This article is not about starting your own recruitment agency or recruitment business. In fact, around eighty percent of new start-ups fail in the first couple of years, and I don’t think the recruitment industry bucks that trend very much if at all. How many of the 9,000 recruitment start-ups last year will be around this time next year I wonder?
Anyway, I’m off on a tangent before I even start this article if I’m not careful. I could give you a blatant plug about recruitment training options and kudos training in particular, but I will leave it there. This article is actually all about exclusivity and focussing on the need for exclusivity when working certain types of recruitment vacancies for your clients. The need for exclusivity and/or a retainer when working vacancies is obvious to most of us of course. Yet the ability for recruitment consultants to gain that arrangement with clients can’t be that prevalent or multi-agency roles wouldn’t make up the huge majority of recruiter-client deals out there.
Can I ask you a question? If you thought about winning an exclusive role, would you see that as a huge benefit to you, a huge benefit for your client or both of you? Be honest. Your first thought is for yourself, isn’t it? Ok now put your client’s shoes on. If you thought about offering a role exclusively to a recruitment consultant would that be to benefit you, to benefit the recruiter or both? Yep … same outcome. And most of the time that is why talks don’t end up with the right outcome – where both parties benefit. Unless you focus on them and them alone when pitching for that role it ain’t gonna happen. When you focus on them, and they know you are focussing on them, then you both win.
There’s a bit more to it of course…
Firstly people take action when they appreciate the benefit of taking that action or the consequences of not – FOR THEMSELVES. So when you focus on and explain the benefits of why the client should give it to one recruiter and one recruiter only (even if it’s not you – remember it’s not about you) or the consequences of not, then you have one leg over the hurdle.
Secondly, you need a certain type of vacancy for it to be beneficial to the client. Those vacancies fall into two camps. (1) When missing a deadline leaves them high and dry. e.g., If they don’t hire by a certain date then a project can’t start, and that costs them money or reputation. In the circumstances, whereby missing a deadline is a no-no then to have multiple agencies tickling it while one recruiter will give it welly becomes easy to understand (when you explain the benefits or consequences of missing the date).
(2) When they won’t hire unless the candidate is the exact fit. Exact fits are in short supply. The benefits of hiring one are huge. The consequences of not having one or missing out on one are even bigger. Bingo- Giving exclusivity to a recruiter ensures that (a) The same small pool doesn’t get over fished, whereby the candidates spit out or don’t even nibble on the same looking worms dangled on a number of hooks. In addition, (b) The candidate gets multiple approaches about the same job and starts to think they are better than they are and price themselves out of the market or cost the client too much. When that’s explained, you have one leg and your torso over that hurdle.
Thirdly, when the client appreciates the benefits you can bring to the party, and when engaging with you exclusively that gives them access to all those benefits, your final leg and the whole of your body just cleared that hurdle. The fact that you have been established ten years is just that, a fact. When you explain that your ten-year tenure means you have access to some of the very best active and passive candidates not just on but in the market, that helps them appreciate the benefit of working with you (and the consequences of working with agencies who don’t have that access). Explain the facts about you and your division/department and company by way of the benefits to the client and your on to something potentially huge.
Ok, that’s enough food for thought I hope. Heck if I give you much more you won’t need to tap into the twenty hours of online recruitment training videos available on kudos.training ! And by the way you can try out all our training videos today for just £1, you can’t even get a decent coffee for that, but you can take your recruitment skills to another level.