Being honest builds trust with your clients and candidates and enables you to become a true partner to them. They will trust you with more responsibility, more opportunities and proactively come to you for advice. The unfortunate reality is that as a salesperson, many clients will expect you to say whatever you need to say to make a buck. Surprise them and try to do what’s best for them, not you.

Clients want to work with a Recruiter that knows their industry in and out and the best way to build success is to specialise in a specific, niche area. Think about it like this, would you rather be recruiting for 3 X similar positions where you’re talking to similar candidates for each and can’t set up multiple interviews for each candidate (increasing your chances of placing them), or working on 3 different positions and setting up 1 interview for each candidate?

Unfortunately, many Recruiters focus on wowing the client (only) and not the candidate. Their perception is that the client is more important because they are the one directly paying for the Recruiter’s services. This is a mistake. A placement is not made when the client makes an offer, but when the candidate *accepts* the offer. Therefore a good Recruiters masters the art of advocating for both client AND candidate. This is where the true skill comes in.

Write a day plan at the beginning of each day and include who you will call and why, what positions you’re recruiting for and your sourcing methods i.e. platforms, boolean searches. This will help you get more out of each day, ensuring you stay focused and don’t drop the ball.

Accept no ambiguity and qualify every detail of every job brief, every candidate resume and every vague response to your question. Having as much information as possible helps you do your job more effectively and ensure a smooth recruitment process with fewer surprises.

This builds trust with your clients. Doing the opposite, breaks it.

When a client engages you as a Recruiter, the hire is almost always urgent. If it wasn’t and they had all the time in the world, wouldn’t they just do it themselves? Therefore you should work with the utmost level of urgency, while still maintaining a high level of quality. If you wait until tomorrow to book the candidate’s interview, perhaps they will secure a new job in the meantime. If you wait until tomorrow to respond to the client’s email, perhaps they go to another Recruiter.

“Finding great talent” is not all you can do for them as their trusted Recruiter. What other business problems do they have? Ask them. Employee retention, diversity and attraction are all common ones. Perhaps you can advise them on best practice, or give them examples of what other clients do, or even make introductions to companies you’re partnered with who can help them.

Recruitment is an industry that many ‘fall into’ and nearly just as many, fall out of. Some statistics quote as much as 70% of Recruiters quit within 2 years of starting their Recruitment career. Why? Our industry can be a rollercoaster, often with more downs than ups and few are able to cope with the toll it takes on you emotionally. Remember that success rarely comes in your first 1 or even 2 years, it takes time to build up your network but eventually starts to snowball.

Many people are drawn into the Recruitment industry by the high earning potential but don’t realise that the top earners didn’t get there by doing a 9-5 for the first year and simply meeting their KPI’s. They all would have put in an incredible level of hard work and hours, a quantity that would make most question their sanity.