What's the Best Way to Connect with Candidates? Whatever Works For You

"Recruiters are lazy nowadays, they don't pick up the phone enough. Real recruiting is done through cold calling."

...

"Cold calling is dead. Candidates don't like answering the phone, especially if it's a stranger on the other end."

...

"It's all about volume. Number of candidates you reach out to is the most important thing."

...

"No, volume-based email campaigns are dead too, you have to research each candidate and craft a personalized message now."

*****

These thoughts or similar ones are all theories I've heard on podcasts or read on recruiting blogs, Twitter and Facebook from respected recruiters in recent months. What is the best way to "engage" (bad word) candidates? 

My theory is this: the best way to be successful in recruiting is whatever works for each individual. For some recruiters, cold calling is the answer (usually they're over the age of 50...kidding!). There are recruiters who claim to be able to call an IT Engineer out of blue at their desk and get them interested in a job opportunity. 

And you know what? Great. More power to them. It doesn't work for me, I wish it did, but I'm sure it works for some.

Others are great at writing emails and have a tremendous response rate, so they don't need to send out a lot of messages. 

Another group might find more success blasting out 1,000 emails with the same message to everyone. 

Here's the deal, kids - there's no magic bullet in recruiting. Otherwise everyone would be doing the exact same thing. Maybe in a few years there will be conclusive studies that settle the "phone vs. email" debate for us, but IT recruiting is still a relatively emerging field, so for now we have this hodge-podge of theories and ideas, and everyone is super convinced that they're right. 

And successful recruiters are usually right when it comes to what they believe works, at least for them personally. That doesn't mean it works for everyone, however. 

What's the point of all this? I guess it's that it's OK if you have a method that works for you, but don't try and force that on colleagues, bosses, direct reports or recruiters on social media. The best way to approach recruiting if you haven't developed your own niche yet is trial-and-error - figure out what works for you. 

I'm more of the low-volume, specialized crafted email type. That's usually my initial point of engagement with a candidate, especially in IT. If I've developed a connection over email, I will THEN move to the phone stage and go from there. 

In general however, I have noticed some changes in the last three-or-so years, so here are my theories, feel free to disagree with these generalities if you'd like:

1) Voicemail is practically useless if you're cold-calling someone in IT who isn't an active job seeker

I've left hundreds of voicemails in the last year or so for candidates I never spoke with before, and the only candidates who call back are those who have posted their resumes or applied to a job. Even then, it's a low-percentage proposition. 

2) Cold-calling a non-job-seeking IT employee to try and recruit them out of the blue is a risky strategy and can actually backfire

Have you ever been at your desk at work and gotten a cold call from a recruiter that you weren't expecting? You were probably pretty pissed. Most people sit within ear shot of their colleagues and frankly, it's not all that beneficial for them to be heard talking to recruiters about new stuff. I'm not saying this can't work, but let's not train young recruiters to do this in their first year, OK? They're more likely to just piss people off. It's an advanced skill and even then I'm not sure it's the way to go.

3) Most people hate picking up cold calls

 Let's say you answer a call on your cell from a number you don't recognize, thinking it's maybe a candidate you want to talk to, and it's some sales guy from AT&T trying to sell you something. You're thinking, "Shit. Why did I pick up?"

That's the first thought that goes through someone's mind when they answer your cold call. So be mindful of that. You have like, five seconds to get over that initial "Shit, why did I pick up?" feeling or you're done.

Again, it can work for some people, but recruiting managers...do you maybe understand why a lot of junior recruiters are scared as hell to do something like that? I'm not sure it's good practice to train people to do it. We lose a lot of good people to other lines of business that way who might otherwise blossom into good recruiters.