Craig Silverman’s Hireability puts out a monthly newsletter, and this week I’m one of the authors. For those who don’t know, Hireability is a consortium of independent recruiters that help each other make placements, handle billing, and pass on high-level training. I was speaking about relationships, and here’s a taste of the article.
Over the years, there has been many times in which a client relationship started with the expectation of making one or two placements where I went on to make 20, 30 or even 200 placements. Quite possibly, this has happened to you as well. If so, then you may have also shared the experience of seeing one of your larger client relationships devolve so that they use your services less and less, or perhaps even stop using you entirely. No matter how good you are or what great service you provide, you’ll find that companies, people, jobs, and responsibilities will change. Often, our key contact at a client location is out of the picture, and before we can blink an eye, so are we. We all know relationships are critical in our line of business. Yet, that alone is not sufficient enough to guarantee our prosperity and long term success as talent management professionals. Instead, it is the systems, process and operating practices that we utilize to deliver our services that sustain the test of time. I would go so far as to say that there is nothing that differentiates and solidifies your ability to retain a long term relationship like standardized systems, processes and service offerings.