Hey, everybody, it’s Richard Milligan, and welcome back to recruiting conversations. Today, we’re going to make it controversial, how is that for starting out? Not really kind of controversial but from time to time, on a topic that we’re going to talk about today which is internal and external recruiters, this piece will get challenged. And so if you want to send me an email, you probably can find my email address out there. I’m not that hard to find, but I’m more than happy to take feedback on this. My opinion on what I’m going to talk about which is recruiters, internal and external, do they work, and what the role should look like when partnering with the recruiting leader, and it just my opinions and give you some feedback on my experience, but also what I see in the market.
So I have a defined opinion based on my own personal experiences. Now, let’s just go back. I was at recruiting later from the time I was 27 years old to the find that I was 45, so I had a significant season where I built teams, but was also responsible for managing teams. And so that’s the definition of the recruiting leader, means that that leader manages a team but then is also responsible for recruiting for that team. I just didn’t have a lot of success with internal or external recruiters. That’s not to say that that can’t happen, but we’re going to talk a little bit about some statistical data today as well as just my own personal experiences and I’m going to give you some feedback on how you can best a navigate the Waters of the internal and external recruiter, okay?
So with that said, let’s just talk about, what does data say? Data says that in most Industries, the recruiting leader is the most successful recruiter. Now, some of you recruiting leaders out there right now that the struggle with this concept that recruiting should fall in your lap, that it should be more of a corporate role than it should be a you role, that’s not going to be very pleasing to your ears. But here’s what I know and my own personal experience. In the years that I spent as a recruiting leader, we can take 15 of those years in 1 industry. In that season as a recruiting leader, about 1 of every 10 hires came from internal recruiters and external recruiters. So even if they play a role inside recruiting for your team, if you have a big aspirations, the fastest way to accomplish those goals, those dreams, those aspirations, is to equip yourself, for you to become your own best recruiter. You know, I have people that connect with me through social media or even just via phone, via email, from time to time, and they wants to know like how do I go hire an external recruiter to recruit for me. And the truth is that, the external recruiter recruits well for the corporation, but very rarely do they recruit well for the team.
No, a lot of this goes to the methodology like the external recruiter and even to a larger degree, the internal recruiter is used when there are recruiting. What the methodology that they use is, typically, the company value proposition as the lead mind. So they are leading with the value of the company first, they formulated some ideas around it is, why it’s a better opportunity for you, why you should talk to someone at the company, and they try to sell that to the individual first and then they create the conversation. If you listen to any of my podcast, you know that’s not… that is not my belief model of what is best. The recruiting leaders team is best recruited to using their own attractive leadership. That’s where the conversation begins is with who you are as a leader, who you are as an attractive leader. So if I’m circumventing the leading with all that part and I’m actually leaving with company value proposition, then here’s what I’m doing. I am in essense loading every bullet that I have into my gun, I’m firing it at the recruit and I’m hoping something hits. I’m hoping there’s a hot button or I presented something in a specific light that says that, “My opportunity is better than your current opportunity.”
Now, we want to get into this, but there’s really always two types of opportunities in the world. There’s the opportunity Improvement offer and there is the new opportunity, okay? The opportunity Improvement offer says, “We’re a little bit better.” But even if you say, “We are a lot better,” you’re still the opportunity Improvement offer. You have to actually become the new opportunity. And the new opportunities that framework called attractive leadership. If you listen to my prior podcast, we talked about attractive leadership, right, that attractive leader has a vision, has clear core values, has defined beliefs, then can communicate that extremely well, story tells the worst, and then lives and acts in alignment with those, that attractive later, okay? The external and internal recruiter typically lead with company value proposition and that means they can recruit the unhappy, they can recruit will be satisfied. And if they presented in the correct light at the right moment, then they can also bring them into company value. What is the company value? The problem with that is that that is always dependent upon a number of things. It can be dependent upon how you present it, it can be dependent upon the mood that the recruit’s in or the moment they just had at the company. Something could have happened at that have changed how they view the company, and now you present your opportunity which being a little bit better, it may put them in, but it’s not the best way, it’s not the way that actually built relationship, creates longevity to that relationship that if you don’t get them that then allows you to have this very cohesive connective next to them that allows you to stay in front of them and it’s a 1-day have them inside your team. The best framework for that is very attractive leader frame work, right? And if so that’s what we present.
No, because the external recruiter and the internal recruiter typically lead with company value proposition, what I always recommend is this. So when I get brought in to do an audit on a organizations recruiting efforts, I’m not… I become this light to some degree by an internal recruiting person. And the reason why is because I believe the best relationship between that recruiting leader, the person who is managing the team that’s also going to have this person underneath their leadership, the best way to bring them to that is simply to have that recruiter become a dialer. Now, and when I say dialer, I don’t diminish the role the recruiter is playing, but you could also use another title which says that this person they recruiting assistant to the recruiting leader. They are doing research, they’re identifying people in the local market expression is leading in to determine who is a good fit and who is not a good fit and then we’re taking that information, we’re putting through a filter what I call a core value lens. That says, where is their alignment, okay? I saw this piece of information on Facebook. I saw this piece of information on LinkedIn. I noticed on Instagram. I didn’t organic Google search. Whatever industry to will you have, my industry that I came out of was mortgages. In mortgages, you had the Zillow, Zillow has a learning directory. You have Active Ring, you had Yelp, you had NMLS, you had all these tools. I can go look at these tools, I can go see your bio, I can go see your reviews of who you are, I can get a lot of information, even outside of Facebook and Instagram and Linkedin that are powerful pieces of information that tell me who you are.
