The Headhunter Lesson

After a few phone calls today, I was compelled to write another quick entry in my blog. My first job in recruiting was as a junior recruiter for in San Jose, California. Of course part of my job was doing sales calls, really about 50% of my job. After 2 or 3 years, and moving into more sales focused jobs, I realized that during 1999 and 2001, I had to average about 100 sales calls to get one new job order (or position to fill)… When making these phone calls I realized that out of 100, I would get voicemail 75 times, 10 times people would just hang up, 14 times people would talk for a few minutes and say they don’t have any needs right now, and 1 out of 100, they would say that they had a new position and my timing was right. Therefore, I got the job order.

As I mentioned, 75% of the time I got voicemail and I left a very nice message, reintroducing myself to the HR representative or recruiting manager reminding them that I was here for them when they needed me. I was well aware that they wouldn’t call me back, unless they had a need, and I was comfortable with that. Today, things have seemed to change. On average, I get about 5 – 10 calls from headhunters on a daily basis. I call back the few that I have worked with, but don’t call back the rest of them. If I don’t have a need, I don’t necessarily have the time to spend 15 minutes finding out more about them. The interesting thing is headhunters today tend to get very angry when you don’t call them back. They escalate this to other people, badmouth the person they called and say, “he never calls me back”… I even get calls from hiring managers saying, this guy from XYZ agency called them just to tell me that he is angry that the recruiting guy never called him back.

I was a headhunter, so I can appreciate the long hours put in each day making telemarketing calls… but I think people need to realize that the best thing they can do is leave a nice short message, “checking in”, and then try back in 45 – 60 days. If you do catch the recruiter or recruiting leader on the phone… first, don’t act surprised, and ask the question, “do you have 5 minutes for me to introduce myself? And then I can follow up and email you some information on our services.”

Who knows if any headhunters will read this, but if you do, I have just told you the formula for getting a bit more business, or at least business within our group.

Steve