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Turning cold into gold - making the most of recruiters' cold calls

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Courtesy of Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram’s famous experiment, we know there are six degrees of separation between people around the world. At least that was in 1967.

Through understanding people, networking and using the latest technology and tools, I try and reduce the separation between organisations and professionals everyday. And I’ve been doing this since 2002 as a recruitment consultant working with many of Australia’s leading organisations. I currently head up recruitment for Six Degrees Executive's 'Services Marketing' business in Melbourne.

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One of my clients was complaining the other day about an unusually high number of calls she'd had from recruiters recently. And as a marketer, I’m sure you've had plenty of cold calls from recruitment consultants in the past; whether it's to try and do business with you or to approach you about a job opportunity (see 'don’t call me mate' for a bit of a laugh on this subject). But rather than fobbing the call off each time, you just might be able to get some value out of the call.

A recruiter's job is to talk to people in the market all day every day and they can be quite knowledgeable about the employment market for the industry they recruit for. Despite the reputation of recruiters (we've all met the used car salesman variety), from my experience most are pretty honest, intelligent people who know their stuff. And particularly in the marketing space, most are pretty switched on.

So here are a few tips on how to extract as much value as possible from even a brief cold call with a recruiter

  1. If you're in a management position, find out how your team's salaries compare with others in the market
    Ask the recruiter about similar roles they've recruited in the past with comparable organisations to your own and benchmark how well you're remunerating your staff. If you're underpaying them, you might get the information just in time to implement an increase that helps to retain your people. You can even find out how your own salary compares with other people in similar roles. Maybe it's time for you to consider your options, or ask for a pay rise?
  2. Ask the recruiter about any industry trends that are happening currently
    As an example, product managers with financial services experience are particularly challenging to find right now. So if you’re a product manager or head of product working for a bank, maybe it is worth keeping an eye out for new opportunities that might help you leverage your career.
  3. Find out what types of roles are difficult to hire for at the moment
    It might help you plan resourcing for your team i.e. if you know a particular position within your team is difficult to hire for, you can be proactive in keeping an eye out for such people or even ask some of your recruitment contacts to keep an eye out for people for down the track. It’s important to be on the front foot in today's candidate-short market.
  4. Ask some questions about the recruiter's business
    What areas do they specialise in? What are their USPs? A good recruitment partner you can trust is like gold when you need them so you should be constantly seeking out specialist recruiters that could be of use to you when you need to hire staff or look for a job.

So rather than sighing and rolling your eyes next time you get cold called by a recruiter, give some thought to how you might benefit from the call. And if you are getting a number of calls each week, just think, you have access to the opinions and views of a number of different recruitment professionals. In addition, when you’re looking to make your next strategic hire or change jobs, you’ll already have scoped out the best recruiters to partner with.

Who knew cold calls could be so helpful after all

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1 Comments

chyams
  • Wrote on 29 Jul, at 03:56PM
Great blog entry Luke! If recruiters specialise in a specific niche, they can truly be a great resource for managers and talent alike.

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