The Modern Recruiter #48: Making the Business Case for Recruiting at the Executive Level. Greg Troxell Recruiting Leader @Wheel

Hi everyone, and welcome to this podcast episode! I'm Robin Choy, CEO of HireSweet. Each week, I humbly tackle recruiting issues about recruiting outreach, interviewing, employer branding, career management, and anything else that could be helpful to you as an aspirational recruiter (whether you are an in-house recruiter, an agency recruiter, a freelancer, or the founder of an early stage startup).

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How to show the value you bring to the company as a recruiter at an executive level

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In every discussion I've had with recruiters for the past 3 months, one question arises every time: "How can I show the value that I bring to the company as an internal recruiter ”. People are right to ask that question. Indeed, top management often underestimates the value of internal recruiters. That’s why Talent Acquisition teams bear a disproportionate brunt in most of the recent layoffs.

So here’s what you need to make clear to your management :

* the recruiting team is not a cost center

* the recruiting team is as important as others departments (tech, sales …)

1/ The recruiting team is not a cost center

The idea is simple here: the recruiting team should no longer be seen as a cost center, but as a profit center. The problem is that recruiters often report to their top management by showing specific metrics in which they’re not interested.

Eg: - Recruiter: "Our time to hire is X". - C-Level: "Ok, and so what?" - Recruiter: "😐" The only thing business leaders/investors care about is how many dollars you bring to the company. This means you should put a dollar number on every recruiting metric you talk about. Eg: - Recruiter: "When we calculated the revenue generated per employee (#employee/turnover), we found that each employee generates on average $X of revenue per year. Since we’ve met our goal of X hires this year, this should translate into an additional $X more revenue for the company”- C-Level: "Great stuff! Sometimes I wonder what we would do without you..."- Recruiter: "You’re welcome 😎”

2/ The recruiting team is as important as other departments (tech, sales …)

VC/investors will often say:

No matter the state of the market, win the war for talent, and you'll win the war

Yet this rarely translates into actual actions within the company. A good way to shift the perception is to change the leading indicators. Stop talking about “cost-per-hire", start communicating about “Recruiting cost ratio".

The recruiting team often represents less than 3% of the company's workforce (and even less in terms of budget), yet brings in 100% of hires (who then bring in 100% of revenue). Recruiting, in practice, brings in 100% of the revenue! ”We don’t need to hire at this moment” could be an answer from management, especially now. This is the time to explain why this is good news: you now will be able to focus on important issues that you didn't have time to address, like:

* Building / Nurturing your Talent pool

* Improving your employer's brand

* Increasing diversity

Take the opportunity to remind your management that it has been proven that a top performer brings in on average 4x more revenue to the company than an average employee and that the best companies like Zapier try to get their hands on them, by nurturing them every week (to understand how, listen to this episode with Bonnie Dielber, Recruiting Leader at Zapier).

That’s only a fraction of what we discussed.

This is only a fraction of what Greg Troxell, Recruiting Leader at Wheel, and I have been discussing in this episode. Greg is really the go-to guy when it comes to showing the value you bring as a recruiter at an executive level! To know everything, listen to the full episode. Have a nice week and see you soon,RobinCEO of HireSweet

Did you enjoy the episode? Feel free to check out the 3 most download episodes:

* 37. Build a thriving & strategic sourcing team, with Garrett Lewis, tech sourcing lead at Grammarly.

* 36. DE&I strategies for companies below 200 people, with Claudia Colvin, People & Talent @ HappyScribe.

* 41. Personalization at scale in recruiting. Jonas Waloschek, Senior Technical Recruiter @MANTA, ex @McKinsey.

If you find this podcast useful, you'll be interested in what we do at HireSweet.

👉 HireSweet CRM helps recruiting teams build, engage, and nurture their Talent Pool. Increase your reply rates by 70%, and handle twice as many candidates at the same time.Request a demo here!