You are an HR personnel and have a job opening to fill. You source hundreds of resumes from job portals and internal databases. Next, you pick up your phone and start making cold recruitment calls. In other words, you call candidates randomly and hope that one of them will be the right fit for the role.
This is the usual practice across the world. These calls are cold because the candidate is not expecting calls from you. As a result, there will be obvious friction and a lack of trust when they attend your call.
However, most of these issues are circumvented when cold calls are done the right way.
It’s when the recruiters make certain mistakes that the friction emanates, and the results go awry.
In this post, we will look at all such mistakes made by recruiters in cold calls and how to avoid them.
#1 Not preparing for the call
As pointed out earlier, in cold recruitment calls, both recruiters and candidates do not know each other. This can build a certain level of uneasiness throughout the call. The best way to eliminate this uneasiness is by preparing what you are going to say in advance. This doesn’t mean that you prepare a full script and read it word by word.
What we are asking you to do is create a talk track. A talk track is just a checklist that you design for your call with every candidate. The checklist can include pointers like –
- Current responsibilities
- Accomplishments
- Role expectations
And so on…
You must ensure that you check all the points in this checklist by the end of the call. This way, you ensure that you do not ramble stuff that’s irrelevant to the call and make them lose interest in your proposition.
A lack of preparation can also result in you rambling about the company and the role as soon as the candidate picks up the call. This can be quite offputting for the candidates.
#2 Not personalizing the call
Most recruiters make the mistake of treating all the candidates impersonally. Forget talking about the candidate; some recruiters even address them as ‘candidate’ and not by their name. This is a big blunder and can make candidates run away from you.
However, you cannot blame the recruiters. They have to make hundreds of cold calls every day. Due to lack of time, most of them end up talking to a candidate on a surface level. But they forget the fact that such an approach will give a wrong impression to the candidate that they will not be given enough attention even after joining the company. This is a red flag for them.
So even if you make fewer calls, it is important to personalize them. It will help develop instant rapport, leaving the candidate intrigued and surprised in a pleasant way. They will also feel valued and be keen to join a company that has taken so much effort to know about them.
And do not make the mistake of over-selling your company and the role. This can lead to a lack of engagement. Even worse, the candidate will start thinking that your company is too desperate to hire and will try to avoid it.
#3 Asking the wrong questions
There is nothing wrong with asking a lot of questions. After all, the goal of the recruitment call is to know as much as possible about the candidate, which can be achieved only by asking questions. However, many recruiters make the mistake of asking questions that are irrelevant to the role or the candidate. This can irk the candidate to a great extent.
For instance, many recruiters ask questions about the candidate’s family members, how many kids they have, what religion they follow, do they have any disabilities, etc. These questions are not only irrelevant to the role but also creepy and highly discriminating against the candidate. This can not only turn your candidates away from this role but also affect your company’s reputation big time because candidates will start leaving negative reviews about their experience everywhere.
#4 Making calls to the wrong type of candidates
No, we are not talking about dialing the wrong person here. We are talking about wasting your time on candidates who are not interested in the role in the first place. Many recruiters forget that their goal is to fill a job position and not to call the maximum number of candidates.
Rather than making calls to everyone on your list, filter them appropriately. First, create an Ideal Candidate Profile for this job role and your company. This is nothing but a fictitious candidate (or avatar) who is the perfect fit for the role. Discuss with the hiring manager and find out what kind of education, experience, and knowledge they are looking for.
Once the Ideal Candidate Profile is created, map all the candidates in your list with it and filter those who closely match this avatar. This way, you will have a much shorter list that constitutes only those candidates who have a higher chance of getting selected for the role.
#5 Not leveraging the power of technology
Many recruiters make the mistake of not leveraging technology to make their cold calls warmer. On the other hand, smart recruiters use the power of analytics to gather valuable insights and tailor their subsequent calls accordingly. For instance, Frejun automatically records your calls and arms you with all the necessary information about different types of candidates and ways to handle their objections.
Similarly, many recruiters do not know how to use the Applicant Tracking System to collect important data about the candidates for the cold recruitment calls. They forget that ATS gives vital information such as the candidate’s interests, experience, education, etc. all of which you can use to dictate the direction of the call. If you are making the calls directly from Frejun, then you can pull data automatically from ATS tools like X0PA and CEIPAL as they are tightly integrated with Frejun.
Conclusion
Cold recruitment calls are your classic double-edged sword. They can be immensely rewarding when done the right way but can turn catastrophic for you and your business if you make mistakes. Making the above mistakes not only affects the outcomes of your cold recruitment calls but is also greatly detrimental to your productivity. So try avoiding the above mistakes in your next cold recruitment calls. Apart from that, you can partner with Frejun to collect and analyze important data about these calls, which you can use to make future calls more successful. Sign up today.