Lead Generation

by Jeffrey M. Williams

How do I find job orders? Who is hiring? All question that come up daily and the answers can mean the difference of success and failure. So, how do we keep our client database full of fresh and established hiring managers?

This industry has evolved around corporate attrition but we never attribute the same turnover statistics to hiring managers. These guys get calls from recruiters as much as their staff members but we assume they will always be around. Client management includes knowing where your manager is. If your hypothetical database contains 200 hiring managers and the industry attrition rate is 20% you have to replace 10 managers per year. Include this when considering which of your managers will freeze headcount, cut staff, loose projects, obtain internal recruiting talent, or just quit utilizing your services. Point is, you must constantly prospect for quality managers; your candidates deserve the effort.

If you came here looking for some hidden link to a site that lists every technical manager in the States, sorry to disappoint. To generate leads is to have an in-depth knowledge of your market. That starts with the market itself, the candidates. Every conversation, interview, phone call, or brief passing on the street with a candidate I ask my favorite question, "Who's hiring?" My intent is not to suck the candidate dry for every manager name that he carries in his Palm but to make sure my arms stay around my market. If I don't know who's hiring, I'm all done. Conversely, if I talk to 100 people a week and they each know of 2 companies that are hiring, well you get the picture.

All I need is a little nudge in the right direction and I can find whom I need to get in front of. Although finding out who your candidates worked for is huge [we will discuss later], realistically I don't need the manager names. Cold calling and best candidate marketing is the unfair advantage that great recruiters have over the rest. Find out what companies are hiring and get to work, sometime you just need to get on the web.

Say you're rocking and rolling with your list of companies that are hiring but the gatekeepers are handing you your ass daily. 90% of the companies with a web presence list their executive management team; sometimes all you need is that one name to start the snowball rolling. Home Page > About Us > Management Team is the typical directory. I need VP of Engineering or CTO. That is you name to get past the gatekeeper. Then you obtain their assistant's name and give them a call. My line goes like this, "I have been trying to get a hold of Bob but I have realized he wouldn't be able to help me out anyways, What is the name of a development manager that report to Bob?" Now, where you go from here is up to you. This topic has been debated and considered for decades and it's likely not to ever be solved. Do you play the ruse or do you go with honesty? I go with honesty but it has a twist. "I was looking for some information on the ASIC design market from a technical standpoint. Specifically the employment market as is relates to ASIC design." Of course I used to be a college kid doing grad work so people can change. With a little hard work and a lot of effort you don't need names, titles, and phone numbers to find hiring managers but it helps.

If you don't ask candidates who their manager was then you have an untapped market that another recruiter will utilize. Just ask the question. If this line of questioning seems inappropriate then you have stumbled into the wrong career. Put your fears aside and ask the question, on every phone call and interview.

Candidates have little or no concept of the work involved in this industry. They think that they can email over a resume, wait a bit, and poof, out pops a job. The idea behind lead generation is hard to grasp from the recruiter level. Sure we all understand the value so lets understand the concept.

(Imagine a cicle with a bunch of stars scattered inside it and a larger star in the center that represents you.) This (the circle) is your market. Each star is a contact within your market (representing) both mangers and candidates. Your mission, if you chose to accept it, is to identify every candidate within your market. You could hang out a shingle [job ad] and sit back to let the stars line up outside your door. You could find the active candidates, they make up 7% of your stars. Or you could get them all.

With each conversation you get a quick glimpse into the world surrounding your candidate. You must take advantage of every conversation and utilize the information. Multiply that out into a weeks worth of interviews and conversation and you have successfully penetrated your market. Take this information and lets translate it into something beneficial to your candidates.

The information you obtain from your candidates doesn't normally have a direct impact on their immediate job search but it does correlate to you other candidates just as their leads directly impact the first candidate. One well-placed question will open the floodgates. You must start the process by asking the first question and here is the tricky part, if you ask the question to your first candidate, you will not do that candidate justice unless you ask the question to every other candidate. You must generate leads from every conversation. The personal network of one will not get it done but the networks of hundreds will suffice.

It takes a village? Well sort of. The demise of our Nations Social Security is due in part to the 'aging baby boomers'. At one time there were 40 working individuals contributing to Social Security for every one person drawing from it. Now it is around 10 to 1. In order for your lead network to support one placement you have to fill it up with the network of 40. Other wise you should head a lead generation reform committee.

Jeff Williams, CPC/CTS, is a professional headhunter specializing in the Analog and Digital design realm of Electrical Engineering. He runs an active recruiting desk providing top engineering talent to his clients and uses the articles as a channel to the industry concerning personal philosophy and daily issues arising from recruiting. Jeff has been in the industry for 8 years and has been fortunate to experience the many different facets of recruiting; from independent headhunting though corporate recruiting departments. Additionally, he has served many functions, not only as a headhunter but a regional and branch manager. Although Jeff is originally from Texas, he currently resides in the Chicagoland area with his wife and three children. Feel free to comment or provide feedback concerning his musings or recruiting issues in general at jeff@jkbcorp.com. Or 847.340.5459.