You know your staffing and recruitment services fit the bill, but if you’re under-prepared for business development calls, blocked by gatekeepers, or not making the most of conversations with decision makers, how will your prospects know? Shane Wheeler, Marketing Communications Executive, explores five MORE tips from our company’s Business Development (BD) team to help you reach more decision makers – and have more meaningful conversations when you do…
Always know who you’re calling and what their business is. If you’re regularly using your recruitment software to record information obtained through calls and further research (and, why wouldn’t you?), you’ll have a wealth of information at your fingertips – so be sure to allow for a few minutes of revision before making that next call. Whether you speak directly to this foreknowledge or not, your prospect will most-likely appreciate your confident approach and ability to understand their business a little more each time you call. – Kylie Lamper, BD Manager
What are you looking to achieve from the call? You’ll probably have a long list of calls to make on any given day, but avoid simply ‘checking them off’ for little gain. Have a clear goal in mind and make sure the contact knows you’re calling with good reason. If you have news or a real offer to make, get to the point in a clear and concise way, don’t waffle. If the purpose of your call is more ‘routine’, think of an angle to make it sound anything but. Your prospect probably hears “Do you have any hiring needs at the moment?” all too often, try “Which skills does your business most need right now?”. – Kylie Lamper, BD Manager
Day in, day out, gatekeepers take a lot of cold calls from pushy, insincere salespeople who simply view them as an obstacle to overcome. As a result, their ‘default setting’ can be one of habit to end those calls ASAP. Indeed, in the introduction to this very blog, gatekeepers are referred to as ‘blocking’ your calls – but perhaps that lacks empathy. There’s a real person on the other end of the line, not just a gatekeeper. If you’re warm, friendly and mean it, they might just warm up to you and connect your call to the decision maker. This may take time of course, but your genuine appreciation of their work and sincere effort to be different might just be rewarded. – Sam Monks, BD Manager
As the adage goes, ‘two ears, one mouth’ – it’s best to use them that way. Listening is key to understanding your prospect’s requirements and offering the best solution. Once you have a decision maker on the line, it can be tempting to ‘reel off’ all the great aspects of your service, but take a breath, ask genuine questions and, especially if they open-up about their business needs and aspirations, listen carefully. Practice ‘active listening’ whenever you can. Always remember to repeat back key parts of the speaker’s comments, helping reassure them you have listened and understood; and helping you manage this information and position yourself as a viable supplier – Sam Monks, BD Manager
Don’t let the good work you have done fade in your memory (and your contact’s memory) by failing to keep in touch. Use your recruitment-specific CRM to record the details of all conversations and set yourself invaluable reminders to follow-up. Build real relationships upon those initial fact (and thought)-finding conversations. – Kylie Lamper, BD Manager
If you’d like to learn more about how your company’s recruitment CRM software can help manage the sales process from one screen, contact us today!
In recent research, the Adapt team found that only 25% of candidates have used social media to find a job, and of these, only 14% found it helpful. While this highlights that social media isn’t a popular platform for candidates to find a job, the use of social media varies between demographics and age groups. The research found that age groups from 25-34 were the most likely age to use LinkedIn as a platform to look for a job while C-level Executives (46%) and Executive Directors (50%) were also the most likely group to actively use the platform to find a job.
But while social media recruiting tools such as Facebook and LinkedIn might not be the most useful for consistent candidate sourcing, there is the possibility that highly-skilled candidates are using these platforms to search for new employment. Therefore, to help recruiters utilise social media platforms correctly to locate the best talent, we have put together some best practice advice.
Endorsements are a feature unique to LinkedIn. They are essentially an indicator of how others rate that candidate’s skills and expertise – and can only come from first-degree connections, i.e. people that person is connected with.
However, as they can be acquired relatively easily, the value of endorsements has frequently come into question. Acquiring an endorsement is as easy as pressing ‘like’ on a Facebook post – all you need to do is be connected to the person you wish to endorse and then click on the skill you want to rate them for.
