Catch Up, Would You?

Hi Danny,

We are having issues across the board with clients not wanting to pay our candidates the going rate. Our clients haven't felt the shift in the market like we have. They still feel like they can pay pennies on the dollar!
How are you having your recruiters educate your clients on the shifting market?

Danny's response:

This is best done in the taking of the job order. Late in the job order. Give the client the sense this call is over, the heavy lifting done, all the relevant info has been shared, the requisite parrying over the fee and bonding between your personalities complete, “Okay, thanks for your time, I know you’re busy, I’ll let you go…”

“Uh, just one more thing.” Pause. Then, just to set the mood. “And if we can’t agree on this and you want to use another firm, I will totally understand, but I just can’t chance this after all the recent nightmares.”

Then shut up. Let them ask you what the hell you’re talking about?

“I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can’t be all things to all people. I can be an excellent recruiter, or I can be an excellent market research and pundit. I can’t be both. I can’t spend my time trying to educate clients about the current market realities. This is a candidate driven market. Not only is the economy growing, look at housing and Wall St, but the best candidates are being locked down with preemptive raises and benefits by their companies. I can only work with companies who have been keeping up and know we have to compete for talent. If I spend my time bringing you up to speed after the fact, you’ll lose the best people. I’m sure you know all this, but I didn’t want to assume anything.”

Then let them fall all over themselves claiming they know ALL of this and they haven’t been living under a rock and they get that they have to win candidates over.

Then mark the time and date of the call. Send them an email synopsis of the call and mention breezily that you appreciated them listening to your sermon about the degree of difficulty in getting the best candidates, and when they respond, now in writing, that they understand (you can attach the recent CareerBuilder articles on the subject or any of a number of Internet articles reinforcing the point), you bring the convo and the email back up when they get stingy with your candidates.

In time they would come to this themselves. But that’s a lot of turndowns and cardiac arrest from now. Don’t wait.