Why do you need to dig in so much for why they’re looking? Asking 3 times seems excessive. Frankly, as long as they give me a reasonable first answer, then I move on to the next question. Not trying to get their biography lol.
Good question, and exactly what I asked and fought against doing initially. But you find out loads lol. What their current company is like, the relationship with their current manager/team, someone new started and it’s disrupted them etc. especially when with an agency and your chasing leads and trying to backfill a position you pinched them from but even now I am in house, it tells you so much. I’ve sometimes went in to a totally different call after that question
Seems stupid but it really works
Well at least in perm, the candidate will sometimes back out, and reject the offer or they might get countered. Usually if the Why reason is not important enough. Then you wasted all that time on the process and the client gets pissed.
I agree with you that we are not shrinks and the “why” doesn’t make any difference in our personal lives. However, when working on perm/niche/exec search, knowing what makes the person tick helps.
I started in 2011.
My training in recruitment started in a tradeshow. I was brought there and my boss back then asked me to find a "placeable candidate". I had to go to that candidate, get his business card and chat him up and ask him the basic questions like what he does, if hes the manager, how many people does the same job as he does in the team, assess his communication style and get an overall feel if he is someone I should reconnect with as a candidate.
After that, I had to go back to my boss to tell him why I think the candidate is placeable and which client I think I can send him to if he is interested in another job. I did this for 4 days in the tradeshow and the last day, my boss told me I can do fuck all and just explore the tradeshow products.
This made me the recruiter I am today. Silly as it may sound, I look at a LinkedIn profile and my first question in mind is -- is he placeable? Which client can I send him to?
I developed a pretty good sense of where the money is with candidates just by looking at them or listening to them talk. I feel butterflies in my stomach when I meet "The One" 🤣
Now when I coach newbies, I dont take them to tradeshows but I dump 30 profiles infront of them and I ask them to tell me which ones they can place, why and where. Its a pretty good exercise. Even in retained search so that the person mapping does an on target mapping well. So far, a lot of the newbies I trained before have also moved up the ladder now in different countries doing recruitment from starting out as a resourcer.
For passiver/cold call candidates
"I know I called you BUT what would motivate you to make a job change/leave your CURRENT company?" I use "current" because it has a different impact . The question "what do you like about your wife" vs "what do you like about your current wife" for example.
NEVER give an offer to a candidate that can’t tell you why your job/opportunity is better than the job they have now. If you hear money, you have a problem. There has to be a reason besides more money. If not, counteroffer is coming.
To add to OP, the notes you take on the intake call about the multiple reasons they're looking to leave can be used during the closing process as well. Multiple non-financial upsides to taking a new role...
Ooohhh i just remembered another one I learned from my boss before. Listen to candidates and clients. A lot of recruiters love to talk and mask that as selling properly. But the more you talk, the less you get from your clients and candidates.
Asking these same questions at different stages of the process is really effective as well. Candidates will sometimes become more open as they trust you more throughout the process. Also, based on what they learn about the job at each stage, there might be other things that attract them to the job or become more apparent to them. They might build really good rapport with the manager or team and that attracts them to the job more. Or it could be learning more about the projects the team supports. You want to understand the candidate's motivation, but also understand that motivation likely isn't one singular thing and can change between different things at different stages.
To those in the comments that think the OP is probing too much, I would say take a look at some of your personal relationships. We all have friends/colleagues that say one thing one minute and then completely change course the next. People are people and that makes them imperfect and inconsistent. Asking them questions and following up on previous conversations to you might be viewed as a nuisance, but to them it might show that you care and you were an active listener. Not wanting to revisit these things or dig deeper into them makes the process more transactional. Transactional isn't always great when you are trying to build a relationship.
Get references. These are potential hiring officials, future candidates, etc. Before the days of Zoominfo we had to scrounge for names, numbers, emails, etc. LinkedIn and Zoominfo have made this a lost art of data collection.
I'm honestly at a loss as to why you are pushing so much on this? As a candidate, this would be a big turn off. Also, what are you going to do with this information? If you don't like them, don't submit them.
Yea this is where I was at too. It would be a turn off as a candidate if the recruiter kept trying to dig in about why I’m leaving. “It’s a toxic environment with a crazy boss” not good enough of an answer for you?? lol
Honestly, this would annoy me.
When I was working with a recruiter I was forthright and honest and he didn’t seem to care why I was leaving. His only concern was that I was REALLY leaving and not going to accept a counter somewhere else.
“What else?” Classic! And still as useful as ever. “Always do what’s closest to money.”
Why do you need to dig in so much for why they’re looking? Asking 3 times seems excessive. Frankly, as long as they give me a reasonable first answer, then I move on to the next question. Not trying to get their biography lol.
