One Step That Will Change Your Commitment to Recruiting

So the big question is this, how do recruiting leaders like us who have 12 to 15 other job responsibilities, when at this game of recruiting, how do we build a system that allows us to recruit effectively in a minimal amount of time while motivating recruits towards meaningful change? That is the question. And this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Richard Milligan and welcome to recruiting conversations for everybody. Welcome back to another recruiting conversations.

It is your hosts, Richard Milligan. And. We are going to talk about why we recruit today. Why would we talk about this in the podcast? I was recently at an event speaking, and we did some open Q and A in the event. It was a room of about 40 recruiting leaders. And one of the things that as we were doing Q and A, I was listening to people ask questions and provide feedback about their role as a recruiting leader.

One of the things that became very apparent to me is that there is this massive negative connotation Associated with recruiting. Let's just set the stage for this audience. If you're listening to this, you're most likely not all, but most likely a recruiting leader. What's a recruiting leader. A recruiting leader is a leader who has a team, but it's also responsible for recruiting to that team.

What I know about the recruiting leader is that those leaders are incredibly relational. They love building relationships. They typically have a heart to serve people. They find a lot of joy and fulfillment in that particular space.

They really get why they do what they do insert the narrative recruiting, and there's this massive negative connotation associated with recruiting that I, in some of this, I just asked the room to go ahead and identify the words that were associated with recruiting and we went around the room. I said, I just want you to choose the first 3 words that are associated with recruiting and everything that came out. I love it. Everything that came out.

Of the first three things that came to mind were a highly and a highly negative. So we're here in the podcast to talk about this, because if. You see recruiting as being inauthentic. If you see recruiting as simply trying to trigger uncertainty and fear, if you see recruiting as trying to be a distraction to people, providing misinformation about a company to people trying to find out why people aren't happy where they're at. All of those are negative things that we associate with recruiters.

And a lot of that comes through the experience of how we've been recruited. I can't tell you how many times I re I have received misinformation about a company from someone trying to recruit me about the company that I was at from someone trying to recruit me.

I can't tell me times I had someone provide some sort of tricky phone script where they said, Hey, I got your name and number from someone that knows you really well and asked me to reach out to you and I would ask the question, who was it that gave you my name and number, and they said, that person has asked me to keep that information in confidence. That doesn't make sense to me.

Somebody that knows me that would give away my name and number that says, I'm amazing and you should be talking to Richard, would allow you to say their name. Or, I've had these escalating voice messages. Richard, it's Patrick. Call me back, buddy. And I'm like, uh, do I know a Patrick? And then about two hours later, hey Richard, it's Patrick. You really need to call me, buddy. It's urgent. Man, I, I, I don't know a Patrick. And then three hours later, Richard. It's Patrick.

Look, man, this is the third message I've left you. I really need to talk to you and I need to talk to you today. Call me back. And I'm like, man, this must be like some sort of family emergency. So I call Patrick back. Patrick's a recruiter. So we've all had these different experiences and we bring all that negative connotation to recruiting and that we have.

So we have these agreements is what I would call them with recruiting and we have to break That narrative, but that we can't bring all this baggage with us because what is recruiting really, and I could tell you story after story of how I recruited someone and brought them to my team and left them better for the time that they spent with me, and I could get incredibly passionate about that. As recruiting leaders we have a major impact.

The data says that between 80 and 90 percent of all recruits come to your team through you. They don't come through a recruiting department. And if you're a recruiter listening to this, don't be discouraged. You should be thinking, how do I partner at a high level with my recruiting leaders? Because they're the product that you're selling, not the company. How do you partner with them at a high level?

How do you get them involved really early on and start to see yourself as an early cycle recruiter, not a full cycle recruiter? Because I need my recruiting leader in the market, who is the product involved in this. And if you don't have recruiting support, don't let that discourage you. I had a leader last year that recruited 87 people. She recruited 87 people to her team with zero recruiting support.

Okay, you can do this without a recruiter if you have a system in a process, you understand the right framework, which is why you're listening to this podcast.

So we come back to this and just to say, you have a major impact as a recruiting leader. And one of the things I want to challenge you, if you're listening to this podcast, as a takeaway from this is to actually build a list of why I recruit. Why do you recruit? And the antithesis of this is put in the list of what you believe a recruiter actually is right now. All these things that are negative, that bring negative energy to this for you.

And what we're going to, what we want to do is we want to break agreement with all the negative because you are not a recruiter. You are a relationship builder. In fact, I'm actually wearing a t shirt. If you're seeing the video and the teacher t shirts of a Batman and Robin meme, and on one side, Robin's asking Batman, so you're a recruiter and Batman slaps him across the face. And he says, I'm a relationship builder. And if you want a t shirt, I'm happy to send you one.

