“Recruiters? They all look the same to me”

How to avoid being paid the same as an average recruiter

In my early 20s I went to live in Japan.

I had very little in common with the other Westerners who lived near me - a documentary filmmaker from LA, an economics graduate from Melbourne, a Canadian who’d spent a year busking his way round Europe - and yet we were all seen as simply “foreigners” to the locals.

The irony is that as I got to know people better, I actually had more in common with the Japanese guys on the local rugby team than some of the Americans, Aussies and even Brits in nearby towns.

As recruiters we find ourselves in a similar position when clients tell us “all recruiters look the same”. Or in pricing terms, “everyone else has agreed to 15% so you should too”.

New groundbreaking research* has found that grumbling about this state of affairs to other recruiters on LinkedIn makes absolutely no difference. 

What does work is finding ways to differentiate yourself from the crowd… and then help your clients get to know you and see how you are different from other recruiters.

Changing your company values, or reworking your mission statement, or writing a funny tagline on your LinkedIn profile, isn’t enough. You must help your clients experience who you are and why you’re uniquely valuable to them.

In all my travels, the most effective way I’ve found to do this when meeting a new client is to talk them through your well-designed choice of services. 

Your client-to-be gets to see beyond the “recruiter” label and understand how you approach your work. They also experience being consulted by you, as you talk them through the services and which might be right for them.

This puts you a world away from the average recruiter… which means you avoid being treated - and paid - like an average recruiter.

So if you want your clients to see you for who you really are (and pay you what you’re worth) simply reply to this email and we can talk about what works for you.

Jon

PS. The Japanese word for foreigners - gaijin - literally translates as “outside person”. And giving our clients an “outside view” of how to attract candidates is one of our key selling points as recruiters.

So if you want your clients to see you for who you really are (and pay you what you’re worth) simply reply to this email and we can talk about what works for you.

*OK, so there isn’t any research (that I’m aware of) into the effectiveness of grumbling about clients on LinkedIn. But let’s agree that it’s probably not likely to change your clients’ behaviour.