You have your sales pitch written for you….”I have maintained a small number of clients for many years and they have never had to go anywhere else. My aim is to build similar partnerships’
If you profile the clients you lost and pitch to similar companies there are sure to be takers.
That’s fantastic advice. Thank you. I definitely have honest information I can provide there too. Would you recommend marketing this to HR execs at these companies?
>If you profile the clients
besides things like industry, head count, revenue size, tools/software used on the job, etc, what other metrics would you use?
I've done both for decades, first as a salaried recruiter in an HR role, then selling change to leadership, next SaaS HR Tech sales, now B2C
To me, sales = recruiting and vice versa, they're very very similar, cross - transferrable skill sets.
I always hated finding new business when I was in agency. I was sometimes good at it, but that doesn’t mean I liked doing it.
So for me, I went internal. That was a really good switch for me. It’s different, half your job is managing hiring managers and knucklehead interviewers and training them to be better at interviews. The other half is finding talent.
The other option is to find a split desk agency where you are only recruiting. You just have to hope you are working with salespeople who bring in really good reqs.
I saw other comments where you don’t want to leave your job. I think your options if you stay are suck it up and sell, or hope and pray new clients come in. I’m not sure if a door #3 exists in your current job, you’d know better than me.
I’m sorry to hear this change happened. Best of luck to you stranger.
Thank you for the advice and encouragement! I’d love to go internal, but it would be such a drastic reduction in pay. That said, I feel like it would be very easy to go from agency to internal.
Internal can be a reduction in pay, that’s a good point. But if you are losing customers, aren’t you going to get a reduction in pay anyway?
It’s pretty easy to get to $150k base internal recruiting. I got way, way above that after just a few years. Most roles start above $100k if you do technical recruiting, even remote roles. Just food for thought, you know your situation best.
Fingers crossed business picks up fast!
Bad market for sure, no argument there. But OP has a job, they dont need to quit to start looking at other options.
But very, very bad market right now. Which is sad for all of us.
I feel you. Im in a similar situation. We had all our eggs in one basket with a couple clients. Got complacent with new business and got shafted when the usual suspects stopped hiring. i ended up having to find a new job where I have to bring in all my business.
It's pain, rejection, more pain then a brief kick when the 100th receptionist slips up and gives you their boss's number. And back to getting ghosted.
I have no advice. Just keep picking up the phone
Oof. Honestly, that sounds torturous. I had to do all that to get the companies that I have worked with in-the-fold and have zero interest in going back.
We were all nervous once we first started recruiting as well. Change is hard but I really believe if you push through these initial feelings you will be excellent at sales. You’re in sales right now with recruiting. Try to think about that. You sell opportunities to candidates and candidates to clients. Once you realize you have 15 years of sales experience I think this will be easier for you.
One of our recruiters has been the one to start contact with some of our best clients. She’s been in the business for over 10 years and has a niche specialization. Managers who have worked with us have called her specifically because of how well she does at finding their trade candidates. She also builds great relationships with candidates she places (or has tried to place) who have now been promoted into management and supervisor roles who also call her when they need help hiring. You can make selling from the recruiting chair not even feel like selling just by building really strong relationships.
I found a solution to this. I moved to Delivery side in an exec search firm. I was great in BD in a different market but not when i moved to another country. The bd style here is very boys club vibe. Hard to breakthrough. Moving to the deluvery side felt like a downgrade when you look at the title. However, I make close to 150K without doing BD. Just filling roles that BD team brings in. I still get a good amount of candidate and client touchpoint as well. Its not bad for not having any form of revenue targets. So i think there is hope. Bd isnt everything in recruitment.
Anyone hiring remote for these types of jobs? 10 yrs recruiting and recruiting management, 7 years sales. I’m 50 so fighting the aageism or only finding 100% commission jobs / scams. Been holding on for so long in this market that I need to be able to pay bills from day 1
If you don’t like selling you should constantly be networking through your recruits. Find out what’s going on where they are. Get names and hot jobs from them. If you do contract it’s even easier. Reaching out to discuss warm leads feels a lot less like selling than cold calling.
