6 Tips for Improving Recruiting Calls

Marc Benioff, Founder of Salesforce, says that, “acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was – and still is – the most important thing we do.” We couldn’t agree more with Marc. Successful business empires have been built and destroyed by human capital. History is filled with such success and horror stories, and recruiters have always been the key protagonists in all of them.

However, the last couple of years have been particularly tumultuous for recruiters due to the pandemic. Recruiters started experiencing issues such as:

• Long hiring times
• Bad hires
• The burgeoning gap between demand and supply of candidates
• Inability to get the attention of the candidates
• A scarcity of qualified candidates for the job
• Competitors gaining access to candidates
• Picky nature of hiring managers

As a direct consequence, recruitment practices, particularly recruiting calls, have suffered.

Mistakes Committed by Recruiters in Recruiting Calls

Here are the key mistakes committed by recruiters during recruiting calls:

• Insufficient planning
• Inability to engage the candidate throughout the call
• Too much talking without listening
• Too much selling
• A shaky start
• Inability to pitch
• A lack of clear objectives
• Giving up easily
• Failure to achieve objectives
• Making calls to the wrong prospects
• A lack of research

This is where the need for improving recruitment calls arises. In this post, we bring you not one but six tips to help recruiters.

6 Tips to Improve Recruitment Calls

Here are some battle-tested tips to improve the outcomes of your recruitment calls…

1. Get the Opening Right

As the old adage goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. It’s absolutely necessary to present yourself well right away in the recruitment process. It is important to speak with confidence and bring energy to the call from the moment you say hello, and you should not come across as too bossy.

Speaking clearly and getting your point across with accuracy during the opening will improve your results. No one has the patience to listen for an extended period of time, so keep your opening crisp and succinct.

Here are some essential components of your opening:

• Greet the candidate
• Give a proper introduction of yourself and the company
• Be courteous and ask if it’s the appropriate time to speak.
• Give a two-second summary of the call’s purpose
• If the candidate is a referral, then mention who referred them.

It’s a good idea to practice what you’re going to say before making the call.

2. Make a Quick Judgment of the Candidate’s Interest

Once you have got the opening right, slowly get to know their interest in the role and the company. There is no point in pursuing someone who is not interested in the role. That’s time and money wasted for everyone. So ask appropriate questions during the first few minutes and get an idea about what they think about the opportunity. You can be quite transparent about it and ask the candidate directly instead of beating around the bush. It shows that you value your time and respect the candidate’s time.

3. Sell – But Don’t Oversell – Your Company

Though not many agree, recruitment calls are actually like a sales pitch. You need to sell the role and the company to the candidates more often than you think. Many recruiters are completely oblivious to the fact that not everyone is looking to work with them at that time. Some candidates may already have a better offer in hand. So you must compete with those offers by demonstrating why your company is the best choice for them. Mention the benefits your company can provide for the specific job. When highlighting this, be as transparent as possible. But more importantly, ensure that you do not oversell it, as the candidates might feel repelled by your pushiness.

4. Use the Power of Technology

We are living in an era that is dominated by technology. Hence it’s hard to keep it away from any organizational process, let alone the recruitment process. The best way to embrace technology in recruitment calls is through cloud telephony, also known as unified communications as a service (UCaaS). It lets you use the internet to make recruitment calls. You can make voice calls and share files under one unified platform. Such unified communication solutions can be integrated with tools such as an ATS. Call recordings are invaluable because you can listen to them to understand what went right and what went wrong during your past calls, so you can improve future calls. These recordings also give your team the opportunity to listen to the recordings of successful recruiters in your organization to see how they handle different situations.

5. Ask For a Referral

You never know how you’ll find the right candidate for the job, and sometimes it’ll be through the wrong person. So, when you’re on the phone with a potential candidate, and you discover they’re not a good fit for the job or they are not interested, instead of abruptly ending the call, ask if they know anyone in their circle who might be interested. Referrals not only reduce the time and cost of hiring but also improve the overall quality of candidates who apply. 67% of recruiters confirmed that their recruiting time was shortened considerably due to referrals, while 51% percent said it lowered their costs.

6. Communicate Results With Every Candidate – Even Those Who are Not Selected

One common mistake all recruiters make is not informing the candidate about the result after the first recruitment call. Most recruiters tend to be enthusiastic and energetic at first, but when they find newer prospects for the position, they fail to update the candidates who were previously contacted for this position. This is a terrible thing to do, and you should avoid it at all costs. According to a study, 94% of candidates want feedback after an interview, even if they have been rejected for the role. So, maintain a positive relationship with the candidate so that they have a good impression of your company even if they are not hired.

Summary

If you can confidently market the role and your company to a candidate in a recruitment call, the chances of converting them into an employee are pretty high. It is important to engage with candidates throughout each call and embrace the latest technologies to make the recruitment calls successful. More importantly, keep learning from your mistakes.

As they say – In recruitment, there are no good and bad experiences, just learning experiences.