When I call you, my phone script is going to be predicated on that, it’s going to be centered on that. “I did some research on you, I noticed are some similarities between you and me. Here’s what I saw. I’m not trying to recruit you, I’m trying to build a relationship with you.” The truth is that you start with relationship-building and so that is a high integrity phone script that you can use. So if I’m the recruiting later, I simply want a dialer, someone who can actually do the research someone who is going to actually make that phone call. And then the benefits of the dialer in this case, you know, typically the recruiting department is that there is a quick hand off. So it doesn’t all fall on the recruiter to convince the person, “Hey, by the way, I am interested and I’m ready to go,” it’s now, “I simply want you to talk to someone who actually sees the world through a similar lens as you, that has similar core values as you.” And that hand off is so much stronger and so much better, and then what comes from that is relationship building and the next steps because we are about the next steps. This isn’t about tricking somebody, this isn’t trickery to get somebody to the next step, it’s a very clear line of sight, it’s a very clear piece of integrity that you’ve incorporated into your recruiting efforts. Do your research, find out what they are core value lens is, if there’s alignment, then your phone script is simply, “I see where there is alignment between you and my local leader, I’d love to set you guys up for a conversation. Understand, they’re not going to recruit you and they’re not going to talk about the company, they simply want to meet you.” Understanding that when you leave, because most Industries have a 2 to 3 year window of time max that people actually stay inside a company, that when you leave, you’ve got a relationship with a trusted leader and you can pick up the phone and say, “Hey, Richard, I’m no longer in a place where I’m happy, I’m no longer in a place where I’m not interested, I am interested now. Can we talk?” And social systems is going to be a critical part of this because when we get them on the phone, when we get them to respond via text or whatever line of communication we are using, then the system becomes very important. What’s next? What’s next? What’s next?
So I would again use that word dialer. If I had.. if I was going to be able to something quickly and I was going to steal something quickly, I would go get people that knew nothing more than five minutes of what was going on inside the industry, I would give them a 5-minute education about the industry that I was having them dial into and I would have them dial and immediately connect that individual to my recruiting leader who is the leader they be working for. And that leader would be the one that would deliver the leadership of value proposition called attractive leadership and then move into next steps. We will not recruit in that first step. If you want to win at a really high level, then try this. Simply try it. Richard is not a know-it-all, Richard is someone who actually figured this out in a Lean Startup mindset. It means that, I tested this for 11 years. Really, I tested it for longer than that, but in one industry, tested it for 11 years. So if you want to spend the next decade learning it and the trying to build it the hard way, then just continue beating your head against a brick wall like I did for 11 years, because I’m not the smartest pencil in the box, obviously. What works best is bringing them in quickly through the lens of a leader, the leader than having the value proposition of the attractive leadership, being able to frame that correctly is critical, and then moving into next steps. You don’t recruit in that first step.
So hopefully that makes sense to you. That is my belief system around why recruiting leaders are so successful when you compare them to external and internal recruiters. And again, if you want the data on this, just shoot me an email and I’ll feed you some data on this. This is not just even an opinion, this was my life experience, once I am opinionated in this, this is industry data. No, there is a huge need for external recruiters, there is a he was need for internal recruiters. They play a critical role in the growth of every organization, but that was our separate pillars and what we were talking about on this podcast. This podcast is built around the recruiting leader frame work, okay? So if I’m a recruiting leader, I’ll open up my calendar, get full access to a dialer who is also going to be a researcher, I am going to turn them loose on a set number of tools that they can use to actually identify core values, where that person has been, what they have done, create some alignment they are in a very simple phone script, and off to the recruiting leader who is also an attractive leader, and so that attractive leader than needs to have strong framework for vision, core values, be able to story-tell what was in such a way that motivates people to go to our next step. And so now, you ask yourself the question, “What is my next step?” okay?
So great content here. If you will act on this, you will become a better recruiter, you will have more wins inside the lane of recruiting. And so with that said, until we meet again on the next podcast, I would love it if this brought value to you to share it with somebody that is inside your organization in a similar role. I would love if you would subscribe. We are doing two of these in a week, we’re doing these on Mondays and Thursdays now. Our goal by October 2019 is to have 100 on these on the platform that are accessible to you, and so we’re going to be delivering this content on a weekly basis. If you are finding value in it, then subscribe and also share with the people in your life that are in the recruiting leader roll. Until I meet you again, this is Richard Milligan with recruiting conversations, have a great week.
