Recruiting Firm Owners: Are You Keeping Poor Performers Too Long?

OK, for all you Bleeding Hearts out there, I apologize in advance for what I am about to say.

In my work with recruiting firm owners I see 2 common problems as it relates to tenured recruiters who are producing poor results right now.  In my conversations with the owners they have a sense of loyalty to these people.  I agree.  But shouldn't there be a reciprocal sense of loyalty from them?

I don't mean loyalty in the "hangin' around" mode.  I mean a sense of loyalty in stepping up the activity to help you through the downturn.  Don't get me wrong, many are.  I speak only of those recruiters who have mentally "gone fishing" for the recession because the thought of making 80 or 90 calls again makes them sick to their stomach.

My gut tells me you are paying these people a draw and/or salary.  Correct?  Is this money down the drain?  If you have someone on your recruiting team you owe them leadership and you need to wake them up.

Here's some ideas:

1. Have a goal setting meeting with them and get them excited about some short and medium term goals.  Get SPECIFIC here!
2. Define those goals in revenue, # of placements, # of interviews AND, this is KEY, the number of presentations needed.  Then divide this activity by the number of weeks in the goal to get SPECIFIC weekly activity targets.
3. Ask them if they want you to hold them accountable to THEIR goals.  Here is the key, don't buy into their excuses and tell them you aren't buying their excuses.  They will thank you for this.  Not in the moment, but after the price is paid and they have what they want, they will build a shrine to you!

If, however, they don't respond to the above, they are NOT being reciprocal with their loyalty.  You gave them a chance and they are draining precious cash flow that you could be investing in other areas of your business. 

You have two choices at this point, 1) ignore it and pray the recession ends quickly OR, 2) Set some specific expectations of YOURS.  Make their employment week-to-week, conditioned on them hitting your production targets. 

Note: The expectations should not be placement based, but presentation, phone time and interviews arranged based.  If they don't hit these, THEY chose to leave, you are not firing them.  Make sense?

Comments

[Bill Boorman]

Mike,
I'm inclined to agree with you here in terms of keeping people too long however, i think you might be missing the cause. Most recruiter in the industry less than 7 years have never had to sell or really build relationships. They have been succesful billers and often praised, promoted, rewarded etc for being deliverers. Is this the fault of the recruiter or the owner/manager.
In the businesses i work with i can understand these guys. They are scared to sell because they never have and are fairly bruised confidence wise by the market. The wise business owner recognises this and is investing either time or money in re-skilling for the current market. Re-learning is harder than learning first time around. Historically, about 80% of training time and money has been risked on new recruits who generate 20% of the revenue, some of whom turnover whatever you do. I believe this should be reversed, with the 80% aplied to those who have historically generated 80% of the revenue. If they are still failing or unwilling after, can them but make sure you have done all you can by reassurance, empathy, support and retraining. You find you get less casualties, and retain relationships in your business.
Bill