My problems with new clients

Starting with new clients is painful. Building the right hiring culture is key to my success as a recruiter.

This article can be useful for every experienced recruiter who recently joined a new company and who is dreaming to start feeling comfortable well before the end of their probation period (usually it’s 3 months).

I work in the embedded recruitment team and we don’t have the luxury of 3 months or even 2 months of adaptation period. Our usual contract takes no more than 6 months and after that we need to replace ourselves. So we have to deliver fast and we’re experiencing all adaptation issues at a very high speed as well.

My first project as an embedded recruiter was for the educational British startup Aula. Tris Revill invited me to join him on this adventure to hire 35 developers in 20 weeks. It was a crazy ride but I joined a very trained and prepared team because Tris started work with them a month earlier.

Now we’ve started to work for a new client together from the very beginning and I experienced how client onboarding really looks and how painful it can be. Buuuut….we are growth hackers, and after 3 weeks of close collaboration with the hiring managers and the tech team, I can see significant improvements and I’m glad to share how we achieved it.

6 main problems we face every time with a client

1.They already hate recruiters

Previous consultants or in-house recruiters messed up a lot so they hired us. But we are recruiters also, and at the start in the client’s opinion “recruiters are all the same”.

2. Don’t understand how hiring actually work

It seems to be a magic or a lucky coincidence, and it’s hard to convince that recruitment can be a very simple and predictable process (if you do it right). BTW, transparency and predictability of the hiring process are some of the main attributes of the healthy pipeline, after its efficiency, of course.

3. Bad definition who they are looking for

We need to start from taking requirements and clarifying them from the very beginning, so usually we can’t use the accomplishments of our predecessors and we have to start from scratch.

4. No brand recognition

It’s one of the most painful things. According to the Intent-Based Talent Acquisition Model we can get from applications the most of hirings. If the company doesn’t have a presence on the job market we are losing more than 50% of the chance to hire the right people quickly.

5. Applicant tracking system

Usually it does not exist or it is a nightmare or the client’s team does not know how to use it properly. We can offer to replace the system, but more often we teach the client how to use what they already have.

5. Recruiting is the recruiters job not a team sport

It’s a strong myth that recruiters do hiring. We can only facilitate the process. Hiring managers and interviewers do hiring by selling positions to the candidates and taking final decisions.

Here is how we solve the problems on the GHR team

Explain how hiring actually works

We are very honest and do not envelope our work into a haze of mystery. Recruitment is simple. The secret is to do it right. We are explaining hiring technology in every meeting with a client’s team and declaring that following the technology gives you results.

Teach them that hiring is a team sport

For me it’s the most important part. As the recruitment process is a chain of actions, a mistake at any stage can lead to failure. So our goal is to create a real hiring team from tech interviewers, hiring managers and recruiters.

Build trust slowly

As I mentioned before, a new client doesn’t trust recruiters in general. As soon as you start performing your normal recruiter’s job and show good candidates, they start trust you.

Source with them to define profiles

I just love to do it. During a mutual sourcing session with the Tech team I can learn a lot from them and also demonstrate my trips & tricks and show how sourcing actually works. 

The most important things behind finding good profiles and reaching them out is building team spirit and good collaboration.

So onboarding of a new client can be painful and that’s perfectly natural. No worries.

If you consider it as a transformational period, and observe how everything changes when you are moving into the right direction, this stage will teach you a lot and will be enjoyable.

It becomes an alchemical process of turning the lead of mistrust into the gold of a close-knit team.

Follow me on LinkedIn and on my Medium blog for more recruiting tips .