Head Hunting - Tips

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that with the advent of recruitment process outsourcing the need to differentiate the offerings of the Recruitment consultant becomes even more imperative.

One of such differentiated service would be head hunting and poaching.

So head hunting or poaching - which ever way one looks at it is a skill which has high demand.

In high end search firms Head Hunting is a specialisation itself with a handful possessing the capability to dig out names and numbers and poach the specific person.

The reason that head hunting is a skill possessed by a handful is because of the high entry barriers in acquiring this skill.

After all it requires tremendous guts to be able to manage the myriad uncertain situations which could come up when one embarks on a head hunting call

Such obstacles include being accused of phishing, to plain rebuttals (even threats) or no response at all.

one of the requests that have come my way during training programmes is to provide tips on how to tackle head hunting .

The aim of this post is provide some that .......................

1. Head hunting is an art. It requires practice and this means learning the hard way......

2. Practice your story line before hand ......plan your identity and have enough back up stories to justify your story so that you are never caught speechless. Some answers you should have
i. Why are you calling?
ii. Who are you? What does your organisation do?
iii. Why can't you give me the information or request (presuming this is a secy/receptionist)
iv. Give me a number that i can call back on (secy/receptionist/
v. Give me a website link of your organisation


3. Completely avoid phishing(impersonation - that is pretending to be someone or some organisation which really exists - for e.g saying that you are calling from NASSCOM -when you are not- . Phishing is a violation under the law of the land can lead to punishment of the individual

4. Have standard replies for potential bottlenecks -
i. If the person you want to reach is not available on his seat/is on leave - (no hanging up is not a good idea - it will lead to suspicion - you won't be able to call later)
ii If the person you want to reach says that he does not have the time to take the call
iii. If the person you want to reach puts you in touch with his secretary
iv. If the call is transferred to his secretary before you could say anything (again donot hang up!)

5. Do reasonable amount of research on the company from which you wish to head hunt ...for e.g i. what does it do? ii. where all does it have offices, sales and plant locations iii. which are the divisions? iv. the organisational structure v. the leadership team vi. names of some of the senior individuals (job site databases zindabad), vii. what kind of products does it sell - names of its brands etc
This will see to that you are not caught unawares about most organisational info

Also it is useful to pretend to be a person that you can easily identify with ...e.g if you have an understanding of sales and marketing - posing as a marketing executive would be comparatively easy.

Practice your lines ....saying it out will assure you that it sounds genuine!

Happy Head Hunting .....

"metrics"

One of the fallouts of the tremendous pace of hiring is the increasing sense of inefficiency with respect to the processes employed to hire.

The inefficiency is blamed on the process or the individuals involved in it - be it the line manager or the staffing manager or the staffing team.
Clearly the system is not able to pin point the inefficiencies and is quick to point its fingers at the easiest target which is either the process or persons involved in it.

Why is the system not able to identify the culprit?

This is because the system has not been enabled to be smart enough to do that. And to enable it what is required is a robust metrics system which throws up the warning signs early on.

By metrics - i refer to the ones which reflect the way we hire.
This could be the number of resumes shortlisted for a position or the number of resumes shortlisted by the hiring manager against the total send to him by the consultant.

All of these metrics result in data which can be churned into information.

What all can the system generate?

Useful data can be generated according to the following parameters
Time
Success/Failure Rates

Both of the above can be utilised at various stages of the hiring process.
What i do want to enumerate below is a set of metrics for each stage of the process


Client Relationship : (Relevant only for Recruiting Agencies)
No of search mandates of the Top Clients Vs Others
% of Revenue from Top Client as a % of the total spending outflow of the client for consulting
% growth in the Revenue of the Top Client Vs Revenue Growth of the vertical Vs Growth in spending of the client

Search Strategy
Success of each search source
Total Hires per source as a %

Resume shortlisting
Total Resumes shortlisted per position
Resumes shortlisted per source - Consultants, referrals, job sites, advts (net + newspaper)
Total Resumes interviewed per position

Decline
Total candidates Rejected/interviewed
Total candidates declined/offered

The aim of these metrics is not to find a scape goat and punish - but to be able to point in the correct direction for remedy

Metrics establish a habit. This will set up precedence for certain culture of doing work - which will elicit feedback

candidate counseling

in my training programmes whenever i talk about the importance of counseling the candidate i am met with mixed reactions in the ratio of about 70:30 ....in favour of not doing it!

I would say that counseling is one of the most important contributions of a recruiter to the hiring process. Most candidates have incomplete and in most cases inaccurate information about various aspects of the search mandate whether it is the job profile or the company information.

In such a context it is an opportunity for the Recruiter to attempt to influence the candidate in the manner that would lead to a successful closure of the mandate.
Unfortunately we underestimate our own powers of persuasion and hence unintentionally let others usurp that role ...others include the candidate's circle of influence such as spouse, friends or parents

In response to my stand many a recruiter has told me that this is a complete waste of their time since they work with mostly candidates who show eagerness for the job opportunity provided to them. That is the "active" candidates.

I would say that the exciting and the right fit candidate is never an active candidate but someone who is passive.

And passive candidates will always require counseling since they are not the interested parties but you are!

Secondly like all tools that one uses at work ....counseling also follows the 80/20 rule.

It is a tool which should be used in 20% of the cases the successful outcome of which will lead to you meeting 80% of your target.

Resume Reading -2

While we do read a resume with the intent of shortlisting it - there is a second stage to it.

The second stage is analysis. This requires a different approach to resume reading.

While conducting the primary shortlisting our focus is on grasping the pure facts.

However the second stage shortlisting is all about putting together data into useful facts or information.

What do we mean by analysis. This is a deductive process where we assemble various pieces of facts or data into a meaningful set of observations.
E.g of such analysis are
1. a south indian will be more comfortable taking up roles which are in South India.
2. An individual who has worked in a MNC environment will find an Indian company a difficult adjustment.

At the end of such an extensive analysis one should be able to create a visual picture of the potential candidate.
This will aid us in understanding the intangibles such as culture fit, location comfort etc.
It will also help us to find out the gaps in the resume - which we could verify with the candidate at the next level.

The third stage of the resume reading is to have a conversation with the candidate wherein we verify some of our notions.