Amitai Givertz’s Recruitomatic Blog

Here is this week’s guest post by fellow Blog Swap swapper Beth N. Carvin who is the CEO of the Nobscot Corporation. Beth’s company provides a valuable resource for employers who realize they need help with retention and metrics - that’s many of us I guess! Enjoy:

Top Five Things Recruiters Did Pre-Internet

Do you ever find yourself exclaiming, “How did we ever live without email and the Internet?”

I know I do.  And yet thinking back, not only did we live and work without today’s technology, we prospered. Which got me thinking -  Is there anything innovative that we can learn in recruiting today from how we recruited back before we had today’s tools of the trade?

Here’s my list of the Top 5 things that successful recruiters did pre-Internet. Maybe you can find some pearls of wisdom from the past that will help you with your recruiting today.

1. Disciplined System

When you had to recruit without the luxury of the Internet, there were never enough hours in the day to get everything done. If you wanted to reach your billing goals, you absolutely had to stick to a strict work schedule.

The one that I was trained on looked something like this:

8:30a - 9:30a         Morning Meeting

9:30a - 11:00a       Company Calling and Company Visits

11:00a - 12:00p     Interviewing, Matching, Presenting, Prepping

12:00p - 1:00p       Lunch

1:00p - 2:00p         Sourcing

2:00p - 4:00p         Recruiting Calls

4:00p - 5:00p         Interviewing, Matching, Presenting, Prepping

5:00p - 5:30p         Daily Planner for Tomorrow

5:30p - 6:30p        (optional) Interviewing, Matching, Prepping

Sticking to this schedule was in many ways the key to our success. You couldn’t help but getting job orders and sendouts and placements when you worked the system every day without fail.

2. Meeting Companies

Before technology, the business world was smaller and more localized. Recruiters worked in territories by industry or discipline and location. After receiving a job order, we always set up company visits. This was critical for improving your chance of filling the position. Why? Three reasons:

a. You got a feel for which applicants would fit in best with the company.

b. You had a chance to build rapport with the hiring authority.

c. You had an opportunity to let the company know exactly how you worked. This might include a lesson on why it is important to make offers quickly so as not to lose the best applicants.

3. Meeting Applicants

I’m still horrified at the thought of recruiters sending out applicants that they have never met.  This was drilled into my head very strongly in my early days of recruiting in the mid-1980s. The story was told by the President of my firm about the one and only time he sent an applicant out without meeting him first. The applicant showed up to the interview in cut-off jean shorts and generally made a bad first impression on the company. The President was mortified in front of his client.

Meeting an applicant in person allows you to judge whether or not the applicant will fit in as an employee in your client’s company. How someone acts in email is often very different from how he or she may act in person. It also gives you a great gauge for how much you will need to prep your applicant prior to his or her interview.

4. Prepping the Applicant

Because communication is so quick with technology today, there are fewer and fewer recruiters who prep their applicants before an interview. This was (and still should be) a critical step toward making a placement. There are many applicants who are great employees but lousy interviewees. You owe it to your client companies to make sure they don’t turn down a great employee because of poor interviewing skills.

My favorite prep story is with applicant Wendy the Accountant. Wendy came into my office and slumped down into the chair with about as much energy as a slug on a hot day. But her skills were great, her work history was stable and she had terrific work references. I can remember that my Manager saw me sit Wendy down in the lobby while I set her up for an interview. My manager said, “Beth, where are you sending that applicant?”  I replied, “Company X” My manager looked at me with horror on her face, “Not Company X. That’s our best client!” I said, “Trust me. She is going to do great. I am going to prep her before she goes.”

I set up the interview and spent the next 1/2 hour prepping Wendy for her interview. I let her know how great she was for the job and that she should walk in their with energy and confidence. By the time she left my building, the whole office watched her out the window walking to her car with great speed and enthusiasm. About an hour and 1/2 later I received a call from Company X. Wendy was still there and they were calling to ask my permission to make her a job offer on the spot. True story. The power of the prep.

5. Sales and Psychology Skills

It’s difficult to be a good salesperson over email. Sales is very much about listening and that is difficult to do with technology. One of the things that makes recruiting so challenging (and interesting!) is that you are not selling widgets. Widets would be easy to sell. Widgets don’t have fears of making changes, widgets don’t have husbands, wives and mothers telling them what to do and widgets don’t have to give two weeks notice to a company that doesn’t want to lose them.

It’s the job of the recruiter to be able to help their applicants get the good things that they want. There’s a lot of hand holding that needs to take place in Recruiting. It’s difficult to hold hands through a keyboard.

© Copyright 2006 Beth N. Carvin.