You Can CLOSE, Can’t You?

CLOSING is the Ultimate in Sales, Isn’t It?

ARE YOU A CLOSER?

Closing is the name of the game in any sales situation, wouldn’t you agree?  And wouldn’t you agree in Staffing it’s very expensive to lose a candidate after hours of interview time, only to get a turn down?

So…. YOU the hiring manager might ask your internal talent acquisition team and/or your external search firms the following:  “So you can source, great…recruit, fantastic…and convert, even better…vet, whoa!! Thanks for the resume….but Can You Close?  Can you get my candidate to the table after I’ve extended an offer, spent endless hours of interview time, all while they’re getting slammed with a counteroffer?  You’re not going to waste my time and my team’s, are you?

Then there’s the flip side to this closing question.   Hey, Mr./Mrs./Ms. Hiring Manager, “So you can review our resumes, determine their relevance, interview our candidates, vet and extend an offer……….but can YOU SELL and more importantly CAN YOU CLOSE?  Won’t you agree that at some point in time the candidate stops selling him/her self and you start selling yours (and the company, and the position, and the upside, and the future, and the value and why they should leave the comfort of their current position to come to the unknown with you)?   These are fair questions aren’t they?  After all, “us” recruiters who work on a contingency model need all the assistance we can get (in closing) since everything we do is pro-bono up until our candidate accepts, starts, sticks, etc.  And our time is valuable too!

How pre-closing yourself?  Try asking the following question, that is of course if your interest level in the candidate is high, “Mr./Mrs./Ms. Candidate, apart from compensation and benefits, do you have enough information about the company, our environment, the day-to-day role short term, the long term outlook, etc. so if we were to extend an offer you’d be able to make a totally informed decision?”

Or better yet get straight to the point, “Do you have a sufficient amount of information so if we were to extend an offer you’d feel comfortable enough to accept, resign and start within 2 weeks?”  It’s called taking the candidates temperature while they’re right in your examining room.

You have nothing to lose by asking, do you?

For more strategic selling suggestions contact us at BHT Staffing

About the author:  Eric Silverman has almost 30 years in the IT staffing industry.  He’s been responsible for both internal training at his firm and for external sales training at many other staffing companies.  Eric is also a student of the sales game.