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Maximizing your employment outcomes through follow-up
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
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Once you’ve reached out to most employers, developed your pitching skills, and reinforced your reputation as a recruitment problem-solver, you are left with the consistent, professional practice of follow-up. In the first four weeks, we built the machine – the practices and approaches to engage with employers. Now, you’ve built the machine, you’re in the community, what do you do that is going to make employers want to work with you?
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Can you keep a secret? What employers say they want has very little baring on what they need or choose to do. But, it’s really important we don’t tell them that.
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What they want is the perfect employee, with amazing experience, who’ll work for the bare minimum, not complain and always perform.
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What they end up hiring, time and time again, is someone somewhere in the middle who has some good experience, many of the qualities employers are looking for, but if they’re underpaid, mistreated or sunk into a poor work environment, they always have their eye on the job postings.
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This is not to say, if they hire our clients or students, everything works out terrific. Sometimes they’ll hire our clients and they will be pleasantly surprised by someone who works out great. Other times, it will turn out to be a disaster and the job opportunity will turn out very badly. Mostly, we’re somewhere in between. The irony is that through traditional recruitment, these employees also turn out somewhere in between.
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The point is, the employer has some predetermined criteria, that they cling to with the hopes of getting their perfect candidate.
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Unfortunately, we don’t represent perfect candidates. We represent real people who need some kind of support, otherwise we wouldn’t be working with them.
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Nevertheless, if these criteria were so important, they would drive all hiring. But what we have instead, 70-80 per cent of the time, employers hiring through the hidden job market.
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They’re saying, “sure – I have these criteria, but if Joe says this person is okay, that’s good enough for me.”
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Who is Joe??? Apparently, Joe is someone the employer knows well enough to shave away all sorts of selection criteria and give them a chance anyway.
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Employers may cling to selection criteria, but they know better than anyone else, not everyone works out – in fact it’s more likely someone’s not going to work out, so if a third party is willing to vouch for a candidate, they’re willing to go with that person.
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When we talked about ‘branding’, we talked about getting employers to trust you, but what does that trust look like?
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Have you ever heard of Club 33? My guess, is that there isn’t anyone here who is a member of Club 33. It is a super-exclusive members-only club in Disneyland. It was started in 1967 because Walt Disney had been pressured by corporations in the park to create a hospitality suite, that served alcohol, where they could conduct business. The ‘33’ refers to the 33 corporate sponsors of Disneyland.
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If you go to Disneyland, you won’t see a sign or windows for Club 33, just a discrete door, with the number 33 above it, near the Pirates of the Caribbean in New Orleans Square. It’s extremely exclusive. According to the Los Angeles Times, membership can cost as much as $50,000 with an annual fee of $15,000 per year. The application process is highly secretive, but the total membership is very low and it can take a dozen or more years to secure a spot, if at all. Prospective members are highly screened with preference going to famous or well-connected members. Celebrities who belong to the club include Tom Hanks, Christina Aguilera and Elton John.
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So, what is so special about this club? Well, it serves alcohol in Disneyland, which up until the opening of Galaxy’s Edge wasn’t available anywhere. It’s also highly themed. Walt Disney started the project before he died and wanted the club to be an extremely themed space. It also provides park passes for the member and their immediate family as well as some free passes throughout the year.
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Still, this seems like a lot of money to pay to hangout in a restaurant and not go on rides. The food isn’t even free.
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Recently, I heard an interview with someone who had been invited by a member of Club 33 to join them for lunch. In this interview, he described the amazing food and ambiance, but what struck him the most was the unparalleled level of customer service.
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Guest after guest would come in and the staff would engage in conversation with them. Staff would ask about their family, their work, their projects. They were extremely well informed and were talking with the guests as though they were good friends.
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The members were also asking staff about their lives and what was going on in their world. As the song goes, it’s a place where everybody knows your name.
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What strikes me most about this story is that it isn’t transactional. It’s not to say there isn’t commerce going on – Disney is making a mint off of this, but if it isn’t genuine, it sure appears to be.
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Before I share with you, a list of follow-up activities you can undertake with local employers, I want you to believe that effective job development also shouldn’t feel transactional. This is our opportunity to take a genuine interest in local employers.
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An employer is naturally going to put job developers at an arm's length, just as we would put a salesperson at an arm's length. This person wants me to hire their client, or sell me a product, and so I can’t entirely trust what they’re saying, so I’m going to double-down on due diligence. “Where were those criteria I was looking at for potential job candidates?”
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Oh, to have the credibility of ‘Joe’! But, remember, Joe doesn’t want anything, he just happens to know someone who could be a great employee. I don’t need to be suspicious of Joe’s motivations.