If you're a podcast listener, just drop us an email. And, and we will be happy to send, send you this t shirt because that's what you are. You're a relationship builder. Okay. So what we come to this moment and why I'm like incredibly passionate about this is that as recruiting leaders, we have this capacity to have a butterfly effect. What's a butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is this idea that when we impact people a little.

We all impact other people a little that impact other people a little that impact other people a little it's a ripple right in a water and that ripple grows over one of time. I'll share with you a story. I recently got a phone call from someone that was on a team that I built about me think about this about eight years ago, and the phone call went a little bit like this. Hey, Richard, it's Rob. The reason why I'm reaching out to you is I wanted to, one, I wanted to catch up.

Two, I want to tell you where I'm at, what I'm doing. Three, I want to ask your permission to use your name in an article that's

being written in our company magazine. So we get in this conversation and what I find out is that this young man who was on my team about eight years, eight years prior is now the number one producer for his company, and he is going to be standing on stage at his sales rally. And he's writing an article for the company newspaper to talk about his journey to becoming that. And he said, I want to share the story of day one with you. I was like, man, I'm honored. I'm blown away.

What happened on day one? I didn't remember it. He said on day one, you don't remember this. Like on day one, you left there. When I came in, there was an envelope on my computer. It was said to Rob on it and I opened it up and it was a little note from you. And it was just a letter of encouragement that asked me to also go out and get add to my wardrobe, because if I was going to be successful, I was going to have to dress better than how I represented myself in the interview process.

And he said, you had written a thousand dollar check and given it to me. And I went out and bought a couple of suits with it. And I was like, Oh, I did remember because he would wear these two suits over and over again. I think it rotated them two days, one, one after the other. And he always looked impressive wearing them, but he only had two suits for a window of time.

And that's time that Rob sent, sent with him, which was a couple of years, actually left Rob better for the encounter that him and I had.

Yeah. To the place where fast forward, maybe eight years later, and Rob gives me credit that ripple effect, that butterfly effect, he gives me credit for creating the framework that got him to where he is today and recruiting leaders. This is the kind of impact that you have. I've tried to create a framework for myself around some of this. The framework for myself is this is that people come into my team and leave my team. Thank you. Right.

And if you're a recruiting leader, some of that, some of the challenge, some of the tension you juggle in this is that people come to you for a window of time, and then they leave, they go to another organization for a season. They're with you and they're gone. The framework that I've grabbed onto mentally, that has been incredibly beneficial to me is that I am a planter of trees.

If you, when I was a kid, and this is why this framework works for me, is that when I was a kid, we owned this property, this property was about 20 acres. And when we moved to this property, it was just raw, it was just raw land. You could see from the front of the property all the way to the back of the property. And as a young man, I helped my dad plant these little trees.

They were little, they were bought from like the national forest, national forestry, whatever the department of national forestry, and they came in these bundles and they were tiny. They were literally like just little, they almost look like, like a branch broken off a tree. And I don't know what the right name is from a horticultural perspective to give to you what they would call this. But there were these little tiny plants and we planted them all over the property when I was a kid.

Now I'm in my fifties . If I go back, I was helping plant these probably at the age of 11 or 12. Now , I drive by this property. Years later, I drive by this property and these trees are 40, 50, 60 feet tall. There, there's aspens, there's these beautiful evergreen trees, there's these rose bushes, a property, you can't even see the property from the front anymore. Because when you pull up on the property, there are these massive trees.

It's massive evergreen trees that behind them that have pine trees that behind them then have these beautiful birch trees that behind it's just like it's an amazing piece of property. And as a leader, contextually, that is what you do you plant trees that you will never fully see grow a lot of times now sometimes you will sometimes you'll be a part of that story for a longer window of time, but a lot of time you will not, and you have to embrace that that one day.

You will have your own Rob story that one day someone will reconnect to you and say, you left me better for the time that we spent together. And I give you credit for, and you fill in the blanks, my friend, here's what I challenge you to do. Create a document at the top of that document. You title why I recruit. And you began building that framework. And as you build that framework, you review it.

When you get to your place where you're allocating your time to recruit, and you're transitioning from the crazy sauce of being the leader of the team to this time where you're going to actually be the recruiting leader, take a moment and review, why do I do this? And every single time you get to a place where you're just like, man, I'm really challenged right now to, to recruit in this particular season, you go back to that document of why I do this.

And that document will inspire you to do the harder things. That's the podcast for today. You want a t shirt, send an email to support at four C recruiting. com. And someone from my team will respond back to you. If you don't already include a physical address, one from my team will respond back to you asking for a physical address. We're excited to be a part of your story. If you're listening to this podcast, you're a part of our tribe of people. We want to embrace you in every way that we can.

And so until I talk to you again. On the next recruiting conversations. Have a great week, everybody. Want more recruiting conversations? You can register for my weekly email at 4crecruiting. com. If you need help creating your own unique recruiting system, you can book a time with me at bookrichardnow. com.