Neil Hernandez's Blog

Hang up the phone

Remember getting a phone call from a telemarketer during dinner time? Well, if you allow yourself to have a conversation with the telemarketer, there's a good chance the conversation will continue a whole lot longer than you'd like. A better alternative is to just end the conversation as quickly as you can by hanging up the phone.

That's what you need to do when potentially negative/detrimental thoughts pop up in your head during the day. Thoughts like these can happen to a recruiter:

• I'm tired.
• Why am I doing this?
• I wonder what's on TV tonight?
• I can't wait for the weekend
• That last candidate was so mean
• Why does everyone keep rejecting our offers?
• I can't find a candidate even if I tried looking forever.

Sound familiar?

If any negative/detrimental thought comes through your mind, throughout the day. Remember, you can always quickly hang up the phone, before you allow it to grow bigger.

Things to do as soon as you get a new req

As soon as you have a new job requirement. The light turns green and the race to find a candidate begins. Below are some steps that I would do as soon as a new req opens up.

1. Find out the basic information of the position (e.g. salary range, job title, job description, qualifications, location, etc)
2. Post the job as quickly as you can with as much information as you have. Post it on your website and post it on any Career Boards (Craigslist, Monster, CareerBuilder, etc)
3. If you have a "hot list" of candidates call them first. A "hot list" is a list of candidate that you've spoken with in the past that you know are qualified for this position. If you don't; have a "hot list", now may be a good time to start making one.

If you can't reach a candidate try try again

When looking for a hard to fill position, sometimes you get lucky and find the perfect looking candidate's resume on the Internet. "Bonanza!" you say to yourself "I'm finally going to fill the position." However,when you call him all you get is a voice message. So what do you do? Some recruiters will leave a message and look for another candidate and hopes this candidate calls back. If you really have a great candidate, I think you should put a greater effort in contacting him. Here are a few things that I've tried:

• Call all the alternate numbers that he has on his resume. If you called his cell - try calling his work number or home number
• Send him an email
• Try calling him again 5 minutes later- maybe he just got off the phone.
• Try calling him back an hour later - maybe he just finished his meeting.
• Try calling him back later in the afternoon - maybe he is done with all of his meetings for the day.
• Try calling him at 7:30am or 8:00am. Some recruiters are scared of calling candidates so early in the morning. I'm not. Many candidates even welcome calls early in the morning.