Recruitment Hack #67 - Ask Advice From Candidates
Whenever you are headhunting anyone, what you do not want to do is do an aggressive headhunt. What you want to do is do a soft headhunt by asking for advice.
This generally has a better impact than asking people directly because it essentially makes you look good and it allows them the time and space to think about any role or decision you have put in front of them.
So how do you use a soft headhunt by asking for advice?
When speaking to a candidate about a role, mention that you would like to pick their brains about a position that they might be interested in, but also that you’d like some advice as well.
Tell them about the role and then you ask for their advice, be flexible in giving them the time to take advice.
And what you may find is that if the role is genuinely of interest to them, they will put their hands forward. What you may find is you have to give the candidate time to think. This is a good thing.
Why? Because you’ve had time to think, you’ve had time to allow the ideas to not be so shocking to the candidate, but also you’ve not come across as pushy, which is important because looking pushy is always bad because no one likes a pushy recruiter. Neither do I really, to be quite fair. So give it a go and see what happens.
This Recruitment Hack is excerpted from my book 'Recruitment Hacks,' which is accessible in both Paperback and eBook formats.
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