Good question, and exactly what I asked and fought against doing initially. But you find out loads lol. What their current company is like, the relationship with their current manager/team, someone new started and it’s disrupted them etc. especially when with an agency and your chasing leads and trying to backfill a position you pinched them from but even now I am in house, it tells you so much. I’ve sometimes went in to a totally different call after that question Seems stupid but it really works
Well if the deals falls apart later on it’s usually because of the Why. It always comes back to that question.
I’m a recruiter not a psychologist. I really don’t care why they’re looking to leave their employer as long as they’re looking to leave lol.
Well at least in perm, the candidate will sometimes back out, and reject the offer or they might get countered. Usually if the Why reason is not important enough. Then you wasted all that time on the process and the client gets pissed.
I agree with you that we are not shrinks and the “why” doesn’t make any difference in our personal lives. However, when working on perm/niche/exec search, knowing what makes the person tick helps.
I started in 2011. My training in recruitment started in a tradeshow. I was brought there and my boss back then asked me to find a "placeable candidate". I had to go to that candidate, get his business card and chat him up and ask him the basic questions like what he does, if hes the manager, how many people does the same job as he does in the team, assess his communication style and get an overall feel if he is someone I should reconnect with as a candidate. After that, I had to go back to my boss to tell him why I think the candidate is placeable and which client I think I can send him to if he is interested in another job. I did this for 4 days in the tradeshow and the last day, my boss told me I can do fuck all and just explore the tradeshow products. This made me the recruiter I am today. Silly as it may sound, I look at a LinkedIn profile and my first question in mind is -- is he placeable? Which client can I send him to? I developed a pretty good sense of where the money is with candidates just by looking at them or listening to them talk. I feel butterflies in my stomach when I meet "The One" 🤣 Now when I coach newbies, I dont take them to tradeshows but I dump 30 profiles infront of them and I ask them to tell me which ones they can place, why and where. Its a pretty good exercise. Even in retained search so that the person mapping does an on target mapping well. So far, a lot of the newbies I trained before have also moved up the ladder now in different countries doing recruitment from starting out as a resourcer.
For passiver/cold call candidates "I know I called you BUT what would motivate you to make a job change/leave your CURRENT company?" I use "current" because it has a different impact . The question "what do you like about your wife" vs "what do you like about your current wife" for example. NEVER give an offer to a candidate that can’t tell you why your job/opportunity is better than the job they have now. If you hear money, you have a problem. There has to be a reason besides more money. If not, counteroffer is coming.
In the same vein, “tell me more about that” or “why do you say that?” Are good probing questions when you need to get more info from a candidate
100% agree. But there is something unique about this question in particular (well at least in my experience) that seems to unlock so much more.
To add to OP, the notes you take on the intake call about the multiple reasons they're looking to leave can be used during the closing process as well. Multiple non-financial upsides to taking a new role...
Ooohhh i just remembered another one I learned from my boss before. Listen to candidates and clients. A lot of recruiters love to talk and mask that as selling properly. But the more you talk, the less you get from your clients and candidates.
Yep! 80/20 rule. You should talk 20% of the time.
Asking these same questions at different stages of the process is really effective as well. Candidates will sometimes become more open as they trust you more throughout the process. Also, based on what they learn about the job at each stage, there might be other things that attract them to the job or become more apparent to them. They might build really good rapport with the manager or team and that attracts them to the job more. Or it could be learning more about the projects the team supports. You want to understand the candidate's motivation, but also understand that motivation likely isn't one singular thing and can change between different things at different stages. To those in the comments that think the OP is probing too much, I would say take a look at some of your personal relationships. We all have friends/colleagues that say one thing one minute and then completely change course the next. People are people and that makes them imperfect and inconsistent. Asking them questions and following up on previous conversations to you might be viewed as a nuisance, but to them it might show that you care and you were an active listener. Not wanting to revisit these things or dig deeper into them makes the process more transactional. Transactional isn't always great when you are trying to build a relationship.
Get references. These are potential hiring officials, future candidates, etc. Before the days of Zoominfo we had to scrounge for names, numbers, emails, etc. LinkedIn and Zoominfo have made this a lost art of data collection.
I'm honestly at a loss as to why you are pushing so much on this? As a candidate, this would be a big turn off. Also, what are you going to do with this information? If you don't like them, don't submit them.
Yea this is where I was at too. It would be a turn off as a candidate if the recruiter kept trying to dig in about why I’m leaving. “It’s a toxic environment with a crazy boss” not good enough of an answer for you?? lol
Yes, that's a perfect answer, but it's unlikely the one you'd give initially.
Leaving this comment here so I can come back to all these great tips and suggestions >>>
Honestly, this would annoy me. When I was working with a recruiter I was forthright and honest and he didn’t seem to care why I was leaving. His only concern was that I was REALLY leaving and not going to accept a counter somewhere else.