Does preparation make for better recruiting?

Do you prepare for each day you work in recruiting? Do you script your phone calls to passive candidates? Do you prepare for each job order by researching the job market?

I have learned through experience and by reading many books on sales and recruiting that preparation is an enormous differentiators when it comes to recruiting and sales. Those that want to win the war on talent prepare for battle every day and adjust as necessary.

Preparing for your day. Before your day starts you should finish it on paper. Set goals to be completed for the day. Allow for fires that seem to start everyday in Human Resource management. Set aside some time each day to read and update your knowledge base. Make new connections as a part of your daily plan.

Scripting your calls provides a smooth and seamless message to your contacts. But practice makes perfect. If you don't rehearse your calls then you sound like you are reading from a prompter. Develop a script for voice mails too. Let each caller "hear" you smile whether it is a direct connection or a voicemail.

Every job order or requisition should start with a battle plan. First thing. Are you and the hiring manager/client on the same page? Are there any internal candidates they are thinking about? Second, you should consider your existing database of candidates. Unnecessary money is spent on advertising or search firms for candidates that could be easily minded out of your own ATS. If you don't have a good search tool, find one.

Build and maintain a candidate pipeline for all of your anticipated openings. Strong candidate pipelines communicate strong employment brands, long-term growth expectancies and potentially prevent salary wars with your competition.

Prepare for recruiting the way you would prepare for battle. Understand the market, know thine enemy, and develop relationships with your existing candidates. This will set your recruiting apart from any others and give you that competitive edge.

Using This Time to Become Strategic

This week I was asked by my company (Jobscience) to facilitate webinars on advising recruiters to become more strategic during this economic slow down.  We asked the attendees what changes were their HR leaders making in their function now that hiring freezes, reductions in force and budget cuts seem to be the norm.  I was shocked that very few of these recruiters were actually taking the time to prepare for the labor shortage once the economy turns the corner.  It isn't because the industry is not telling them to prepare.  But much like the corner prophets warning for the end of the world go unheeded so is the advice of the wise recruitment consultants and teachers.

What should you be doing during this time.  Here are a few suggestions that I've picked up during my recent readings and webinars:

• Make sure your website or at least your career site is optimized for the jobseeker who searches opportunities using Google, Yahoo, etc.
• Start now by developing talent communities and establishing relationships with those passive and active candidates to call on later.
• Make a genuine effort to partner with your hiring managers and/or customers to understand their needs.
• Clean up your job descriptions and make the worthy of a look by the jobseekers.
• Populate your descriptions and career site with key words that matter.

If you don't take this time to prepare for the future you will find yourself at the bottom of the food chain wondering what happened.