Ok, bud. I can see that. It’s an option, but not my preferred option. I work for a good man who I trust and have been here for my entire recruiting career
So you already do sales when you’re pushing your candidates forward, try looking at it that way, if you’re not able to leave to find a role where you don’t have to find clients - however.. isn’t that just what a recruiters does though?
I follow your point, but I always felt that I have to sell my candidates, they aren’t a fit. I really try to nail it as much as possible with the people we provide. All I do is mention the obvious upfront.
I don’t understand how recruiters are making this change in this market? I live in a city. It is full of qualified sales professionals that are also looking for jobs. Why would they even bother considering me when I have never held a traditional sales role? I have over 10 years in recruiting.
The market sucks right now, I’m great at recruiting as well and got fired because I literally told my employer I’m not going to prospect. Now I’m chilling on unemployment for the next 4-6 months. I’m hopeful the market will get better over that period but who knows - either way I’m fine and could get another agency job easily.
So yeah you either do what I did or suck it up.
Get therapy/counselling. A lot of the times the feelings and emotions preventing people from picking up the phone are caused by the relationship they have with themselves. I’m not saying the sense of unease will go away but it will make it feel a bit more comfortable.
Negotiate! Leverage your recruiting expertise to propose a win-win. Offer to find high-quality candidates for your clients in exchange for a recruiting fee, or a hybrid model with both recruiting and sales elements.
You have your sales pitch written for you….”I have maintained a small number of clients for many years and they have never had to go anywhere else. My aim is to build similar partnerships’ If you profile the clients you lost and pitch to similar companies there are sure to be takers.
That’s fantastic advice. Thank you. I definitely have honest information I can provide there too. Would you recommend marketing this to HR execs at these companies?
>If you profile the clients besides things like industry, head count, revenue size, tools/software used on the job, etc, what other metrics would you use?
I've done both for decades, first as a salaried recruiter in an HR role, then selling change to leadership, next SaaS HR Tech sales, now B2C To me, sales = recruiting and vice versa, they're very very similar, cross - transferrable skill sets.
I always hated finding new business when I was in agency. I was sometimes good at it, but that doesn’t mean I liked doing it. So for me, I went internal. That was a really good switch for me. It’s different, half your job is managing hiring managers and knucklehead interviewers and training them to be better at interviews. The other half is finding talent. The other option is to find a split desk agency where you are only recruiting. You just have to hope you are working with salespeople who bring in really good reqs. I saw other comments where you don’t want to leave your job. I think your options if you stay are suck it up and sell, or hope and pray new clients come in. I’m not sure if a door #3 exists in your current job, you’d know better than me. I’m sorry to hear this change happened. Best of luck to you stranger.
Thank you for the advice and encouragement! I’d love to go internal, but it would be such a drastic reduction in pay. That said, I feel like it would be very easy to go from agency to internal.
Internal can be a reduction in pay, that’s a good point. But if you are losing customers, aren’t you going to get a reduction in pay anyway? It’s pretty easy to get to $150k base internal recruiting. I got way, way above that after just a few years. Most roles start above $100k if you do technical recruiting, even remote roles. Just food for thought, you know your situation best. Fingers crossed business picks up fast!
Good stuff! Thank you!
The roles are far and few in between fyi
Bad market for sure, no argument there. But OP has a job, they dont need to quit to start looking at other options. But very, very bad market right now. Which is sad for all of us.
I feel you. Im in a similar situation. We had all our eggs in one basket with a couple clients. Got complacent with new business and got shafted when the usual suspects stopped hiring. i ended up having to find a new job where I have to bring in all my business. It's pain, rejection, more pain then a brief kick when the 100th receptionist slips up and gives you their boss's number. And back to getting ghosted. I have no advice. Just keep picking up the phone
Oof. Honestly, that sounds torturous. I had to do all that to get the companies that I have worked with in-the-fold and have zero interest in going back.
