I have been a recruiter for 15 years, starting out within the Professional Services side of the house where recruiting was more the “churn and burn” atmosphere, then transitioned in-house to be part of a growing software company where we hired over 150 folks within one year.

I love what I do and am very passionate about the hiring process and assisting my clients in finding the best talent available for their organizations. I feel that a company’s most important asset is their people and that you cannot overstate the value of an excellent match between employee and employer.

How we go about doing that, however, can vary greatly from recruiting firm to recruiting firm. What might work for one person does not necessarily work for another.

Over the years what has consistently worked for me is to be transparent with both my clients and my candidates.

As I mentioned, the importance of this process is too fragile to jeopardize by not being transparent. A poor match can impact a company’s ability to meet its goals.

It’s a challenging process and one that people need to trust. I am quickly able to build that important trust into a situation with a new client by being transparent. I am upfront with my clients and set very clear expectations around what I need from them to be effective and to perform the most effective search. I am clear on time-lines and expected delivery dates to ensure I can bring them what they need in the time they need it. I also take the time to understand their business, which always helps me find the correct match from a cultural perspective.

To me, being transparent with clients and candidates is sharing and being real with them; there are no hidden agendas.

I share what is happening in my life and within the market. I let them know what is going on around me so there are no assumptions. This builds trust and gives me the opportunity to learn who they are, and what their “hot buttons” are. This helps me better position the opportunity to the candidate and the candidate to the client.

So if I am at one of my kid’s soccer games and just happen to be on the phone with a client, or closing a candidate, I let them know it.

I am transparent.

I share with them that I am real and I face the same challenges and hurdles that they do in life.

In turn, as I share I also take an active interest in what is going on with them as well. Not just around this opportunity, because that would not be genuine. I want to be real and to be perceived as real by the people I am working with. This active interest helps me to build trust and rapport and makes the process smoother.

This transparency assists me in gaining insight on both the client and the candidate. It is a skill that takes time to develop.

You need to become comfortable with your approach and practice your craft. Never lose sight of the fact that as a recruiter, you are helping two parties make a very important and often, very personal decision. To help them you need to understand who they are and how they think.

Taking the first step by being transparent with your own life is the first step to getting the process started.

Clients who lose their funding, change their minds, or don’t fully understand what it will take to get a person into their positions abound. So what can you do about it?

Many trainers will tell you to “take control” of the situation, but with the news proclaiming higher and higher unemployment numbers, that has become easier said than done. And with searches becoming scarce, walking away is harder and harder.

Instead, turn your process over and gain control, help your client understand what’s involved, and identify the challenges up front.

To quote Stephen R. Covey: “Begin with the end in mind.”

Start the process with an eye to the offer letter. What are the main components of a good offer letter? A nice “Welcome to the team” message, a high-level overview of the position, some basic expectations, salary and benefit information including relocation, and an expected start date.

Let’s look at each one of these:

The “Welcome Aboard” message. Typically this is a boilerplate message at the top of an offer letter, but companies should be using this as a beginning of their onboarding process. Making a real statement about why the company wants someone in this position can make a real difference. As you take the search information, keep an ear open for the things you can include in that opening paragraph.

High-level overview of the position. Getting this down early in the process can help avoid a multitude of problems. As a benefit to the recruiter, saying this back to the person giving you the search can show you were listening well enough to summarize, give you the opportunity to demonstrate your understanding, and clarify any other issues. Once you have it confirmed by the client, you have your explanation of the position for candidates. Because it was discussed upfront and agreed to by the client, there is a clear understanding of the type of candidate you are finding. If there is a change later, all parties should recognize it was a change from the original discussion. Look at this from another angle. You’ve taken a search from a client but the job description is all over the place. You are trying to do the high-level overview but you are having problems. So you ask the client to summarize. If the client can’t successfully summarize, there is a problem with the search. At that point, ask to include others in the discussion, ask additional questions, or redirect the conversation back to the most important aspects and rank them. If the client does give you a summary, you can then see what you missed in the information or what contradicts their summary and have additional discussion. Either way, you know you understand the search as it is defined in that moment.

Expectations. We all know how important it is to make sure candidate and client expectations match. But which expectations are important enough they should be in writing? Having this at the beginning of the search can dramatically change your focus when sourcing candidates. Also, the discussion identifying these is a great time to clarify details about the search.

Salary, benefits, and relocation information. We’re all probably good at asking for this upfront so this is nothing new, but think about how to use it in the sales process. How can you word the compensation in the offer letter so the candidate is excited about it? What unique benefits does the company offer that a candidate may get excited about? And of course, be completely clear on relocation. Understanding exactly what is covered and how it is managed can make all the difference as you work on the search.

Anticipated start date. An expected start date is a great tool to use in framing the search. Although a start date isn’t set in stone, discussing this when you take the search helps establish a timeline and it is easy to back up from that date to determine when interviews need to happen and more. Clients who think the process takes too long get a real education when discussing the potential start date as they realize it isn’t the recruiter holding up the process. Discussing this at the beginning of the search also shows the recruiter’s commitment.

It is highly likely that the client already has a standard format for an offer letter, and therefore, won’t want to use your form letter.

That’s fine, but you may be able to give them some unique ideas. Once you complete the search-taking process, sending over a sample offer letter with these components, demonstrating a true understanding of the position and the needs, confirming the big expectations, and targeting a specific start date sets you apart from the competition.