Furthermore, endorsements provide little value beyond giving people an idea of their skillset, as they do not provide any detail or examples of how they have used those skills. In this instance, recommendations would be far more useful, as they would most likely come from an individual who has witnessed that candidate’s skills first-hand.
With this considered, it is vital that recruiters take the time to analyse a candidate’s endorsements and determine whether or not the skills they have accumulated are actually accurate and representative of that individual.
Professional groups provide recruiters with a great indication of just what candidates are invested and participating in, as well as highlighting their commitment to their own personal and professional development.
Candidates who regularly join groups relevant to their industry, contribute to them and participate, are the kinds of candidates who love to educate themselves and others. These are the kinds of candidates who would be a benefit to any business.
A candidate’s profile, be it on LinkedIn or Facebook, is effectively their digital CV and forms a significant part of a recruiter’s or employer’s first impression. It is in their best interest then to choose a professional photo which will help them to capture not only the attention of employers and recruiters and gain their approval, but also convey their professionalism.
[tweet_box design=”default” float=”none”]A candidate’s profile, be it on LinkedIn or Facebook, is effectively their digital CV and forms a significant part of a recruiter’s or employer’s first impression.[/tweet_box]
For recruiters, it is important to appreciate that some employers will want to see a visual representation of their candidates. It’s not about how the candidate looks, but rather how they present themselves. If they want to be perceived as professional, they should look polished, well-dressed and approachable.
Recommendations are like glowing miniature seals of approval – they effectively tell anyone visiting your profile that a company, former colleague or manager holds you in high regard and respects your skills.
However, just as with endorsements, recommendations can be artificially created and sometimes incredibly vague. And therein lies the problem: how do you determine if they are genuine – and if they are, what value do they bring?
You should look for recommendations that clearly highlight an employee’s specific achievements in detail, provide examples of their work, and how they contributed to the business’ goals.
As with any social media channel leveraged as a means to contact candidates, ensuring your messages are as personalised, specific and informative as possible, is key to getting a response.
We have spoken in-depth previously about how best to communicate with candidates, but here are a few quick points you should always remember when it comes to contacting candidates.
In today’s world, your candidates are constantly bombarded with information relating to a particular job opportunity, and many of these emails and messages will be generic and irrelevant to what they are actually looking for.
Your recruitment proposals, emails and messages therefore need to be interesting and intriguing enough that your candidates open your mail – and engage with you.
Candidates who regularly share high-quality, thought-provoking content are generally those who are more invested in their industry and want to educate others on particular developments. In addition, those who have written and shared their own content are likely to be knowledgeable and have a strong understanding of the industry for which they have written.
These are the types of candidates that will constantly push to educate themselves to refine their understanding of an industry or business – and would therefore prove to be excellent candidates for recruiters.
Ultimately, while social media recruiting tools, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, might not be the most effective in generating a large number of high-quality candidates, those high-quality candidates are, nevertheless, there.
And, with over 1.87 billion monthly users on Facebook (which accounts to 22.9% of the world’s global population) and 467 million on LinkedIn (as of 2016), there is no reason for recruiters not to leverage these social media platforms for candidate sourcing, as the cost is relatively insignificant and the possibilities vast.
Kevin Edward Associates, executive recruitment consultancy to niche market sectors, have selected Bond International Software, the global provider of staffing and recruitment software, to provide AdaptUX OnDemand recruitment-specific CRM via high-speed cloud service.
Kent-based, with a second office in Liverpool, Kevin Edward Associates was founded in 2009 by Directors with over twenty years of executive-level recruitment experience. Their mission was clear: to create a niche executive recruitment brand that both clients and candidates could trust. Today, Kevin Edward Associates are known as the company to turn to when exceptional results are required. Their team strive to understand the specific qualifications and experience required for each role and provide in-depth consultation to find the best business-culture fit; ensuring every placement they make is a long-standing and successful one.
