Headhunter Diaries ~ Marketing vs Recruiting.
One of the challenges of recruiting is balancing the time between marketing and recruiting. What’s the difference you might ask? Well, recruiting is the relatively easy part (at least for me it has been so far). When you have a search order and are actively looking for talent it’s easy to find resumes and talk to people (on the other hand it’s a little hard to find good resumes, but that’s another story.) I can use our internal database of people to call, I can network with other recruiters for candidates, and I can use a variety of Internet based solutions to find the right candidates for the job. Then it’s a matter of screening those candidates and weeding out the ones that aren’t the right fit. This whole process is time consuming but not too difficult.
The other side of the coin is marketing. By marketing I mean researching companies and trying to get a foot into the door to land the work. This involves using our database again, looking through company websites, looking at job postings, talking to a network of people you know, etc. This is the harder part that I’m finding because when I call a company they don’t know me from my competition and I have a few minutes to try to communicate to them that I’m there to help, that my company is different, and that I understand that they are harried and busy. I’m still learning the nuances of this side of the business and I expect that I’ll be learning for quite a while.
As I’m starting to make marketing calls I’m finding that I have to overcome my fears of rejection, and to try to be myself and to sell them on myself. It’s challenging but not impossible. In fact when I made one call today I was able to talk to the right person (which is critical!) and I found out that they are open to using a search firm like ours. It’s encouraging to get those kinds of calls because that gets your foot into the door and helps build your confidence.
My goals this year are pretty realistic I think. I want to place 6 candidates. Can I achieve this goal? I believe that I will, but it will take a good effort of marketing myself and FGP to potential clients as well as recruiting great talent for those clients.
Stay tuned as I grow and learn this wonderful business of Professional Recruiting aka Headhunting. 
