Hi Danny,

I want to have you walk me through something here. On the last couple of deals I have been working on, I have been finding I am not getting sufficient candidate commitment. Of course, in my defense, I am working with strictly passive candidates. Now I have another situation where I am not sensing I have good control on the situation. Working with a client - Great company, great benefits (401K + Pension matching at 11% fully vested in 2 years) then there's the job... WOW - this is an amazing job! It's all new technical development in the latest technology. A very well funded project - great political capital to boot! Dream job! Except- Location, Location, Location. This client is located in the middle of nowhere. The Chief Technology Leader knows this. He's done a good job getting a very well planned out project and he's seeking my help to find him talent.

I have found a candidate who is an excellent match and is in a degree of career pain. He's also very interested in the...

Hi Danny,

Ever heard of the term "After Action Report"? And have you ever created one for Job Orders (closed as well as lost)? Would be a great tool.

Danny's response:

Yesterday I heard a speaker say "co-create" four times in two minutes. It's clearly the new buzzword so he's in love with it, but after the fourth time, I went to the cafe to co create some coffee and Advil. Everyone calls the same things something different to escape the ennui.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "After Action", though it sounds vaguely like the Spectravision menus on the TV hotels, but we have always had Post Mortem meetings, where we go over deals that we won and more importantly deals that we lost, so we could glean patterns and issues. How did we get the candidate? What were their motivations for leaving and did they stay consistent? Was there a counter offer and how did we cover it? What was the negotiating like and how did we frame the close? It's a great way for other recruiters to live...

Hi Danny,

When should a decision to present a candidate turn on second-hand information?

I was arranging a candidate interview for my favorite client. Knowing that the candidate is as strong-willed as the woman he would be working alongside, I suggested that my client get her input before his sit-down with the candidate. The word came back that “he’s arrogant and a sexual harassment case waiting to happen.” Alrighty then. I give the candidate a plausible excuse for not going forward and I back away.

Today I get a call from an employer whose position is a great match for this candidate. “Arrogant” is a) in the eye of the beholder, and b) not such a bad thing for this particular employer. “Sexual harassment case waiting to happen” is something else. I have met the candidate briefly, and never in any situation that would let me judge this fairly. It’s second-hand, though from someone I know and respect (and placed in her current...

Hi Danny: 

I have a candidate who my client loves. They interviewed them on a Wednesday and extended an offer the next day. 

The candidate likes the company and may be getting another offer from a competing company, but it hasn't come and the candidate thought it was coming today. The candidate is at $70k and needs to be at $80k to accept the job. This is due to a longer commute - an additional 30 minutes and her current company pays 100% of her health insurance premiums. The new company does not. I've shared with the client that the candidate would not accept anything less than $80k. They extended an offer of $75k. Prior to the offer being extended I told the candidate that the client is targeting someone at $70k and that I expected the offer to come in at $70k - $72k. 

The reason the candidate is moving is because she feels stagnant and lacking upward mobility. She believes the new company will provide her more upward mobility. 

Any suggestions on how I can...

Hi Danny: 

Just last week we had 2 accepted offers go south. And we have had offers not accepted. One took a counter offer after accepting and the other wanted a loan and to moonlight and the client was considering the loan but not the moonlighting. Any way to save? (It is too late now, but curious what we can do to avoid these challenges?) 

AccordingToDanny replies: 

As disheartening as it is to lose deals like this, try to remember what it was like when it was less candidate centric, when unemployment was 3 times as high as it is now, and clients had no interest in paying your fees. This market is hard, in its way, but it is a playground in the big picture. You’ll have more turndowns because candidates, according to a Marist Poll, overwhelmingly (84%) say they have no fear of losing their job and even less fear of getting another one. The chips on their shoulders are real and they are not going away soon. 

Without you giving me the details of the...

Hi Danny,

What activities and metrics are average for retained search? We're a retained firm and so many of the metrics you track don't make sense for our model (i.e. Sendouts). Still, retained firms must track their productivity. What should we track and what are the averages in a good economy and in one such as this?

Danny's response,

About half of our work is also retained, and the only difference in metrics we allow for is the length of the process. The higher level jobs are going to take longer and usually have more meetings. (Flying in a spouse to look at real estate and schools, meeting the entire management team a second time, etc.) So we expect a sendout to placement range to be 25-33% longer. We also expect the presentation to send out ratio to be practically 100%, since neither you nor the company have any motivation to present or interview a candidate that is marginal. (Whereas in contingent, we often do so to protect ourselves). The makeup of a recruiter's "hot...

Hi Danny,

Hey Danny - what do you do when your candidate after my follow up who just passed the guarantee period with a Fortune 500 company tells you:

"Just between us…I am not really happy here. It's starting to feel a bit like prison… :( So if you have other similar positions I may consider moving in a few months. But not before you receive your bonus for this transaction. :) If you'd like, please give me a call tonight after 7pm, I will discuss with you in more detail."

My response was: "Thanks for your feedback. Sorry to hear that you have had a bad experience. Unfortunately, there is not much I can do for you - but to recommend for you to talk with your hiring manager about this after you give it a bit more time to see if things get better."

Anything else I should have done to cover it better?

Danny's Response,

While you handled this like a virtuoso from an ethical point of view, from a consultative, empathetic point of view, you were tone deaf.

He/she is not...

Hi Danny,

Danny, I have been a "follower" of yours for many years(I think I have some of your older training materials on papyrus). You are one of the few trainers/owners that have been in the thick of things over the last 15-20 years (maybe longer?) and have seen the impact of new technology on our industry such as the internet, email and job boards such as Monster. I was wondering, as you face a class of new recruiters now vs. facing a class of new recruiters 15-20 years ago, is there anything really fundamentally different that you would say to them about our industry or teach them differently? If so, please share that with me. If not, maybe things really have not changed that much and the "basics" are always the same. I would be interested in your comments not only from the perspective of how a recruiter spends his day now vs. then but also from the perspective of how a hiring manager might view our services now vs. then and from the perspective of how a candidate looking for a...

Hi Danny,

I'm a new recruiter, not responsible for getting job orders...but only to find qualified candidates to present to our clients.

In your numbers and goals section you have a ratio explaining how may marketing calls you need to make to get a job order...is this the same number of candidate calls you feel you need to make to find qualified people that agree to be submitted?

Danny's response:

Your ratio of live connects should be, depending on your niche (data scientists have no phones at work, no cell, no connect), considerably better than the ration of live connects on a cold marketing call. But whether it is 25% better or 50% better depends on your methods.
When you are in a job board, where candidates are active, your call back ratio will be extremely high.

A LinkedIn List, once you have the phone numbers transposed, will be slightly higher than a marketing call, but you have the saturation factor to deal with.

A completely cold recruiting call will average about the...

Hi Danny,

I need some ammo for my newbies that think they can be massively successful in our business without making a lot of phone calls. I am having trouble convincing them that our worth, to our client, is based on finding the passive, local candidates rather than searching the internet. Please give me some strong language!

Danny's response,

Boy, did you pick the right day to submit this question. I just got out of a staff meeting where I kicked butt on this same subject. If your newbies could have been flies on the wall, they would have heard:

Our closing ratios have tripled. That is, we are sending out three times as many people as we used to in order to close a deal. Where are we getting the ones that turn down jobs and change their minds on whims and flat out use us to leverage other offers? The Internet. My people complain that I cannot be satisfied, that our sales are very high. But we are working way too hard for the amount of activity we have, and the slightest downturn...