Preparing to enter a new phase of company growth, the Kevin Edward Associates team resolved to streamline their IT infrastructure. Previously using Microsoft Office applications to manage their supporting admin work, their recruitment software review considered several well-known providers in the market, for both CRM and job-posting/application functionality. Key requirements on their ‘wish list’ included: software ease-of-use, effective searching, e-marketing (via both Outlook and Gmail) and smooth integrations with LinkedIn and Broadbean. As their review concluded, Kevin Edward Associates selected AdaptUX on its strengths in these important areas, alongside the software’s continual updates and true scalability. Their implementation includes-
Kevin Fasting, Managing Director, Kevin Edward Associates, comments, “We believe our three core principles of ‘honesty’, ‘discretion’ and ‘niche expertise’ have led to our success thus far and noticeably set us apart from our competitors. Our consultants have achieved a great deal of solid placements and built a reputation to live up to with our clients and prospects, but their ‘admin burden’ was becoming a little too high, so we knew the time was right to overhaul their supporting technology. Having used several recruitment software packages in the past, we knew how to spot ‘style over content’ as we reviewed the various provider’s offerings. It soon became apparent that Bond knew how to deliver the features that really mattered and, considering their keen focus on client company growth and success, the decision to select AdaptUX was an easy one to make.”
Toby Conibear, Global Sales Director, Bond International Software, comments, “Kevin Edward Associates provide trusted, admirable executive recruitment services and we are delighted they have selected AdaptUX. We look forward to providing the technology, innovation and scalability they need; to not only continue delivering the highest quality services, but also enable their consultants to save time and enhance the tested and true processes which have served them, and their clients, so well. We have no doubt they will be adding new users to their OnDemand system soon – and achieving the company growth upon which their sights are firmly set.”
You know your recruitment services fit the bill, but if you’re under-prepared for business development calls, blocked by gatekeepers, or not making the most of conversations with decision makers, how will your prospects know? Shane Wheeler, Marketing Communications Executive, Adapt, explores five MORE tips from our Business Development (BD) team to help you reach more decision makers – and have more meaningful conversations when you do…
Miss the first five Business Development tips? They’re here.
Always know who you’re calling and what their business is. If you’re regularly using your recruitment software to record information gleaned through calls and further research (and, why wouldn’t you?), you’ll have a wealth of information at your fingertips – so be sure to allow for a few minutes of revision before making that next call. Whether you speak directly to this foreknowledge or not, your prospect will most-likely appreciate your confident approach and ability to understand their business a little more each time you call. – Kylie Lamper, BD Manager
What are you looking to achieve from the call? You’ll probably have a long list of calls to make on any given day, but avoid simply ‘ticking them off’ for little gain. Have a clear goal in mind and make sure the contact knows you’re calling with good reason. If you have news or a real offer to make, get to the point in a clear and concise way, don’t waffle. If the purpose of your call is more ‘routine’, think of an angle to make it sound anything but. Your prospect probably hears “Do you have any job vacancies at the moment?” all too often, try “Which skills does your business most need right now?”. – Kylie Lamper, BD Manager
Day in, day out, gatekeepers take a lot of cold calls from pushy, insincere salespeople who simply view them as an obstacle to overcome. As a result, their ‘default setting’ can be one of a compulsion to end those calls ASAP. Indeed, in the introduction to this very blog, gatekeepers are referred to as ‘blocking’ your calls – but perhaps that lacks empathy. There’s a real person on the other end of the line, not just a gatekeeper. If you’re warm and friendly and mean it, they might just warm to you and connect your call to the decision maker. This may take time of course, but your genuine appreciation of their work and sincere effort to be different might just be rewarded. – Sam Monks, BD Manager
As the adage goes, ‘two ears, one mouth’ – it’s best to use them that way. Listening is key to understanding your prospect’s requirements and offering the best solution. Once you have a decision maker on the line, it can be tempting to ‘reel off’ all the great aspects of your service, but take a breath, ask genuine questions and, especially if they open-up about their business needs and aspirations, listen carefully. Practice ‘active listening’ whenever you can. Always remember to repeat back key parts of the speaker’s comments, helping reassure them you have listened and understood; and helping you manage this information and position yourself as a viable supplier. – Sam Monks, BD Manager
Don’t let the good work you have done fade in your memory (and your contact’s memory) by failing to keep in touch. Use your recruitment-specific CRM to record the details of all conversations and set yourself invaluable reminders to follow-up. Build real relationships upon those initial fact (and thought)-finding conversations. – Kylie Lamper, BD Manager
It’s good to talk – call our Business Development team on 01903 707070.
