Are You Doing All You Can For Your Candidate?

A short conversation very early on in my first year of recruiting physicians with my manager:

“I have two interviews set up with my newest candidate.  This one feels good!”

“Excellent!  Let me ask you, have you done everything you can to help him find a job?”

“Yes, I have him interviewing with our 2 clients and both are in the area he wants to live in.  Both are great jobs for him.”

“I thought you said you did everything you can?”

I had a very experienced recruiter train me when I was brand new into the industry.  He would often throw out simple questions that I was sure I could answer easily.  But what came next was always a very valuable lesson, and one that made my placement ratio leap up…

“Tell me, did you call every possible job opportunity in that area and let them know you are working with an “A Plus” candidate with highly sought after experience as well as a top education and references?”

“Umm, no.”

“Back on the phones!”

An often overlooked process for recruiting is taking a great candidate and finding him a job beyond the jobs you already know about.  Of course you cover your open positions, but if you don’t take the candidate and make some calls on his behalf, you are sure to only be  involved in two of his job choices, instead of all of them.  You need to make certain of a couple of things first.   Tell your candidate what you are going to do for him to help him get a new position.  This will get him to see you as more than an order taker on the phone.  Next ask if he has other interviews lined up.  This will tell you how motivated he is, who the competing jobs are, and also if he tells you he has 8 other interviews already in the area, maybe you are too late.  But all of this knowledge is vital to your process.

This recruiting tip will increase the odds of placement, as well as increase the trust of the candidate in your skills.  More importantly you can increase your current open jobs with new ones, further your knowledge of the employers in the area and gain contacts, and brand yourself as a recruiter in the know.  This is real recruiting, and the simple secret to making more placements.  Now “back on the phones!”.

By Noel Cocca

CEO/Founder RecruitingDaily and avid skier, coach and avid father of two trying to keep up with my altruistic wife. Producing at the sweet spot talent acquisition to create great content for the living breathing human beings in recruiting and hiring. I try to ease the biggest to smallest problems from start-ups to enterprise. Founder of RecruitingDaily and our merry band of rabble-rousers.