Gill Bell: client loyalty.

Considering a move from sales – how about recruitment? It’s not all that big a leap, suggests GILL BELL.

If you are motivated by targets, and the personal success which comes with achieving those targets then you’ll find that a career within the recruitment sector will present similar opportunities to those available in a more traditional sales environment. 

A good recruitment consultant has to be self-motivated with the desire to succeed as well as the maturity to realise that success is directly proportional to effort – all of which are attributes that salespeople will be able to identify with. However, in our sector, it’s crucial to recognise that it’s not just the individual sale which is important, but the whole cycle.  While a sale can be a one-off in our marketplace, within this business the key to long-term success is in building relationships.

Cross-over

So can a traditional sales person’s skills translate into recruitment skills? The short answer is yes, there’s a lot of cross-over. In recruitment, the need for first-class communication skills is a given. This is a people business and recruiters will spend a lot of time interviewing, talking to employers and applicants on the telephone and meeting hiring organisations face to face.  Consequently, the ability to engage confidently – and listen – is key.

Time management and multi-tasking skills are also vital. No one day is ever the same in the recruitment industry and the ability to be reactive as well as proactive is very important. You may have your day completely planned out but, if a client calls with an urgent request, then you may have to perform a real juggling act. 

Understanding your market sector is another key skill. This may sound obvious but a recruitment consultant really needs to get inside the heads of the employers they are working for – and the candidates they are representing. That means understanding not only what the hiring company does but also its culture and its employer brand.  And it also means an appreciation of what is really going to motivate a candidate to join a company.

Selling to candidates

While recruitment may be seen as ‘selling’ people into roles, it’s just as much about selling roles to candidates.  Obviously, this doesn’t come automatically, but a good salesperson will know how to analyse the market. If analytical skills are combined with a natural, inquisitive interest in finding out about companies and people, then these are definitely attributes that someone working in sales could bring to recruiting.

Controlling the process

It’s also important to be able to keep control of the whole recruitment process. In a traditional sales role this may be a case of working from a sales lead right through negotiations, to delivery and beyond. In recruitment it’s very similar. 

You may start with an initial enquiry from a client, and then go through to sourcing candidates and short-listing, obtaining interview feedback and negotiating the salary offer. Or it may be that you have met a candidate whom you know has all the right skills for a particular client and so you’ll ‘sell’ them in – even if there isn’t actually a live vacancy. 

It won’t always be straightforward. The employer may not come up with the right offer; candidates may change their mind; the candidate’s current employer may come up with a counter offer. Having the organisational skills and tenacity to see this process through in a calm and managed way is essential.  

Online

One of the features of the recruitment industry in recent years has been the way that it is constantly evolving and so that means having to adapt to different market environments. There’s been a steady shift towards online recruitment models and obviously the recession has had a massive impact.

While new developments in technology have meant that sourcing models have changed, the basics  have stayed the same.  We may have job boards, online recruitment, social media and online networking – and they can be helpful as they can produce greater informational insight and allow recruiters to be more targeted – but  they have to be seen as tools, and not a replacement for a process that is all about people.

Recession

And what of the recession? While economic cycles may have been with us as long as business itself, last year was the toughest many working in recruitment have ever experienced.  A large majority of recruiters, even those at a senior level, had never worked through a recession before, and so the smart operators were those who decided to be more creative about the service they offered to their clients. There was no point in calling to ask if companies needed more staff if they were on the brink of making redundancies, but this was when knowledge of clients’ needs and a mutually trusting relationships worked for both parties. It was more about identifying the people they might need in future – setting up potential talent pipelines – and looking at other ways to add value.

During the recession, many recruitment agencies cut their margins in order to ‘buy’ business – a knee-jerk reaction to a market they didn’t really understand.  We took a different approach by ensuring that our staff had the tools they needed to operate in a different market. We worked on up-skilling our consultants, giving them the confidence to operate effectively through the recession.

Added-value services

We viewed the recession as an opportunity to build our clients’ loyalty by providing added-value services such as salary surveys and market intelligence. Clients valued this support, so even though we weren’t necessarily selling, it was all about nurturing a future environment in which sales could take place.

Whenever there’s an element of competition in the marketplace, sales skills are obviously key, but if you’ve built up a good relationship with clients, you’re already ahead. In the long game, the ‘sell’ isn’t all about the transaction; it’s about supporting the people you’re working with and working for. As someone who hires recruiters, I always look for people who understand this.

Upswing

There are good signs that the market is possibly on an upswing now, so we’re motivating our staff by setting realistic but ambitious targets and rewarding significant achievements with extra bonuses. I’m sure that as a company we’re not alone in this, which means that increasingly, there will be good opportunities out there for salespeople who like what they see in our sector.

We’ve seen several recruiters join us from a sales background. Angela Haines previously worked selling classified display ads and in field sales before moving to Handle Recruitment to recruit in our digital division.

What’s it like?

‘Working in sales prepared me for a move to recruiting by teaching me how to be tenacious and organised, and how to be persuasive rather than pushy,’ she explains.

‘I was attracted to recruitment as it’s more of a consultative role and selling people is more interesting than selling advertising space. I’m grateful for the background I had as the sales training you receive in modern large corporations is excellent, and many of the skills I learnt were fully transferrable,’ Haines adds.

‘Recruitment is great role to come to, from sales, as you have your own business area and, if you love building rapport, it’s an interesting sell. Recruitment is all about building relationships with people and establishing the best career path for them, which can have a positive effect on their whole life. That’s a really satisfying achievement.

‘You’re dealing with people and emotional choices, as they decide whether a job is right for them and whether they’re right for a client, so if there’s any doubt or wavering, persuasive abilities combined with real listening skills are crucial and can lead to the experience being very rewarding for all concerned.

‘Sales experience helps when you’re persuading a client that they need to act quickly to get a good candidate, as other companies and recruiters are also in competition for them. You’re at the centre of the transaction, a facilitator as well as a salesperson, so it’s an amazing feeling when it all comes together – and you get to make commission from it too!’

Gill Bell is HR director at Handle Recruitment, a consultancy that specialises in recruiting for the media, entertainment sectors.

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