Founded in 2003, STG is a private equity firm that has a successful history of building leading global companies at the intersection of software, analytics and services with a strong presence in the Human Capital Management software and services space.
Tim Richards, Managing Director at Bond International Software UK Ltd said, “Our priority was to find a backer that would work with us and support the development of AdaptUX for the benefit of our customers. It was apparent very quickly that STG had a strong fit with our company, and we are already looking at how we can bring to bear its considerable financial muscle to improve our offering to the recruitment market, while continuing to offer our existing customers the excellent customer service they expect.”
Dave Williams, Bond’s CEO of North America, said, “We are incredibly excited by our new relationship with Symphony, a company of extensive resource and expertise in the global technology market. The North American staffing and recruitment market is significant and complex and we are now poised to have an even deeper impact on providing our customers with continued expansion of innovative solutions.”
William Chisholm, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer at STG, said, “STG has significant experience broadly in the Human Capital Management (HCM) space and have several complementary software and analytics assets to BIS. Via our investments in First Advantage – the largest background screening provider to employers globally, Symphony Talent (which includes the Bernhard Hodes group) – a suite of cloud based solutions to help employers source, nurture, and engage the right-fit candidates, Innovantage Group – UK based Analytics provider in the Talent ecosystem among others, we are arguably one of the leading investors and thought leaders in the talent management space. Adding Bond International Software to this HCM portfolio further strengthens our ability to deliver a highly differentiated offering to these companies’ customers.”
Sunit Mukherjee, Principal at STG, commented, “The rise of the gig economy is creating unique challenges and opportunities for staffing agencies and large enterprises worldwide. As a global leader in the recruitment software space with a strong technology platform and a long history of creating value for a marquee customer base, BIS is uniquely positioned to help leaders of its current and future customers navigate these challenges. STG will be working with the management team to drive innovation, enhance Bond International Software’s current market presence and help develop it into an even stronger force in the recruitment software marketplace.”
About Bond International Software plc www.bondinternationalsoftware.com Bond International Software is a global provider of Staffing and Recruitment software with over 40 years of recruitment industry experience. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, with offices in the United States, Australia, Japan, Singapore, China and Hong Kong, Bond has consistently achieved financial growth and maximized investment in the development of technology, services and support provided to its international client base. Bond provides AdaptUX among its software product offerings. www.adapt-recruitmentsoftware.com
Bond International Software, Inc., the North American operating company for Bond, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, has approximately 500 customers and 20,000 users. In addition to its other product lines, AdaptSuite is the flagship product tailored to the North American market with both Front Office and Front and Back Office deployments. For more information please visit www.bond-us.com.
About Symphony Technology Group (STG) www.symphonytg.com
Symphony Technology Group (STG) is a strategic private equity firm with the mission of investing in and building great technology and services companies. In addition to capital, STG provides transformation expertise to enable its companies to deliver maximum value to their clients, to drive growth through innovation, to retain and attract the best talent and to achieve best in class business performance. STG’s current portfolio consists of 19 global companies. For more information, please visit www.symphonytg.com.