Which, as you can see, really is beginning with the end in mind.

In an attempt to stay afloat in this shaky economy, many businesses are taking a close look at their operating processes, reevaluating their hiring needs, and determining how best to obtain top-notch talent.

As you are well-aware, these companies have also taken a good, hard look at their current relationships to determine which are aiding them in reaching established goals and which are impeding progress.

To remain market leaders in their fields, companies must look for ways to rehabilitate, re-train, and enhance in order to address today’s unique talent needs.

Management really has to break down the entire process and make a best guess as to what it will be in the future. This future must be determined with as much acumen and forethought as possible, getting away from the “business as usual” blueprint and stepping outside the box into a new realm of creative and rejuvenating prospects.

During this coming of age of talent acquisition, retention, and development, hiring authorities should be on the lookout to attract new, diverse skills while retaining and further developing those skills that will continue to keep the company ahead of the pack. As companies look to attract new talent, it is imperative they first contemplate current and future goals, and then determine the characteristics needed in the new hire to help achieve those goals. Truth be told, if companies really take the time to assess talent needs, they may be presently surprised at what they might find right under their noses. Associates may have abilities and interests vital to the new direction of the company that have not been utilized.

As clients become more creative and forward-thinking, they will expect the same from their search providers. As top search providers, we should always be in sync with what is going on around us and strive to cultivate the skills necessary to advance and transform client talent needs.

As technology continues to advance and our world gets smaller, clients will pay more and more attention to what we do, how we do it, and how we put out the big fires.

Two questions we must ask ourselves:

1. Are we providing the best service possible to clients?
2. Are we supportive to clients or are we concentrating on our own business-development needs?

Many companies have an Artic approach to hiring during this economic downturn. Companies in the financial services arena have had potential searches frozen for up to a year. Many search consultants have seen this same pattern in other industries, with no thaw in sight.

Search firms are closing their doors all over the country, and many who haven’t closed have either cut staff to the bare bones or partnered with other firms in order to offer clients more bang for their buck. The companies that are making the paradigm shift from the single business transaction to developing a mutually beneficial, long-term partnership are ahead of the game.

Supporting our clients means more than just filling a job order. In order to find the right talent, search firms must fully understand the strategic, financial, and operational issues the client is facing, along with thorough due diligence and needs assessment expectations regarding the candidates’ backgrounds, abilities, and competencies, potential compensation arrangements, and related information.

During these economic times, companies are learning to do more with less. Search firms must seek multi-faceted talent who can not only fulfill the client’s current needs, but also has the bonus attributes to assist in the company’s 10-year plan.

Supporting clients also means finding innovative ways to provide clients with invaluable resources and information by which to make more informed decisions. Examples of these resources include:

• Providing companies with the latest research in leadership development, management audits, and compensation structures.
• Coaching clients on how to gauge, cultivate, and attract the best available talent.

The Era of Simply Locating Talent Is Over

Clients in the market for a search provider are looking beyond a brand — they are looking for providers with a more expansive reach and marked success who want to invest in their company and in educating them so they can make better-informed decisions. They want search providers who LISTEN to their goals and aspirations, and partner with them to ensure they deliver the type of candidate who will best suit the company’s needs.

An effective relationship can only be established if the client is fully able to trust the search provider’s ability to be honest not only with them, but also with the candidates. Search firms that continue to be generous with their time, resources, and experience through the economic downturn will find themselves well-compensated when the market turns around.

These same attributes also go a long way toward satisfying candidates. I’ve spoken with many candidates who’ve relayed instances where search consultants didn’t want to return their calls because they’d been laid off, having forgotten that prior to the economic downturn, these same consultants were “blowing up” their phones with presentations of the “perfect” opportunity.

Indeed, many of these candidates had once been prime clients. It is imperative that search consultants remain aware of this fact — candidates have friends who are clients. These clients are monitoring how candidates are being treated. This unprofessional behavior will only foster ill will with both candidates and clients.

When dealing with candidates, we must ask ourselves:

1. Are we providing candidates every resource we have available to assist them in their career goals?
2. Are we being creative in the assistance we provide? Are we exhausting every avenue?

There are two areas in which search firms must excel with EVERY candidate; we must prove ourselves trustworthy and show creativity in our process. Trust is the main ingredient in the search consultant/candidate relationship, and if that trust is lost, it is impossible to be effective.

We must also be creative in our approach, thinking outside the box to locate non-traditional opportunities that may be more readily available in today’s job market.

Consider implementing the following ideas:

• Assist candidates in taking advantage of their network of peers, friends, and family to flush out unique and rewarding opportunities.
• Help them re-tool their resumes for non-traditional opportunities. Once the market improves, candidates will remember the search consultants who, even though they had no opportunities to present, were generous with their time, educating the candidates on what they were seeing in the market and counseling them on how to better position themselves to be considered for a wide array of new positions. In other words, they worked to establish and nurture a relationship for the long term.

One thing is for sure — change is unavoidable. If you don’t prepare for it, you will have to react to it. It is paramount that clients continue to assess their needs and focus on how to locate, attract, retain, and evolve their best talent.

Search consultants must adapt to their current environment because they will continue to be judged on their willingness and ability to be in sync with the changes occurring around them.