What the HR world needs is specialization, not generalization
You might call it specialization, or you might call it focus. You might like finding a niche or a groove. If you’re a baseball fan you might think of it as a sweet-spot. Whatever metaphor is your favorite, the fact of the matter is that to stay competitive, discerning recruiters need to create a precisely-targeted discovery process if they want to see positive results.& k3 Q7 i6 B# _- k, r
; e9 p) q; ~3 [5 [Part of this specialization means you’ve got to figure out what you do best. Kind of sounds like advice for a first-time job seeker, doesn’t it? But many recruiters don’t follow this fundamental. In a post on Contract Recruiting, Doug Franklin says that many “recruiters looking for that next gig struggle to verbalize or even put in an email what their ’sweet spot’ is when it comes to recruiting.” But it’s pretty unlikely (as Franklin suggests) that a discerning recruiter is as good at filling industrial positions, for instance, as they are at healthcare or financial.; M# l' j7 K/ N2 ]8 ~. u
" |: [4 g% E( `4 nHe argues that contract recruiters are being asked more and more often to perform vertical searches which almost always require some pretty specialized knowledge and ability. We’ve posted about branding before, and Franklin covers it too. He recommends three steps towards branding your recruiting specialty:6 @' h# @: d v3 R
* {0 v- a/ A' N& l' K5 UDetermine your niche recruiting strength and force yourself to write it on paper as a way to clean up the wording. : N2 |4 ^' s: B# v
Prepare your “elevator speech” which will clearly define your niche to any agency or company looking for a Contract Recruiter.
' Z, A9 W9 a- F) T. o$ [Begin to build your brand. Put your marketing paragraph of your niche or expertise on your web page. Get involved in industry events specializing in this niche recruiting area. Comment in Blogs about your area of expertise. 4 k5 z2 ?. e+ X% v" c. ?9 d
A focused sense of your own recruiting strengths will put you in a better position to actually recruit: to understand the needs of the organization, to assess candidates and ultimately to place them by accurately matching their talents with those needs. As the recruiting world becomes a more specialized environment - as a result of more and more specialized job markets, niche job boards, etc. - recruiters are going to want to find their own personal sweet-spots and start swinging for the fence.
