Tuesday
Mar012011
You're asking me? Did you check LinkedIn?
SteveMaybe the job market is heating up.
In the last three days I’ve been contacted by three separate recruiters; two agency, and one corporate, inquiring about my interest and availability for opportunities they wanted to present. That’s pretty cool - and probably equals the number of cold calls I have received in the last several months combined.
Each call went more of less exactly the same - (Aside: I shockingly answered my phone for all three calls, which for me is some kind of record):
Recruiter : Hi Steve - this is Joe/Mary/Sue from XYZ Company - how are you today?
Steve - I am fantastic, how are you?
Recruiter - Very well. Steve, I came across your resume on (choose from the following: Monster/Careerbuilder/Dice/ ‘my files’) and I wanted to talk to you about an opportunity I am working on.
Steve - Sure.
Note - I don’t bother with the silly ‘How did you find me/get my phone number?’ questions. It is their job to find people. I am pretty easy to find. And I am sure there is a ‘Steve’ resume out there on all those sites, I bet some of them have been floating around for years.
Recruiter - So tell me, what are you doing these days? Are you working full-time? Are you contracting or consulting?
Steve - Well, I sort of do a number of things, I'm keeping very busy.
At this point I am basically stalling, because I genuinely want to know if the Recruiter really doesn’t know what I am doing, or they are using Recruiter jedi mind-trick #7 and attempting to see if what I say matches what they ought to know about me, (that's assuming that since they are calling me about an opportunity, they should know something about me).
Recruiter - Aren’t we all? Ha-Ha-Ha. So let me tell you about what I am working on, it is a contract/position/engagement at …..... Is this something you may be interested in? Can I send some more information to you about the position?
Steve - Sure, send me the information, you have my email don’t you? No? It is steveboese@gmail.com. If it is something I am interested in, I will get back to you.
Recruiter - Great, I will and thanks. Have a nice day.
Steve - You as well.
And Scene.
Three recruiting cold calls, each essentially following the same script. Sort of indistinguishable from each other, with all three marked by (at least the expressed) lack of awareness by the recruiter of anything about me other than what they have learned from whatever source information or document, some certainly several years old, that they were working from. Did you take a minute to ‘Google’ me? Scope my profile on LinkedIn?
Again, I have never been a recruiter, so maybe that feigned ignorance is a standard trick to feel out a prospect, and to get them talking about themselves in hopes they will reveal some insights that will help the recruiter make a quick decision whether to engage or to cut and run and move on to the next call.
But to me, the ‘prospect’, it just seemed lazy. In a world where information - updated, real-time information at that, is everywhere; the notion that a prospect should have to update a cold-calling recruiter as to ‘What they’ve been up to’ seems almost archaic.
These days, and certainly for professionals that are candidates for the kinds of jobs I was called about, shouldn’t the recruiter have told me all about me? Are my eyes really blue?
Heck, I am the last person you should ask if you want to know what I am up to.
In the last three days I’ve been contacted by three separate recruiters; two agency, and one corporate, inquiring about my interest and availability for opportunities they wanted to present. That’s pretty cool - and probably equals the number of cold calls I have received in the last several months combined.
Each call went more of less exactly the same - (Aside: I shockingly answered my phone for all three calls, which for me is some kind of record):
Recruiter : Hi Steve - this is Joe/Mary/Sue from XYZ Company - how are you today?
Steve - I am fantastic, how are you?
Recruiter - Very well. Steve, I came across your resume on (choose from the following: Monster/Careerbuilder/Dice/ ‘my files’) and I wanted to talk to you about an opportunity I am working on.
Steve - Sure.
Note - I don’t bother with the silly ‘How did you find me/get my phone number?’ questions. It is their job to find people. I am pretty easy to find. And I am sure there is a ‘Steve’ resume out there on all those sites, I bet some of them have been floating around for years.
Recruiter - So tell me, what are you doing these days? Are you working full-time? Are you contracting or consulting?
Steve - Well, I sort of do a number of things, I'm keeping very busy.
