Placing a candidate shouldn't be the end of the relationshipPosted over 2 years ago by Nick Boulton

Building relationships with potential candidates is important, but what about after you found them a job? Client Server Director Nick Boulton explains the benefits of staying in touch with candidates that have already been placed.

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Would you fancy having a continuous flow of live jobs and new clients while never doing a cold call again? Well, the key is to stay in touch with your placed candidates.

It baffles me how some consultants will not maintain an open communication channel with candidates they have placed. You have helped these people by finding them a better job, an increase in pay, and an improved work-life balance—why would you not want to stay in contact?

On average, a good consultant, without resources, should place 16–24 candidates a year. Assuming you stay in recruitment for 3–5 years, you should have about 80 placed candidates (20 candidates a year x 4 years). Also, most candidates tend to change roles every two years, so if you did a great job of building that relationship with them, you have an opportunity to double your placements to 160!

The responsibility to build a relationship with their candidates is on the consultant. Without a strong relationship, it turns into a vicious cycle of mistrust. This cycle leads to uncommitted candidates and unsatisfied clients still with a role to fill.

Recruitment tends to get treated as a transaction. The consultants place their candidate, collect the commission cheque, and move on. This mindset leads consultants to forget they are dealing with people's lives.

A reason these relationships fall apart is that people don’t do what they say they will. If you say you will call back in 20 minutes, do it. If the job is not suitable for the candidate, tell them.

For candidates, if you say you will complete a technical test by tomorrow, do it. If you cannot take the test, tell them why. Just be honest with your consultant, and say you have found another job or are not interested.

For consultants, you need to respect what the candidate wants. If they are not interested, then respect their wishes. There could be two reasons why they don't want the opportunity:

1. They are not interested in the role.
2. You didn't do a good enough job selling the role.

Either way, learn from the experience and improve.

Unfortunately, the industry is filled with unmotivated recruiters just in it for a quick buck, unaware of what it means to be good at the job. But, if you look at the most successful recruitment consultants, they have candidates and clients eating out the palm of their hands. How? Because they learned the importance of keeping relationships with their placed candidates.