One of the most rewarding parts of my role, something that stays with me and provides personal wellbeing, is helping recruiters to succeed.
It also happens to be one of the most valuable parts of any manager's role from a business perspective. If a manager's job was to fire poor performers and pat high performers on the back, they wouldn't be adding much value to the business would they?
No, it's those edge-cases, where a recruiter could go either way, where you can demonstrate the most value to your team and to the business.
And in my view, distinctions like this aren't particularly helpful to a manager. Any "High Performer" can struggle for a huge range of reasons. It's on you to support every recruiter.
Over the years, I have noticed some common issues with recruiters who are struggling to achieve success. I'll be honest..I have personally struggled with every single one of these issues myself. Here are the common causes of low activity in recruiters, and the methods I have used to help them get on track.
1. Time Management
Even with recruiters who have the best of intentions, an inability to scope the time taken to complete tasks, to prioritise work, or to separate their work to allow for focus time means that the top of funnel stuff gets waylaid.
You can see candidate communication slipping in this situation also, as these tasks are postponed until the end of the week, then they run out of time.
Commonly found
- New recruiters.
- High performing recruiters who have recently been given more responsibility.
The Solution
- Coaching. In your 121, go to their calendars to review how they manage their time. Show them your calendar as a comparison. It's a good learning tool but it also demonstrates transparency.
- Once you have an idea of how they are currently managing their time, give them training on time management tools and methods like Deep work, Pomodoro & calendar blocking.
- Set more specific activity targets for them to aim for. This helps them utilise the new training and keeps them accountable to what you agreed in your 121.
- Follow up in your future 121s to see which tools and methods worked for them and double down on those methods. Give praise and encourage them to share this new knowledge with their peers (building confidence).
2. They don't like top of funnel work
There are some excellent recruiters who love working with stakeholders and candidates, give great candidate experience and are highly insightful......but hate hate hate the Sourcing>Outreach piece. Nothing wrong with that, we all have a least favourite bit of our jobs right? But these recruiters can often deprioritise the ToF work, do the bare minimum, or find ways to avoid it all together, such as relying entirely on applications.
Commonly found
- Internal recruitment.
- Ex 180 recruiters.
The Solution
- Change the experience by running social sourcing sprints with the team.
- Break the top of funnel tasks into bitesized daily goals. Encourage them to get their favourite album, make an amazing coffee and blast it for 45 min per day.
- Maybe pair them up with a Sourcer. If this is a common problem, maybe a 180 model would work better for your team? Worth thinking about.
3. Afraid to ask for help
Some recruiters are happy to put the effort into sourcing, but find it too challenging, usually because of a lack of domain knowledge that helps them find relevant candidates. So the work is laborious and they don't see a payoff. But when faced with this problem, they are afraid to ask their manager or peers for help through fear of looking unskilled or unprofessional. These recruiters tend to have lower Outreach>Screen conversion rates as they are doing a lot of sourcing, but the sourcing lacks relevance.
Commonly found
- Ex agency recruiters
- New recruiters
The Solution
- Team wide rituals of blame free post-mortems. ie, when something bad does happen, the team takes it as a valuable learning opportunity. Responsibility isn't even discussed, just the solution. This is something software development teams do to solve the exact same problem.
- Open, transparent 121s. Make sure the 121 is a protected environment where your recruiters can speak up about anything. If every 121 starts with pipeline updates, it feels like an assault course to the recruiter who has to work their way through the update without getting caught. Instead, create an agenda that starts with their own inputs, "what do you want to improve?"
- Team wide training. An individual's areas of improvement don't have to be dealt with 1 on 1. If someone is struggling with the relevance of their sourcing, ask the recruiter with the best conversion rate to do a lunch and learn training on the topic. This kills two birds with one stone as you give one recruiter a stretch target and the other recruiter support. Double bubble!
4. They are disengaged
This is the most difficult issue that causes low activity. Disengagement can come from anywhere and it is important to be sensitive and conscientious at all times. Recruiters could be going through personal issues that are affecting their ability to engage with work, or they could be realising that recruitment, just isn't for them.
Commonly Found
- Any Recruiter at any time
- A recruiter's first recruitment role.
- Recruiters who are looking for a new role.
The Solution
- Early and open discussion. The only things I really regret looking back are when I had a vibe or an inkling about a recruiter I've worked with, but didn't bring it up. As long as you have built a relationship where you can be open and the recruiter knows you have their best interests at heart, you should be able to say in your 121s, "is there anything frustrating you or on your mind just now?"
- Care, not Management. Disengaged recruiters require care, not leadership. Your attitude to this problem has to put the recruiter ahead of the business. You need to put their best interests at heart (this has nothing to do with your job, this is something you strive to be as a person, irrespective of your job). The reason is simple. You don't know what is going on in their heads. They could just be about to resign anyway, or they could be in a deep depression. So care must come first.
Luke Update
Next week on Wednesday 25th ill be in London working with the awesome folk at Calyptus, advising their customers on AI approaches for their business. If you are in central London, give me a shout!
Well... that's issue sixty five! If you have any questions about it, or any feedback on this issue of The Data Driven Recruiter, grab me on LinkedIn for a chat.
I'll see you next week!