At this point I am basically stalling, because I genuinely want to know if the Recruiter really doesn’t know what I am doing, or they are using Recruiter jedi mind-trick #7 and attempting to see if what I say matches what they ought to know about me, (that's assuming that since they are calling me about an opportunity, they should know something about me).
Recruiter - Aren’t we all? Ha-Ha-Ha. So let me tell you about what I am working on, it is a contract/position/engagement at …..... Is this something you may be interested in? Can I send some more information to you about the position?
Steve - Sure, send me the information, you have my email don’t you? No? It is steveboese@gmail.com. If it is something I am interested in, I will get back to you.
Recruiter - Great, I will and thanks. Have a nice day.
Steve - You as well.
And Scene.
Three recruiting cold calls, each essentially following the same script. Sort of indistinguishable from each other, with all three marked by (at least the expressed) lack of awareness by the recruiter of anything about me other than what they have learned from whatever source information or document, some certainly several years old, that they were working from. Did you take a minute to ‘Google’ me? Scope my profile on LinkedIn?
Again, I have never been a recruiter, so maybe that feigned ignorance is a standard trick to feel out a prospect, and to get them talking about themselves in hopes they will reveal some insights that will help the recruiter make a quick decision whether to engage or to cut and run and move on to the next call.
But to me, the ‘prospect’, it just seemed lazy. In a world where information - updated, real-time information at that, is everywhere; the notion that a prospect should have to update a cold-calling recruiter as to ‘What they’ve been up to’ seems almost archaic.
These days, and certainly for professionals that are candidates for the kinds of jobs I was called about, shouldn’t the recruiter have told me all about me? Are my eyes really blue?
Heck, I am the last person you should ask if you want to know what I am up to.
Reader Comments (7)
it's also interesting how people (recruiters and other) sometimes don't acknowledge the things we see on eachother's blog/facebook/twitter pages. we prefer to stalk. we read in private and try to keep that knowledge private.
there is an embarrassment for us to admit: yeah, i actually read what you put out there. i am interested in what you have to say to the world.
i love when people tell me they've read ... and i try to be honest and tell people when i've read their stuff.
Hi Col - I agree with you on that point. I think there is some element of personal image building (misguided, I think) at play as well. If I am trying to carefully cultivate an image as a serious minded business person, then I am not sure I want too much awareness of what I am reading or thinking about in matters unrelated to 'serious business'. Many folks end up coming off as really boring and one-dimensional because of it, when the most interesting things about most people are the things you'd never expect, and the things about them that break the mold so to speak. Well, thanks Col, I am a big fan of your stuff as I hope you know.
Cold calling someone in this digital age really is quaint. Or archaic. Not sure it's lazy but at a minimum it's wicked inefficient.
Of course Kelly Dingee does digitial sourcing for us, so everthing looks quaint by comparison, but I digress.
We live in a world of snap-judgements, so first impressions matter now more than ever. I can get a Chief Operating Officer to answer an email about 20 times faster than a phone call - if I give them the right information, right up front. I like that kind of lazy.
Interesting post--I wrote about LinkedIn as well early last month. It's a shame people don't use it as much as they could. There are over 80 million people on LinkedIn--staffing agencies and recruiters should really be taking advantage.
You can read my post at:
http://www.bondtalent-us.com/supply-chains/5-ways-staffing-professionals-can-leverage-linkedin/
@Bob - Thanks, and I know Kelly, and if she ever cold-called someone, she already would have all the answers!
@Tim - Thanks for sharing that information with us.
Hey Bob Corlett, You couldn't be more wrong about that. Of course digital means are great these days, but the point of this post is how bad the recruiters were. Recruiter laziness is relying solely on digital means, and not cold calling prospects. Recruiting success is based on personal contact and relationships, which digital will never replace.
To actually be speaking to the individual (how archaic) you seek is much more powerful than an email, inmail or other digital "poke". This recruiter wasted the ultimate opportunity of personal contact.
In the hands of a skillful recruiter, these cold calls could easily have been turned into value, through resulting referrals or converting the candidate from passive to active.
Those "quaint" recruiters that actually pick up the phone and talk to prospects will always out convert your email and inmail or text messages.
Give the phone a try, you might be surprised!
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