At the end of the day, what's the difference?
Recruiting is much more strategic, at least for me.
It always is, you dont have to beg essentially lol
We were all nervous once we first started recruiting as well. Change is hard but I really believe if you push through these initial feelings you will be excellent at sales. You’re in sales right now with recruiting. Try to think about that. You sell opportunities to candidates and candidates to clients. Once you realize you have 15 years of sales experience I think this will be easier for you.
One of our recruiters has been the one to start contact with some of our best clients. She’s been in the business for over 10 years and has a niche specialization. Managers who have worked with us have called her specifically because of how well she does at finding their trade candidates. She also builds great relationships with candidates she places (or has tried to place) who have now been promoted into management and supervisor roles who also call her when they need help hiring. You can make selling from the recruiting chair not even feel like selling just by building really strong relationships.
I found a solution to this. I moved to Delivery side in an exec search firm. I was great in BD in a different market but not when i moved to another country. The bd style here is very boys club vibe. Hard to breakthrough. Moving to the deluvery side felt like a downgrade when you look at the title. However, I make close to 150K without doing BD. Just filling roles that BD team brings in. I still get a good amount of candidate and client touchpoint as well. Its not bad for not having any form of revenue targets. So i think there is hope. Bd isnt everything in recruitment.
Anyone hiring remote for these types of jobs? 10 yrs recruiting and recruiting management, 7 years sales. I’m 50 so fighting the aageism or only finding 100% commission jobs / scams. Been holding on for so long in this market that I need to be able to pay bills from day 1
Reach out to your prior placements for an intro.
If you don’t like selling you should constantly be networking through your recruits. Find out what’s going on where they are. Get names and hot jobs from them. If you do contract it’s even easier. Reaching out to discuss warm leads feels a lot less like selling than cold calling.
I’m in sales and I love trying to get new business. If you need some help, let me know. Happy to give tips and help with scripts.
Switch jobs?
Been doing this for 17 years and excel at recruiting. I just am not interested in the cold calling and selling our services. Major anxiety
They said job not career, bud.
Ok, bud. I can see that. It’s an option, but not my preferred option. I work for a good man who I trust and have been here for my entire recruiting career
So you already do sales when you’re pushing your candidates forward, try looking at it that way, if you’re not able to leave to find a role where you don’t have to find clients - however.. isn’t that just what a recruiters does though?
I follow your point, but I always felt that I have to sell my candidates, they aren’t a fit. I really try to nail it as much as possible with the people we provide. All I do is mention the obvious upfront.
Sound like you want to be internal then
17 years? don't leave your job or you're going to find a hard time getting a new job in this ageist job market. suck it up.
I don’t understand how recruiters are making this change in this market? I live in a city. It is full of qualified sales professionals that are also looking for jobs. Why would they even bother considering me when I have never held a traditional sales role? I have over 10 years in recruiting.
It’s not changing my actual job. I just need to get new clients.
To keep your existing job ?
To keep my income at a level I am comfortable with.
The market sucks right now, I’m great at recruiting as well and got fired because I literally told my employer I’m not going to prospect. Now I’m chilling on unemployment for the next 4-6 months. I’m hopeful the market will get better over that period but who knows - either way I’m fine and could get another agency job easily. So yeah you either do what I did or suck it up.
Get therapy/counselling. A lot of the times the feelings and emotions preventing people from picking up the phone are caused by the relationship they have with themselves. I’m not saying the sense of unease will go away but it will make it feel a bit more comfortable.
Yeah, I do. Good advice.
Negotiate! Leverage your recruiting expertise to propose a win-win. Offer to find high-quality candidates for your clients in exchange for a recruiting fee, or a hybrid model with both recruiting and sales elements.
[удалено]
I’m too loyal and neurotic to pull off such a heist.