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Now, we’ve talked about prospecting – you know who the employers are. We’ve talked about pitching – you know how to best present your clients or students. Maybe it’s worked and maybe it hasn’t. What does follow-up look like?
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Follow-up is important for three reasons. It helps improve conversion rates; builds trust and rapport; and demonstrates value.
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1. Conversion Rate
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If I go and visit 10 employers and those 10 visits result in one employer hiring a client of mine, this is a 10% conversion rate. That means, if I need to help 20 people find a job, I need to visit 200 employers.
But if through consistent follow-up, three of those original 10 employers hire my clients, I’ve now developed a 30% conversion rate and I would only need to visit 70 employers to help my 20 people find employment. Consistent, repeated follow-up builds conversion through increased awareness.
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2.Trust and Rapport
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Yes, an employer is going to keep you at an arm’s length when they first meet you because there is an improper power balance. You want them to hire your client and they are going to be suspicious of your motivations.
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Utilizing the Disney example, this is an opportunity to learn more about their organization, their hiring process, their challenges and their strengths. This is why we spent an entire week talking about ‘discovery’. Early in the relationship, we want to ask questions, not pitch clients.
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It’s absolutely critical, at this phase, to keep detailed notes. When you meet an employer for the second, third, fourth and fifth time, you want to be able to draw on this information to ask them about projects they’re working on, problems they need to overcome or new things they are trying. The more you demonstrate interest in what the employer is trying to do, the more you’ll build trust and rapport.
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3. Demonstrating Value
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Job developers and other employer engagement professionals are not order takers and client placers. We’re not here to gather job postings to share with job seekers and to get clients to apply for jobs. Quite frankly, technology can do that far better than you can anyway.
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Our job is to help an employer see the value of an individual, if not inclusive hiring overall. We’re here to share the experiences of other employers; to differentiate the contribution our clients can make; and as a professional resource once clients have been placed.
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If you want to know what you can do where AI is a poor substitute, it’s these areas. If we want job development to continue to exist as an occupation in 10 years, which I’m absolutely certain it will, we need to focus on these areas that draw on qualities such as creativity, empathy, discernment, story telling and responding intentionally.
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Framework for Follow-Up
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How you go about follow-up is less important than that you do it. It’s easy to walk away from an employer rebuff and write them off completely. Let’s focus on the employers in town who are going to be more receptive. It’s true, that most of your attention should be focused on the most engaged employers, but it’s not to say great employers can’t be developed over time. Remember, when you first meet them, they’re guarded and keeping you at a distance.
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The following is a breakdown of how you might want to conduct follow-up after a first initial meeting.
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Timing: Follow-up within 24-48 hours of initial contact and be mindful of the appropriate time for subsequent interactions.
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Multiple Channels: Use a combination of emails, phone calls, and even social media to reach prospects in the way they prefer. This is the sort of information you can gather and tailor over time.
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Personalization: Tailor your follow-up messages to the employer's specific needs and interests, referencing previous conversations and addressing their challenges.
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Value-Driven: Ensure each follow-up provides something of value, such as relevant information, resources, or exclusive offers.
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Be Persistent, But Not Pushy: Find a balance between staying in touch and overwhelming the employer.
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Track Your Follow-Ups: Use a CRM or other employer tracking system to track your interactions and ensure you're following-up consistently.
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I could conclude this by saying, follow these strategies and you’ll achieve increased numbers and longer lasting employment outcomes. While this is true, it overlooks a fundamental truth. If we want to simply pursue employer relationships to place clients, it’s transactional and will, to some degree, come across as such.
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Instead, I would suggest you approach job development with curiosity; one of those things AI isn’t very good at. Be curious about employers, their challenges and how they do business. Commit what they share to memory and let that shape your future conversations. In my family we always say, communicate with two ears and one mouth, in that order. If you take the time to get to know local employers, the job opportunities will come on their own.
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We’ll be sharing some thoughts about the value of follow-up in our #MotivatingMondays recording for the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday July 21st 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 21st 'Click this Link' to view the session on YouTube.
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'Developing a Comprehensive Approach to Effective Job Development'
WORKSHOP
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By the way, I’ve been amazed by our early registration for, ‘Developing a Comprehensive Approach to Job Development’, with one session for each time zone, September 8th to 12th. We’ve had hundreds of job developers and other employer engagement professionals take this training but for a limited time, everyone who registers is going to get a 35% discount on registration. To learn more, just visit: www.jobdevelopment.org/pro-d
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'National Networking Day for Job Developers'
NETWORKING IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES
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Also, I spent last week organizing sponsors for specific communities for the National Networking Day for Job Developers, taking place on September 19th. If there isn’t one happening in your town, I suggest organizing one. Sponsorship is FREE and looks great to funders and the community at large. To learn more, just visit: www.jobdevelopment.org/sponsors
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