3 Tips for Quickly Engaging with Candidates on Phone!!!

Given that 70% of a recruiter’s time within a hiring cycle is spent on the phone talking to candidates, right from initial cold calling to following up for joining, it is how the recruiters engage on phone with candidates makes or breaks the outcome.

Here’s what we have observed:

When the recruiter calls a candidate, candidate’s sub-conscious mind is constantly trying to reason why they should continue listening to the recruiter and they tend to arrive at a go-no-go decision within 15-20 seconds, sometimes even earlier.

These are the 3 things we concluded that a recruiter ought to do when engaging with a candidate on the phone:

1. Establish Credibility: This is the most important aspect of making the candidate’s mind say…’ worth listening’…Ensure that you are not asking “Am I speaking to?”…this makes you inferior and instantly makes the candidates superior and in control. Be assertive is directly using the name of the person you are calling. Then introduce yourself confidently stating your ‘title’ and your specialization (something like ‘ I manage the sales hiring at ABCD). These two things will instantly establish strong credibility in your candidate’s mind. Third, instead of asking ‘is it ok to speak? Say ‘Can I take a quick minute?’. This is assertive and makes the conversation at even keel.
2. Unearth Candidate Wants & Needs: Candidates are not just looking for a job; they are looking for much more. By constantly asking smart open-ended questioning you can truly unearth what the candidate is truly looking for from his/her next job. Asking a question like ‘So what in particular you are looking for from your next job?, given where you are right now”. Keep asking – keep listening; Keep asking – keep listening;; Keep asking – keep listening;
3. Customize your pitch: Don’t rattle of opportunity details without considering what aspects of your opportunity will address/solve the wants & needs of the candidate, which he/she so elaborately explained earlier. Even when your opportunity does not fully match; you may want to be upfront whether the candidate is willing to sacrifice some aspects and whether if the important wants & needs were covered, he/she should be ok to consider….

While a recruiter’s ability to intuitively and imaginatively engage with candidates will never be replaced by machines (read AI, ML, NLP), there is definitely an opportunity to significantly reduce false positives via machine and avoid spending efforts on a wrong candidate.

Reckrut.com is a voice-based recruitment software which accelerates the communication process between the recruiters and the candidates. Reckrut.com makes the life of recruiter happy and easy by increasing their productivity and cutting down the recruitment process time by more than 70%.

Request a demo now, visit our website www.reckrut.com or call us.