Staffing Solutions: How to Prove Yourself to Hiring Managers
Connecting with hiring managers isn’t an exact science, but there are steps you can take to improve your odds of developing long-lasting and lucrative relationships. Proving yourself often begins with proving the utility of your service. Some organizations may not see the value of hiring professional search agents to provide staffing solutions. Your initial client interaction should demonstrate why your assistance is useful and what you can offer that improves a company’s business processes.
Be Aware of Corporate Need
Sometimes employers will contact you directly for assistance. However, a successful enterprise grows by being proactive about business prospects. Being proactive can be like walking a tightrope. You don’t want to harass employers, but you do want to be sure that companies that may need your services are able to promptly access you.
One way to pinpoint organizations in need is to vigilantly watch employer job postings. Solicitations that have been outstanding for a month or two might indicate that the company is having difficulty connecting with the right candidate. These organizations represent prime opportunities for pitching your services. One selling point to present to these companies is the fact that you can reach candidates who may not actively be investigating job solicitations due to current employment.
A company’s ideal candidates may not even be aware of the opportunities for which they are eligible. Once you enter and save the day with your presentation, these new candidates may just need the proper encouragement to make the switch. Even if hiring managers don’t elect to interview any of your suggested applicants, the act of providing companies with strong staffing solutions will help keep you relevant. When they are ready to officially employ the use of an outside recruiter, you want to be the first name they reference to fill the job.
Be a Problem Solver
As a problem solver, it’s important to make sure that you ask the right questions. Talk to hiring managers about the characteristics of their ideal employee. Inquire as to whether or not the client has had previous discussions with desirable candidates and where previous negotiations may have fallen apart. Sometimes the client may ask for a solution that may address their issues on a temporary basis but does not solve their problem in the long term.
For example, a client that consistently has trouble retaining staff could be hiring at the wrong level. Perhaps instead of continually hiring entry-level staff members who are continually tasked with performing functions that overwhelm them, managers should be looking for candidates with more industry experience.
You should familiarize yourself with an organization’s hiring practices and culture. This will help you more clearly identify the role that they should be hiring for, and you can make subsequent recommendations accordingly. It can also assist you in determining whether or not a candidate you come across will be a good fit.
Naturally, retention issues can extend beyond not hiring at the correct level. Clients may not be doing appropriate market research to know the going salary rate, and their budget may be inhibiting them from attracting desired talent. There may be other things missing from their benefits package that keep them from being competitive.
Your industry experience and first-hand knowledge of relevant business practices can assist your hiring managers with not only attracting but retaining top talent. When your staffing solutions have historically been long-term, your track record of success is an excellent promotion tool for you to use in your solicitation of new companies.
Donït Set It and Forget It
Finding the candidate of your company’s dreams can feel like hitting the lottery, but if you don’t carefully review the information, a premature celebration can quickly turn into a crushing disappointment. A wrong date or transposed number could completely transform a winning situation. For recruiters, this admonishment goes beyond making sure paperwork is in order. Consistent monitoring of the progress of the relationship between a candidate and employer is key.
With constant inquiries into the chemistry and relationship status of your company and new hire, you may start to feel like a pesky parent obsessing over the marital status of an adult child. While inquiries should be timed appropriately, remember that you are a business matchmaker, and follow-up is necessary to determine customer satisfaction and the viability of your methods for staffing solutions.
Finding good hires is a fulfilling way to simultaneously satisfy the needs of multiple parties. In your search for qualified candidates to fulfill employer needs, browse the resources at Mighty Recruiter for additional tips on successful staffing solutions.