Hi, this is Stephanie Maas, partner with Thinking Ahead Search.
Today's topic I am super excited to talk about, and specifically it has to do with one of the things that I think makes thinking ahead really stand out as a boutique search firm elevating your phone work.
So let me just peel back a layer or two before I dive in in the elevation part.
One of the things that makes us great as a firm is the fact that we still very much believe in that good old fashioned phone work approach to recruiting and executing our searches.
Yes, I'm super proud to say we do all the things from an electronic standpoint.
The postings.
Email, LinkedIn recruiter, ZoomInfo, what?
Whatever is out there.
We absolutely do it, use it, have it, et cetera.
But our difference maker, if you will, still comes down to the fact that we pick up the call, we call targeted folks and really.
Try to one, get the message out on behalf of our clients of who they are, what they're doing, and what they're looking for.
So just get that message out into the market.
And then also to really target who we call those passive candidates.
Those candidates that.
Aren't necessarily unhappy in their current role.
They might be, but they're not unhappy enough to respond to a posting or to take a LinkedIn message from an internal recruiter or those type of things.
These are the folks that really are only gonna engage if you get them on the phone.
In conversation and have the approach of, Hey, I know you're not looking, but most folks I talk to are at least interested in hearing about what's going on and comparing it to their current situation to make sure it's not better.
It's amazing the conversations that come out of that approach.
And again, I think it's one of the key reasons we here at Thinking Ahead are so successful on behalf of our clients.
It's because of this phone effort.
Now, with that being said, over the last couple of years, technology has absolutely enabled us to become so much more effective with our phone time.
And while I think for the most part it has been a blessing.
There's a few times where candidly, it's been a little bit of a curse or a crutch.
And so what I wanna do is I wanna bring us back today to our roots.
I want to talk about elevating your phone work, and I'm really gonna divide this out into one of two types of recruiter that you are, or kind of where you're at in your recruiting career.
If you are relatively new to search, I'm gonna define that by, you've got less than two years of experience in traditional full desk recruiting.
That puts you in category one.
If you have two or more years of full desk recruiting or.
Have built over 200,000 in revenue in a consistent 12 months.
That puts you in category two.
Let me define what our goals are in each of those two categories.
Category one, the name of the game is volume.
Volume and Conversations.
Because if you are in your first couple of years, a full desk recruiting.
You don't know enough to know enough to differentiate a meaningful conversation from a regular conversation.
In fact, I would challenge you to say that within reason, every conversation that you have is meaningful.
You don't know enough about your niche.
You don't know enough about the players, you don't know enough about anything.
You need to spend your time.
Most days, all day, every day, trying to get everybody and anybody in your niche on the phone and just having conversations, period.
That's the name of the game.
Everything else in terms of your time needs to happen in non, what I'll call quote unquote non-work hours.
So we here thinking ahead, believe there's three times a day that you cannot be on the phone.
And be effective short-term and long-term in this role.
First thing in the morning before normal business hours.
If that's a great time.
If you're a morning person and you work well in the morning, great.
Do some sourcing, do some planning, do some LinkedIn invitations.
Anything that can happen behind the scenes that helps you build your business, that's a great time to do it Midday.
After you've had an opportunity for three and a half or four hours of phone time, that's a great time to step away from your desk, take a break, go for a walk, work out, feed the cat, watch the Netflix.
I don't care what you do.
Give yourself a brain break, and then before you jump back into the phone again, another 30 minutes to an hour of admin.
Process prep plan, whatever you need to.
Then in the afternoon, you should have another two or three hours of phone time, and then that third time is at the end of the day.
And by the way, admin work of course, is sourcing, finding phone numbers, sending out LinkedIn messages.
It can also be sending follow up emails.
Anything that doesn't.
Require you to be on the phone and, and things you shouldn't be doing while you're trying to be on the phone.
So you've got three different opportunities throughout the day to do that kind of behind the scenes work.
The rest of your time should be spent very actively, either on the phone or trying to get folks on the phone what that looks like in execution.
Absolutely.
Most folks can average between 10 and 15 calls an hour.
So if you work just traditional normal business hours, let's say you start at eight 30, so eight 30 to 1130, you're on the phone, you should be making 10, 15 calls an hour, recruiting calls, marketing calls, networking calls.
Again, I don't care who you're calling, as long as it's in your niche and it's helping you build your business, 1130, you step to the side, go eat lunch, do your workout, whatever.
Come back, do some admin work.
Prepare to be back on the horn by two o'clock, two to four or two to four 30.
You've got another two and a half hours of phone time, 10 15 calls each hour.
If you've got scheduled calls during that time, perfectly fine.
And then between four 30 and five 30 we do a wrap up.
We do emails, we do anything we need to do to feel good about the day.
That very realistically gives us about four to six hours of phone time every day, plus time to do all the behind the scenes work.
This is an ideal day for most new recruiters, and again, the name of the game is.
Volume and just talking to as many folks as you possibly can to be learning everything and anything you can, but also having that mentality of, I am building my business, I am building my database for future candidates, future clients, all of these things.
That's category one.
If you are in category two, again, you've been full desk recruiting two or more years, or you have billed more than 200 K in revenue in a consistent 12 months, this is where we really need to take this phone work to the next level.
This is where all of our administrative behind the scenes efforts.
Need to be setting up phone calls that are next level meaningful.
Here's the differentiator.
First couple years you just need to talk to everybody.
Bottom line, have lots and lots of conversations, or be trying to talk to everybody in your niche.
Once you get beyond that.
You need to be talking to folks when you get live on the phone.
