With the 360-model fading fast, we are often asked about how to find and bring onboard great resourcers who are vital to your billing team. 

I was recently asked this question by a recruitment business owner who was having endless problems at both ends of the hiring spectrum; whether they were a rookie resourcer or an experienced pro; it just wasn’t working. The logical question then was; “So, what should I be looking for Nicky?” 

Glad you asked as this is critical to finding the right resourcer for your business. I’ll share a few key areas later in the post though first let me highlight something crucial. 

The scary thing Katy and I have noticed and its where many recruitment companies fall down is: they don’t even have an interview process, let alone one that’s uniform across the business.  

They don’t look and test for evidence of key behaviours when they hire, they hire based on gut, and they ask the wrong type of questions. 

Let me explain and share a few examples. 

Here is something that consistently happens, they will ask the question; 

“How do you go about building relationships?” 

Which by the way is a hypothetical question, because somebody could make up the answer on what they might do, versus; 

  • Can you give me an example of a time when you built a relationship from scratch?  
  • What was the situation?  
  • What did you do?  
  • What was the outcome?  
  • ……And how were you involved?” 

 

To answer these questions, they have to go into fact and real-life situations. So, those are the types of questions that you need to ask.  

 

You must test for certain behaviours in the interview process, and here are some ideas of how to do that. You can use: 

  • Real–life situations and scenarios,  
  • Roleplays 
  • Competency–based questions.  

Also look at their CV, because if you look at somebody’s background, even if they haven’t got any experience, there will be certain things which are in their environment which will indicate if they will sink or swim in the role. 

So, for example, almost everyone that I’ve worked with who’s been successful in recruitment and resourcing has had a job through school and university. They will generally be head of sports, they’re head boy or head girl.  

They will be head of debating. They might be an absolute expert at mountain climbing.  

Look out for that something quirky that makes them stand out from the crowd.  

…………. And it’s also likely that they’ve had a challenging or traumatic scenario that’s happened in their life that they have had to breakthrough. 

Perhaps there wasn’t a lot of money when they were growing up, so they want to create something where they have an abundance of money.  

Or they’ve had a traumatic situation where they had to take control of a family event: Something where they’ve had to work over and beyond to achieve something. 

This gives you a baseline to start from. Now I want to share a few other critical things to look out for as you utilise the ideas I have just shared.  

It Starts with The ‘Right’ Attitude 

There’s a couple of things that are key here, and the first thing is that when you’re hiring anybody, you need to hire initially based on attitude and personality before you hire on skill. 

Most recruitment business owners don’t do this, and it causes problems! 

The reality is: You can always teach somebody how to do a task, but you can’t teach somebody how to have a sense of urgency or to be tenacious and driven.  

 

They’ve either got it hardwired into their personality or not. And for me, no matter how much experience someone has in a role, there is an absolute need to have key behaviours hardwired into their personality and makeup if they are going to be a great resourcer, which you can’t teach somebody.  

We have established they have the right attitude so what next? 

Admin and Process are Both Strengths 

They need to be admin proficient and tech–savvy. It’s easy to think because we are surrounded by Millennials and now Gen Z people on our team that everyone can use a computer to its full capability. 

They may be able to whizz through Apps on a Smartphone and yet do they understand how to use word, and can they format a document? 

Do they understand fundamental grammar and how to spell? There is nothing worse than a poorly written email full of typos landing in a client or candidates inbox. 

This all comes down to being great at process; that is following a specific process or system that you have developed for your recruiting team that you know delivers results. 

Great Communicators on Every Medium 

Recruitment is all about people and relationships. Therefore, your resourcer needs to be able to communicate confidently in every single medium you use. 

  • Are they confident on the phone? 
  • Are their emails friendly yet compelling? 
  • Can they build relationships across the business and with clients and candidates and the BD stars in your team? 
  • Can they comment on social media or send SMS text messages that produce a response? 

 

Tenacious Goal Orientated Problem Solvers

Both Katy and I have worked with a lot of resourcers over the years and we notice that the good ones all have similar patterns. 

They have persistence and tenacity in absolute bundles, and they are competitive too. 

They have the ability to think for themselves, solve a problem, prioritise and then move forward; fast; they have a massive sense of urgency in everything they do.  

They understand the importance of speed in the recruitment process for both clients they are working with, and their BD team pod member. They also understand how essential fast action and communication is for candidates they are working with. 

Though some people are surprised by this; exceptional resourcers are competitive-they want to win.  

This is helped by the fact they are coachable and are always looking for ways to improve; They love learning and then jumping in and taking action. 

These are the type of people that you want to recruit. 

Important: Something vital here; hire slow, fire fast. As Dan Jacobs from Apple says you’d rather have a hole in your team than an arsehole! 

So, it’s better not to hire somebody than to have somebody that’s not quite right. Wait for the right person, and I promise you they are out there.  

So, there are my tips on hiring a good resourcer; I hope you found that useful.  

If you like what we have to share, would like to have a conversation about scaling your recruitment business book a call with one of us here. 

Warm regards  

Nicky 

P.S. If you haven’t grabbed our training guide for onboarding get you free download here.