Developing and Nurturing Relationships with Recruiters

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• Transparency, communication, and feedback – I’ve always pushed myself to be honest and direct with our candidates and clients. A straight shooter. Even if it’s not a popular opinion. In the first call with a candidate or client, you have just a few minutes to gain their trust and build credibility. Give information freely, and assure them you are only motivated to make a good introduction that will serve them. As long-time ambassadors to our client companies, sharing our experiences working with many of the hiring managers (we’ve placed) helps. Candidates gain confidence in the unknown when you can reduce their skepticism and anxiety about who you are, and that you are presenting them with honest information. The rest becomes a journey of how you make and keep friends. Detach yourself from the outcome of the placement, and think of the long term relationship you will build with each person you meet.
• Providing a positive candidate experience – You’ve already begun the process of building trust with giving your candidates and clients great information. Don’t stop there. Think of them as your best new prospective customer. Give them the white glove service. Follow up consistently, and be a reliable resource always, not just once. When we set clear expectations up front about all the steps in the process, the journey becomes less stressful, and even exciting. Many of the candidates we’ve placed have gone on to become some of our best clients, but the energy and effort you deliver doesn’t stop there.
• Nurture relationships for the long term – You should only expect to get out of it what you put into it. Don’t stop after one phone call with a candidate, or one placement or one search. Your straight-shooting, five-star, white glove service will only take you so far. Learn the habit of consistency. Have a system for tracking your interactions and capture all the key information and details in your database. This is something I only got more serious about doing recently, but it has been a game changer. Nurturing the relationships you’ve built becomes your social or network capital. You can’t leerage it unless you invest in it and nurture it. I come back to the idea of giving and sharing value with no expectation of getting anything in return. Then surprising things will happen.