Written by Guest Blogger - Steve Catt
Any good recruiter knows that the key to finding the right contractor for a client is having the opportunity to talk directly with the hiring manager; gathering information that will give his or her company a competitive advantage while using the opportunity to build rapport and creditability with the client. Yet, the vast majority of recruiters who get this opportunity squander their advantage by asking the wrong questions and by taking the wrong kind of job order.
The problem is that recruiters and hiring managers are trained to think of contractor requirements in terms of years of experience, education, duties, task and responsibilities etc. and not in terms of the specific desired outcome they want to temporary resource to provide. When a company hires a contractor, they bring that contractor in to do something that provides a desired outcome. If the client did not need that outcome, why would they need a contractor in the first place?
But what questions do we ask? Mostly, they are questions that give us no insight into what the client really needs, such as how many years of experience the contractor should have, whether or not the contractor has an MBA etc. But what does it really matter if someone has 8 or 10 years of experience as opposed to 6 or 12 years of experience?!
If you want a real advantage in your search, differentiate yourself from the competition and add real value- start by asking the hiring manager these four key questions:
- What is the desired outcome you want the contractor to provide?
- Who is the contractor providing the outcome for and what are their expectations?
- What happens if the outcome isn’t accomplished by that date it’s required?
- How are you going to quantify that the engagement was successful and that the contractor did a great job?
Once you have the answers to these questions, you have changed the game and you will have a huge leg up on finding exactly the right person to solve your client’s needs. Why? Because you know what the problem is because you took the time to learn the outcome the client wants the contractor to provide!
Now when all the rest of recruiters are asking candidates questions like “Do you have 5-7 years Oracle or or “on a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your Excel skills?” You are asking your candidates questions such as:
“My client needs a person who can provide this specific outcome, for this type of stakeholder who expects that the following needs to be done within this timeframe or this bad thing will happen and this is how they will quantify success”. Please describe where you have you provided a similar outcome and how would you go about providing the outcome in this instance?”
You will quickly ascertain the players from the pretenders. Also, both your candidates and clients will see you as a partner rather than just another recruiter.
In future, when you present your candidates based on the outcomes they provided and/or can provide in the future, rather than on nebulous skills and education, you sell value as opposed to individuals.
Remember, to become to client’s desired recruiter you need to concentrate on the desired outcome….
Steve Catt is a successful entrepreneur and one of most highly regarded staffing professionals in Southern California. Steve's simple, logical approach to helping a client define the outcome they want from every job and then finding the best person to provide that outcome, in the clients environment, has made him the go to staffing partner for companies large and small for nearly twenty years. His latest project, The RiteVu, is revolutionizing the way companies identify, select and manage the contract labor.
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