Anyone who has worked with me or that I’ve helped train over the years would may heard me talking about a “Recruiters Spidey Sense” - many eyes have no doubt been rolled but it’s a key part of the role that’s really hard to explain and train but can be a main influence to the success ratios we all seek. Focus here is why I have often worked for whole quarters with a ratio of less than 2 interviews to 1 placement.

Its reasonably easy to understand that the more CVs sent : will lead to more Interviews : will lead to more placements : more £££.  However for the majority of 360 recruiters there is a need to try and stuff your pipeline with loads and loads, knowing and expecting Thames Water style leakage through the process and with luck you hit your target at the end of the quarter.

The Lazy Recruiter can vastly reduce this fall out with some simple processes and mindset changes.

Firstly – what’s the lazy recruiter? Hopefully – not someone who does no work. A lazy recruiter sets themselves a target and works to hit this target as efficiently as possible. Wasted energy and activity in recruitment gets you exactly £0 (zero) pounds – So why bother with it?

So, what are the points in the process where we suffer? In my opinion - Its rarely the candidate it’s also rarely the client or the job. Its nearly always the Match and the Preperation. Understanding the job you are offering and how the interviewers will represent themselves at interview is key to choosing and assisting the candidate to get the most of the interview and indeed picking the right candidates that are going to keep interest through the whole process.

Through the candidate interview – interview prep – debrief and offer stage the candidate will talk a lot, it’s really our job to listen and do it well. Through all-bar-1 of the failed placements that I have ballsed up over the last 20 years there has been something which when I look back upon you kind of knew something was wrong; the answers were guarded, the enthusiasm for the interview muted or the willingness to discuss counter offers absent. Always there is a tell, and at the time of offer you get the half expected “thanks – but no thanks”

This is the Spidey Sense, we all have it, we all knew something was wrong but instead of stopping the conversation there we let it play out and crossed our fingers. The Lazy Recruiter learns not to let these points pass us up. Often it will be a minor point that you can deal with there and then – even if it means pulling this candidate out and starting again. In later Blogs I’ll talk about how I try to minimise them and as always appreciate its not a science – People and Recruitment are both wonderfully dynamic and unpredictable.

I really appreciate feedback if you have a different way of thinking about all this – or you work at improving your results via a totally different mindset.