Whether you’re a recruiter or a recruitment software provider, business development involves a lot of cold calls to prospective clients. You know your recruitment services are second to none, but if you’re blocked by gatekeepers or speaking with the wrong people it can be tough to stay motivated. Shane Wheeler, Marketing Communications Executive, Bond International Software, shares five tips from Bond’s Business Development (BD) team to help you warm-up those cold calls and reach more decision makers…
Starting the day with lots of calls ahead of you can be daunting, but breaking them down by time slots can help. If you have fifty calls to make, aim to have half done by lunchtime and set yourself mini-goals along the way like ‘Ten more calls by 3pm’ or ‘Five more calls and I’ll have coffee and biscuits’. It’s fun to come up with new challenges to avoid feeling like you’re only ticking-off calls one at a time. – Nouri Saoudi, BD Manager
Your CRM will most-likely store an abundance of notes regarding previous business development calls to prospects. This information is invaluable in many ways of course, but when working through a long list of calls, it might not be necessary to read too much of it. It might even work better to read very little and ‘go in cold’. If it dampens your spirits to read several notes about brief exchanges with gatekeepers, avoid reading them and call like you’ve never called before…literally and figuratively. – Nouri Saoudi, BD Manager
Gatekeepers, from receptionists to team members, may say they’re not interested (often sounding like they’re speaking on behalf of the company), but they’re not the ones making the decision. There are numerous stories where one contact at a company showed little interest, only for their colleague to progress things the very next time a Business Developer called. So, find out who the decision maker is and only take their word for the state of play – take everyone else’s with a pinch of salt. – Paul Sandford, BD Manager
It can be difficult, especially if you’re professional and diligent in your approach, not to take a tetchy rebuttal personally – but it isn’t personal. You have no idea what the person taking your call is dealing with at that moment. From problems at work to problems at home, they’re just as human as you and if one of those problems was enough to put them in a bad mood, they won’t think twice before curtly dismissing your call. Next time, it’ll probably be ‘night and day’, so keep your cool and don’t overthink these things…especially if doing so negatively affects your own performance. – Paul Sandford, BD Manager
Once you’re through to the decision maker, breathe, listen and take notes. If you’re asked a question and you don’t know the answer, find out, get back to that contact, then make a note so you have the answer next time. If you ask a prospect a question and notice it piques their interest, make a note and remember to keep asking that question during future calls. If you’re often hearing similar objections, make notes and be more prepared to overcome them next time. Make lots of notes, refer to them often, measure your success and turn hindsight into foresight. – Paul Sandford, BD Manager
Bond’s Business Developers love to talk about your business – call them on 01903 707070.
Bond International Software, worldwide provider of staffing and recruitment software solutions, and TempBuddy, the multi-award winning contingent workforce software innovator, come together under common leadership.
Both organisations were selected for recent acquisition by Symphony Technology Group (STG), which has a successful history of building leading global companies at the intersection of software, analytics and services with a strong presence in the Human Capital Management (HCM) space.
William Chisholm, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer, STG, comments, “Bond and TempBuddy deliver a unique and compelling solution that addresses both sides of the recruitment and staffing equation: permanent or direct hire, plus the ever-growing contingent workforce. By leveraging each other’s strengths of world-class staffing software and award-winning technological innovation alongside STG’s backing and strategic input, they are poised to become global staffing software market leaders.”
To reinforce the increasingly global focus of the business, the partnership will be driven by Tim Giehll who joins as Group CEO, with Roderick Smyth, CEO of TempBuddy, taking a broader role of Chief Product and Strategy Officer. Giehll joins from Field Nation, where he was EVP of Operations, having previously been employed as Chief Revenue Officer with Avionte, and prior to that with Bond as Global Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer in the US.
Sunit Mukherjee, Principal, STG, states, “Tim is an accomplished executive who brings deep industry and financial management knowledge together with significant operational and leadership experience. The majority of his career has been overseeing and executing the transformation, growth and development of market leaders and fast-growing start-ups in the recruitment software ecosystem. Under his steer, the companies will build on their joint strengths, drive long-term growth through continued innovative product development and increase customer satisfaction.”
