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Discovery is the pathway to better employment outcomes
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
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Getting to know the challenges and daily reality of employers is the best way of building trust, coaching clients and suggesting individuals who can address the broad array of problems many employers face.
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Not everyone loves it when I make parallels between the work job developers do and that of salespeople, so let's choose something a little closer to home.
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When you have a case manager, an employment counsellor, or career advisor doing an intake appointment, they take time to ask probative questions and make informed suggestions. Can you imagine if they immediately broke into suggested interventions upon meeting a client?
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The client or student sits down and the case manager immediately suggests different resume styles, taking a job search workshop focused on social media or enrolling in a First Aid course.
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Would the client feel understood in that moment? Even worse, would those suggestions even address the challenges the client is struggling with? While it may not always be labeled this way, we're talking about a process of discovery where the case manager learns personal insights into the challenges job seekers face, the strengths they can build on and their short- and long-term goals.
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Because it's a highly personalized process, a good case manager will tailor their questions as they learn more information. They may start off with general questions about job search, career planning, education and employment maintenance, but as they ask questions and they identify areas of significant concern, they will suggest interventions and options that address the client's primary concerns.
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This not only helps the case manager develop an informed action plan but helps demonstrate to the client or student they understand their challenges, they're prepared to support them in overcoming them and they have tools, resources and expertise to achieve this.
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This is exactly the approach job developers should adopt in bringing solutions to employers.
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Let me give you an example of basic job development:
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I knock on the door of an employer and they answer the door asking how they can help me. I say, "Hi my name is Christian Saint Cyr and I work with Ajax Employment Services and we have a number of programs and services that can assist with your hiring process. Are you looking to hire right now? Can I share some of our information with you?"
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To this, the employer may reply, "no, we're not hiring right now," or "we're fully staffed," or "we typically advise on Indeed and select candidates from those who apply."
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The problem with this example is I've made it all about me, my organization and the services we provide. I've asked nothing about the person I'm talking to, their organization or their needs.
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Let's try this another way. Here is an alternative example:
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"Hi my name is Christian Saint Cyr and I work with Ajax Employment Services. I'm meeting with local employers to get a sense of some of their recruitment and retention challenges. Do you have a few minutes for two or three quick questions?"
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Now, there's no guarantee, this will work. They could easily reply, "no, I'm sorry -- I'm very busy," or "this is a really bad time, can you try back later," or "we really don't see any value in government programs."
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While these aren't exactly encouraging responses, at least we have a mutual understanding that, right now, they are not interested.
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This said, there will be a portion of employers who are willing to invest 'a few minutes' in 'two or three quick questions'.
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In a moment, I'm going to suggest some questions, but these are only the suggestions. You need to be comfortable with what you ask, but you want to better understand the employer and give them an opportunity to verbalize their thoughts.
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Here are questions you may want to draw on:
- What sort of roles do you typically hire for?
- How do you promote roles?
- What does your recruitment process look like?
- What distinguishes your business?
- Who is your major competition?
- What do your customers most like about your business?
- What are you most proud of in your organization?
- What motivates your staff?
- Where do you see your organization in the years to come?
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Wait a minute, you may be thinking. There are more than three questions here. We can't lie to employers.
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No, I don't think you should lie to employers and truly, the first three questions are extremely valuable: "What are the roles you hire for; how do you promote them; and what does recruitment look like?"
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Once I'd asked the first three questions, I would be inclined to ask if they are comfortable sharing some more and really respect their choice, thanking them for what they've shared.
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Just getting an employer to share what they are thinking creates an environment, where people are willing to share even more. Remember, if the employer is talking, you’re building relationship and trust and if you’re talking, the employer is building resistance to what you have to say.
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By the way, there is an intrinsic formula to the questions above. They start off with nice left-brain questions with concrete answers and as you move down the list the questions become more right-brain, speaking to values, principals and emotional perspectives.
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If you meet someone at a dinner party and they asked you what you do for a living, you would likely share your answer, but if they asked you what makes you a good parent, your response would likely be short and cautious. We need to warm up to values-based questions.
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As you gather feedback, you want to look for potential problems the employer faces. Some problems might include:
- They are being ghosted by the best employees
- People are underqualified
- People are inflexible in scheduling or availability
- Candidates want hybrid and they can' t accommodate it
- Applicants lack certification or a particular training program
- Employees are unreliable
- Candidates want too much money
- Employers get bogged down in administration
- Poor interview performance
- Lack of applicants
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Understanding these 'problems' allows you to eventually suggest candidates who can address these problems.
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You may follow-up with an employer a day or two later and say something like, "you mentioned employees being unreliable," I'm currently working with someone who's fanatic about showing up for work 15 minutes early and in their last job didn't call in sick once in two years."
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Good discovery not only allows you to build relationship with an employer, but helps you address their biggest concerns.
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Gathering information about an employer's major challenges also allows you to speak to the financial impact of continuing to operate as they have.
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In business, they refer to something called 'opportunity cost'. Once you’ve identified the problem the employer is struggling with, for instance, a revolving door of employees, you can turn it into a number. Typically this will be wages being lost or the time of the employer spent in continuous recruitment. This can amount to thousands of dollars if not tens-of-thousands.
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The opportunity cost is the amount of money that it would cost to not solve this problem. You want to show the status quo is expensive. How will their current pain impact the business a year from now? Maybe they’ll shrink instead of grow, lose valuable employees due to organizational stress, or miss out on new contracts or other opportunities.
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You wouldn't necessarily want to hit an employer over the head with this, but it might be valuable to say something like: "I know having this position unfilled is costing your company a lot of money and adding increased stress to the rest of the team. I believe my client could become a valuable asset that helps alleviant this stress and contributes to the team."
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Discovery isn't just a skill utilized by employment counsellors and case managers. It's a skill utilized by all professionals. We wouldn't want a doctor who diagnosed us without knowing what hurts; a lawyer who suggested a pathway without understanding our legal problem; or a counsellor who told us why we're angry without listening to our story.
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In the past two weeks, we've talked about pitching and prospecting but this week is all about getting to know local employers. If you put away your brochures and spend 75 per cent of your time getting to know local employers and asking them intelligent, probative questions, you'll find they are far more likely to ask you about suitable candidates rather than you having to 'sell' them your clients or students.
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We’ll be discussing the value of discovery in learning about the challenges of employers at our #MotivatingMondays meeting of the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday July 7th at 8:30am Pacific; 9:30am Mountain; 10:30am Central; 11:30am Eastern; 12:30pm Atlantic and at 1pm in Newfoundland.
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On the morning of Monday July 7th 'Click this Link' to join the session LIVE.
REGISTRATION FOR THE NATIONAL NETWORKING DAY FOR JOB DEVELOPERS IS NOW 'FREE'
We’ve officially launched registration for the 2025 National Networking Day for Job Developers which will be taking place on ‘September 19th’ in communities across Canada Learn more: www.jobdevelopment.org/nnd
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To ensure the maximum attendance possible in all communities, we've decided to wave the cost of registration so now attendance will be FREE in every community.
We already have 16 communities arranged and we’re adding more. If we don’t have one in your community, maybe your organization would be interested in hosting one. There is no direct cost to hosting a session. Just go to: www.jobdevelopment.org/sponsors
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