You need to be talking with folks with one of three, and it can be multiples of these specific reasons for that call that day one.
You are actively calling a candidate to recruit them for a search that is on your desk.
Meaning you have done some behind the scenes work, which I'll get into what that looks like, and you are calling to either pitch them the opportunity or find out where they're at in their happy meter, if you will, but knowing that they could possibly be a fit for the search you're working on or searchers that you're working on.
Two, you are calling them to actively try and win business with them and their organization.
So marketing or biz dev, but with intention.
Then the third is what I'll call quote unquote network or referrals.
This is where we call key folks in the market that can provide us with information about what's happening in the market, give us insight to do a better job recruiting on certain searches.
We can ask them for referrals.
They can help, you know, be more targeted in our marketing or biz dev efforts.
Either way, you slice it, your time on the phone needs to be incredibly targeted, intentional.
Specific.
Now, what's super cool is you work your day the exact same way you did the first two years that you were building your business.
But this time, instead of all your behind the scenes things being just about volume and just getting anybody and everybody in your niche on the phone, it's incredibly targeted.
Hopefully if you've done the first couple of years, right?
You have thousands of folks that you're connected to on LinkedIn in your niche.
You have thousands of folks connected in your database.
Now we are going through and we're saying, okay, I'm working on searches right now, so my morning again, you can still plan it in the morning the way you do, but from eight 30 to nine 30, I'm gonna call on search a. From nine 30 to 10 30, I'm gonna call on search B.
From 10 30 to 1130, I'm gonna call on search C. Very targeted.
Then you take your break, take your lunch, do all those things.
Prep for the afternoon.
Afternoon.
Hey, from two to three I'm gonna make marketing and biz dev calls.
And then from three to four 30, I'm going to do all my follow up calls, process calls.
Process calls are things like preps, debriefs, profile calls, candidate presentations, anything that isn't, this sounds so redundant, but anything that happens once people are in process.
Then 5 30, 4 30 to five 30, you start your wrap up.
Again, you send emails that need to be sent.
You do follow up work, you plan for the next day, et cetera.
The biggest difference here between category one and category two is the intention behind the calls and what you do to set them up.
So, for example, when you are doing targeted calls, do the right prep work, reach out to them in your planning time on LinkedIn.
Say, Hey Tom, I've got a great search I'm working on.
I have no idea you're if you'd be interested or not, but I'm gonna reach out to you today to share with you what's going on.
And then you call Tom.
If he doesn't answer, you follow up with a text.
Hey Tom, following up from my voicemail, working on a really cool search.
Wanna make sure we connect what works well for you tomorrow or later this week?
Same thing with marketing.
Our biz dev, you're setting the calls up before you make them.
So that when you make them a, people are expecting your call.
Now, it doesn't mean they're going to answer.
They could be busy.
You could still catch 'em at the wrong time, or they're not interested.
It doesn't matter, but the likelihood of them taking your call or responding is higher.
And then the quality.
Of those conversations gets elevated because again, it's not a random cold call.
Now, please hear me say this, A random cold call is better than no call.
I would rather have somebody make 50 cold calls than send 50 really well word worded emails, texts, whatever the case may be.
There's a time and a place for all of that, but nothing takes the place of the actual phone call.
So as you navigate your next 30 days, I would love for you to really take a look at where am I in my career development, and am I acting accordingly?
Again?
What is so cool is as you elevate your phone work, your planning doesn't change, your schedule doesn't change.
It is just your bringing as at this point, you should be a more sophisticated approach to your phone time.
Now, let me share with you why this is so incredibly important as folks become more experienced and better at the job.
The biggest risk that we run into the, sometimes we call it the sophomore slump, or maybe when you've had a couple of good years, and then it just seems no matter what you do, you flatlined or you're not seeing the growth that you wanted or whatever the case may be.
The reason most often for that is we begin to kid ourselves and our phone time lapses instead of putting in the same effort that we did when we were building our business.
In the first couple of years, we start justifying that because we're so much.
Better at the job that we don't need to be on the phone as much.
We justify that now that we have more of a relationship with our candidates and our potential clients or clients, we can handle more things over email or text, or through LinkedIn.
This is a delusion.
The one thing we cannot and should not ever outsource as really good recruiters is the highest and best use of our skillset, and that's being on the phone.
I know it sounds crazy that I'm still gonna encourage you to do all your scheduling by phone.
I know I will get argued to the nth degree that you can set up interviews via email or text or whatever the case may be.
Yep.
You sure can.
If that's the absolute only way that you can nail down an interview time or whatever the case may be.
Sure.
However, if that does happen, you better make sure you've got a good live prep call because you didn't get to talk to that person while you were scheduling.
There's so much that you can learn and garner about a candidate's headspace or a client's headspace as you're scheduling an interview.
It makes it worth your time.
Yes, you could outsource it to an email, but you shouldn't.
You shouldn't.
So again, the reason why this is so important is because so often, once we see folks hit a certain level of success, it's almost like they.
Forget what made them so successful to begin with.
And when I talk to folks here at Thinking Ahead and other search firms and I ask them, Hey, how, how did you pull yourself outta this slump?
Or how did you really take your game to the next level?
This is the most common response that I get, and it's, they got real with themselves about their time on their phone, their intention behind being on the phone.
That's what got them to the next level of success.
So here at Thinking Ahead, if we can learn from others, we certainly want to.
So let me encourage you to take a look at a, how are you setting up your day?
How are you setting up your phone calls?
Where are you in your career development and progression, and is your phone work reflecting that appropriately?
Thanks so much.