Ten Essential Competencies for Relationship-Centric Recruiters – Part 1

Exclusively for RecruitingTrends.com

David Nour, Author, Relationship Economics

Many recruiters do all kinds of assessments of each candidate’s core competencies, and attempt to persuade their clients as to why and how their candidate will undoubtedly succeed in the open position.  

In my consulting work with astute business leaders, they often wonder about the recruiters they work with – beyond their education, years of recruiting experience, and due diligence on the client organization, how well do most recruiters actually connect (or NOT) with others – whether be it at the various hiring client company levels or individual candidates they submit?  Are recruiters willing and able to influence as effectively as they try to persuade?  Are they emotionally savvy, engaged and intelligent to surround themselves with productive dissent – both within their firms, at their client companies, and with bright candidates?  

In short, are top recruiters relationship-centric to not just fill job openings, but to help transform a client company? 

Here are ten (10) essential competencies for relationship-centric recruiters – at any sized firm, and focused on any industry: 

1. Strategic Relationship Orientation – Do they understand Relationship Currency® and Reputation Capital® – not just transactional but truly transformational thinking about their personal, functional and strategic relationships?  Are they aware of their strategic business relationship opportunities, do they critically analyze a return on each strategic relationship investment, and develop annual Strategic Relationship Plans (SRPs)™ congruent with their business goals and objectives? 
2. Client Relationship Impact – Do they serve the current, and anticipate the future needs of their clients?  Do they live in their client’s shoes as business leaders and aim to create an exceptional client experience at every opportunity?  Do they build respectful and candid relationships with varying client constituents, listen to their insights and empower their clients to share their experiences? 
3. Market Presence and Prominence – Do they intimately understand the market in which they’ve chosen to work including their client’s competitive landscape, the critical suppliers in the value-chain, and the regulatory environment?  Are they viewed as an industry leader?  Do they build critical relationships with market influencers, keep their fingers on the pulse of the market to identify key human capital trends and opportunities if not shape those trends themselves? 
4. Client Business Enabler – Do they understand their client’s end customers and the quantifiable value their clients bring to their markets?  Do they proactively look for performance enhancement opportunities to overcome market challenges by their clients, and share key human capital trends and forecasts with their clients in advance of the competitive landscape?  Do they help their clients prioritize among competing job openings and invent new ways to increase headcount success opportunities for the candidates they place (increasing the size of the pie?)  Do they get independent insights from their portfolio of relationships (including the candidates after they’re placed) and leverage a broad base of market relationships as “signal scouts?” 
5. Result Driven – At the end of the day, do top recruiters improve their clients’ business performance and create an ROI on their human capital investments?  Do they consistently help their clients and candidates they place meet or beat their business goals and objectives and transform their client businesses for significantly improved results?  Do they invest in critical client and candidate relationships to accelerate their ability to drive profitable revenue growth for their clients, efficient and effective cost performance, and a quantifiable return on their relationship investments? 

Read this column next month for part two – the next five essential competencies.  

By the way, if you have aspirations in raising the bar on your profile as a top recruiter, how do you rate against these competencies?

© 2010 The Nour Group, Inc.  All Right Reserved.

David Nour is the thought leader on Relationship Economics® – the quantifiable value of business relationships.  In a global economy that is becoming increasingly disconnected, The Nour Group, Inc. has attracted consulting clients such as KPMG, Siemens, Disney, Alvarez & Marsal, Assurant, HP, and over 100 marquee organizations in driving unprecedented growth through unique return on their strategic relationships. 

Nour has pioneered the phenomenon that relationships are the greatest off balance sheet asset any organizations possesses, large and small, public and private.  He is the author of several books including the best selling Relationship Economics (Wiley), ConnectAbility (McGraw-Hill), The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Raising Capital (Praeger) and the Social Networking Technology Best Practices Series.  He is currently writing his forthcoming book Listen Louder – the power & promise of a socially enabled enterprise.  To learn more, please visit: www.RelationshipEconomics.NET or call 1-888-339-1333.

Posted by David Nour on June 30, 2010. Filed under Recruiting, Thought Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry