Recruitment - The Contact Sport

Erik Broberg

The recruitment industry of which we are all a part is often referred to as a "contact sport" and this is very true. The amount of contact that we have with our respective interests, be it candidate and clients, is directly proportional to the level of success that we achieve. It is a reasonable assumption that as activity goes up, whilst maintaining a standard quality of service, that naturally the results should increase too. Recruitment is thus also a numbers game.

The more calls you make, the more specs you acquire, the more specs you acquire the more send-outs you achieve, the more send-outs you manage to create the more interviews you generate, the more interviews you have lined up the more bookings/confirmations you make. How many bookings you make is a direct consequence of the number of calls that you initially made - it's really that simple.

When times get tough the ratio's that govern our respective sectors will change, as the economic factors of supply and demand kick in. In good times it takes only a few calls to market our average candidates, in tough times however it takes many calls just to market our good candidates. The trick is to make sure that the ratio's we're using are still accurate, and to make sure that the people responsible for generating the required activity are doing just that. The difference between success and failure is often very small, the margin is often that 1 more phonecall. And that 1 more send-out. And that 1 more interview. And that 1 more new business development call. The question is - are we prepared to make that 1 more?

Rugby is a contact sport and to ensure success on the field players spend considerable time off the field preparing themselves for the confrontation. In the contact sport of recruitment to survive we need to ensure our "off-field" preparation and planning is equally well thought out and executed. Training, role-play, objection handling planning, well-targeted prospects - all these factors contribute towards the success when hitting the phones. Making 100 phonecalls per day into the abyss with no plan is never going to generate the results desired, but neither will making only 1 good phonecall for month. There needs to be a balance between volume and quality, a ratio.

Recruitment is a numbers game. Through well planned preparation and effective execution success will come, and the scoreboard will take care of itself.