants to support a product if it sounds like the person advertising it to them sounds like they’re at the end of their tether.
The same is true for recruiting. Recruiters are often someone’s first point of contact with a company, so it’s important that they leave a good impression.”
Find the right candidates with the right tools
Once you find candidates, you’ve got to interview, hire, and onboard them — all of that’s easier with recruiting software. We can take the guesswork out of finding the right recruiting platform for your needs. Fill out our Recruiting Software Product Selection Tool, or give us a call at 877.702.2082. Our unbiased Technology Advisors are standing by to give you a short list of vendors who meet your requirements.