The two companies will retain separate corporate structures, whilst sharing joint leadership to form a tight partnership. This will allow them to operate together, but also separately so that staffing companies can choose their own CRM and still benefit from TempBuddy’s revolutionary contingent workforce software.
An integrated acquisition and workforce management suite is prioritised on our product roadmap, whilst stand-alone software solutions will continue to offer staffing organisations freedom of choice.
Regarding the strategic direction Giehll, explains, “With the unification of Bond’s time-tested staffing solutions and the Uber-like user experience of TempBuddy, we will create a new mobile-based software solution that will revolutionise the global staffing industry.”
Roderick Smyth, CEO of TempBuddy and Group Chief Product and Strategy Officer, adds, “At TempBuddy our vision has always been to make contingent work easier and more rewarding and our game-changing SaaS platform and worker app have already been adopted by users in over 1000 cities across three continents. Our workforce management software is now underpinned with an infrastructure to accelerate our reach giving staffing organisations and their clients competitive advantage, whilst simultaneously enhancing candidate experience.”
Toby Conibear, Group Sales Director, concludes: “the investment by STG allows us to fast-track development of our our global flagship products AdaptUX and AdaptSuite. The leadership team is comprised of key personnel from both Bond and Tempbuddy ensuring that our planned growth is backed by exemplary customer service and product knowledge to further enhance our position in the continually evolving staffing and recruitment marketplace.”
Lisa Jones is a Director of Barclay Jones, a consultancy working with agency recruiters on their recruitment technology and social media strategies. You’ll see Lisa speaking at many recruitment industry events and being a recruitment technology and social media evangelist online. In this guest blog post she shares the secret to being a contented recruitment leader!
Every recruitment leader I work with wants to improve the content of their recruitment database:
“Lisa, can you make my recruiters more reliant on my CRM system? I need ROI.”
“Lisa, I’m sick of spending money on external systems. Why am I spending so much on technology whilst recruiters still insist upon searching for talent elsewhere?”
The reason? Because your recruiters don’t value your system (and likely they think your data is pants!).
Two questions for every recruitment leader:
The content of your recruitment database is driven by the content of your blog, adverts, recruiters’ LinkedIn profiles, tweets – as well as the content of your interviews and sales calls. The content of your recruitment database will be judged by investors (and recruiters), paid for by your clients, and applied to by awesome candidates. Your recruitment CRM is critical.
To achieve “database contentment” it is critical that your online content works extremely hard – it is your virtual sales team, internal recruiter, compliance manager. Content is the chauffeur of great talent, loyal clients and engaged recruiters – let it drive the best data into your Recruitment CRM.
But only 44% of marketers have a content strategy – and those that I see are often not lead-generating content strategies – they’re content-generating content strategies! Content for content’s sake.
No leads
No talent
Yes, a few more clicks
Yes, brand improvement
But no sales!
There are four key stages to the buyer’s journey. Or rather, the 3 stages with an extra one for recruiters:
Those of you who are seasoned in marketing will spot that I have adapted the 3 stages to 4 – adding “Place and re-place”.
Find me a recruiter who places a candidate who starts the job/stays for the duration – 100% of the time – and you’ve found a unicorn! A recruiter’s job is not to just find, engage, convert and place talent – it’s to get them to their start date with a smile and help them stay long enough to get that fee (and not have to find a replacement!)
You should have content which actively manages the four of the buyer’s journey (and protects your pipeline.
Ask yourself, do have content which:
Often recruiters have 1 or 2 of the four stages “sorted” – lots of blogs of what it’s like to work for them, blogs about recruiting into their sector, adverts which advertise the spec of the role, how to get value for your employees – but rarely do I see a strategy to ensure that all bases are covered and actively used by the recruiters to speed up conversions, sales and secure placements and re-placement.
So – with all of the above – it’s critical that as a recruitment leader or marketer you have this in your plan.
