Dear Barb,
I’m curious to know what you are seeing in the marketplace in terms of available job orders to work on right now. Generally speaking are you seeing an increase or a decrease? I would also like some advice on how to encourage my team during slower times. I thought if you could share some stats on the marketplace that I could share this information with my team in hopes of encouraging them.
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
In the past year, I’ve addressed employment conferences from California to Toronto and I’m seeing an increase in job orders and contracts. If you do not have a strong job order flow, I would create a contest where everyone can win who writes x amount of job orders or contracts with interview times and a specific target date to fill. The person who writes the most orders would win an additional reward. Your team will put their efforts where they will perceive the greatest rewards.
All indications are that the first two quarters of 2014 are continuing strong, but there is a possibility of a slowdown in the last two quarters and into the first quarter of 2015. NOT a recession, but a slowdown, which means it’s more important than ever to watch individual stats and ratios because your team will probably have to increase their marketing and recruiting presentations by at least 25% to obtain the same results they will achieve in the first two quarters.
I’m not seeing a “slower time” but if your entire office has determined things are slower, they will prove themselves right.
I might also run a contest on sendouts, only counting the first interview between a candidate and hiring authority as a sendout. This will get them focused on working what they have.
Your team should also be marketing candidates and turning reference checks into marketing presentations. They should give at least three job order leads to your marketing team daily and they need to ask current clients for client referrals.
Barbara J. Bruno, CPC, CTS
