Fistful of Talent

Recruiter Goat's Gruff: Recessions Bring Out Our True Recruiting-Self...

Recessions tell us a good deal about ourselves as Recruiting Animals, don't they?  If you want me to be honest, I really wish we didn't have any, but the fact is that we do . . . and the cycle is fairly predictable.  One thing I've come to learn is that down economic periods shape our view of what is truly important in life.  For example, my grandparents often told me stories I will never forget about living through the Great Depression as young children. And as the number of unemployed grow, I find myself having more and more conversations in which the downsized candidate needs, above all things, a flicker of positivity; many simply pick up on the hope in your voice and it can change their outlook, giving them some momentum to continue pushing forward.  "These are tough times, but we will come out of this."

Yet, as I say this, I am dismayed at the number of candidate-bludgeoning articles (and today, blog posts) that come out during recessionary times such as those we find ourselves in today.  It's as if many Recruiters (internal and external) are now sporting "a gun and a badge."  At a time when we can do the most good (see David Pritchard's efforts to assist the candidate market), there are entire series coming out that do nothing but perpetuate this majority-versus-minority mentality.  The latest installment in the Egregiously Bad Candidate series, "7 Great Ways to Ensure No Recruiter Ever Reads Your Resume" was the breaking point for me.  Seriously, with 50% of the entire Recruiting population gone over the last 12 months, those of us still standing are better than this.  Let me ask: At what point did we transition from a highly skilled and passionate group of people continuously seeking to find and secure the best talent, to behaving as if we're trolls guarding the bridge?  "Thou Shall Not Pass!"

Watching more and more of these negativity-focused articles come out, I can't help but believe they're exactly what we don't need . . . and as far as the unemployed population goes, it's no wonder many are scared of (and turned off by) Recruiters.  And in that sense, I've come to some conclusions I'd like to share today.  As always, I welcome your thoughts and ask you to add to the list:

1. We, as a Recruiting Industry, have taught the candidate market many of their bad habits.  That's a fact, Jack.  For example, is it ok for us to blind mass email out job descriptions . . . but then flex on the candidate population when they blind mass email their resume?  Until we elevate our own behavior, we're nothing more than sitting in glass houses.

2. For all you External Recruiters out there, let me shoot straight with you: If you can afford to screen out on the basis of petty issues (i.e. "I didn't like their signature line"), you're in the wrong niche.  For Internal Recruiters, I'll say this: Just because the average tenure in your position is 8 - 12 months, you still hold responsibility for your organization's employment brand.

3. Just because we temporarily hold a position of power (i.e. Recruiters can screen in or screen out on the basis of personal discretion), doesn't mean that we should abuse our power.  Acton was right when he stated that, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Look, if you want to be a gun-and-badge toting monster, I understand there isn't a whole lot I can do to change your mind.  But, If I can leave you with one thing today, it's this: Don't forget what happened to the Troll in Billy Goat's Gruff.  He's no longer recruiting.  Nope, he now works at a used-car dealership and moonlights as an real estate consultant.

Editor's Note - Josh Letourneau is the owner of LG and Associates, a Strategic Sourcing, Executive Search, and Human Capital Intelligence firm based in Atlanta.  Prior to founding LG & Associates, Josh worked as a Sales & Marketing professional in the software biz and was a hard-charging Sergeant in the Marines.  In his spare time, Josh enjoys shooting at other sourcing and search professionals as available in random paintball games.

If Google and Apple Agree Not To Poach Each Other's Employees, Is That an Anti-Trust Violation?

Think about it.  You're Google, Apple and Yahoo.  You've all got great brands at various stages in the brand life cycle, but the thing that drives you nuts is when you poach each other's employees.  Sure you feel great at Google when you lift a design person from Apple, but then you look up and Apple's lifted a premium web developer from the Google team.

So, at some point, your CEO says "enough", and directs the COO to put a call in to the other megabrands.  The message?  "Why are we stealing each other's employees?  Let's make a deal not to lift talent from each other, because at the end of the day, we can agree not to poach and fill our needs elsewhere in Silicon Valley from all the smaller companies - and the bigger ones that don't have our employment brand attractiveness.  We're all supermodels - so let's agree to pick talent from the ugly kids, not each other..."

Quick - is that an anti-trust violation?  The Justice Department thinks it might be.  More from the Washington Post:

"The Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether some of the nation's largest technology companies violated antitrust laws by negotiating the recruiting and hiring of one another's employees, according to two sources with knowledge of the review.

The review, which is said to be in its preliminary stages, is focused on the search engine giant Google; its competitor Yahoo; Apple, maker of the popular iPhone; and the biotech firm Genentech, among others, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

"This could be collusive restraint on trade, which could have a serious impact on competition," said Albert Foer, president of the American Antitrust Institute. Such an agreement would underscore the fierce competition over top engineering and business talent.

Google has long been known for its exhaustive recruiting process to find people who fit into its culture and create innovative Web technologies. In 2005, Microsoft sued Google for hiring away Kai-Fu Lee, Microsoft's vice president for Web Interactive services, to head Google's operations in China."

What say you?  Is that an anti-trust violation.  Interesting that the one dominant tech name you don't hear included is Microsoft.  It's OK to agree not to poach each other's talent, but let's pillage Redmond as much as we can?... 

For my money, the common board relationships at Apple and Google make for an interesting backdrop, but it's hard for me to believe that companies couldn't resist picking off a great engineer from one of the listed companies if they had a chance.

The truth?  It's lying on a Microsoft Exchange server somewhere, right?

Editor's Note: By day, Kris Dunn is the VP of People at DAXKO, a cool software firm dedicated to providing solutions to the best membership-driven organizations in America. At night, he morphs into a blogger at The HR Capitalist and the Founder and Executive Editor of Fistful of Talent. That makes him a career VP of HR, a blogger, a dad and a hoops junkie, the order of which changes based on his mood. Tweet him @kris_dunn...

Kelly Dingee's New Favorite Sourcing Tool... LeapFish

I am typically not a huge fan of metasearch engines in my sourcing life.  I feel they have their purpose and when working on a research project do quite often employ one to make sure I'm not missing any amazing information from other sources.  But, still, I almost regularly prefer to just go to Yahoo or Google to run searches.

Until I met LeapFish.

You know I love speed from this blog.  You can't spend 40+ hours a week online and not wish for the internet to move faster, so I try to optimize my tools as much as possible.  LeapFish is in beta release and optimized to work with Google Chrome.  Their tag line "Just Type It" is true.  Type anything.  General Search.  Boolean Power String.  XRay.  As you type, the site doesn't just give you options, it starts to produce results, in real time.  With a quick click you can switch your search engine results from Google to Yahoo to Live and see how your top ten varies which additional candidates you need to pursue. The focus at LeapFish is not just indexing the web, but aggregating it.  Definitely review their press releases since the site's launch in November 2008 for more information on their progression.

For the sake of experimentation, I built these quick searches to take LeapFish through its paces.  First, a PowerSearch.  Knowing that MSN doesn't respond well to the command "inurl" I only used "intitle":

intitle:resume sap "project manager"

Many, many, many results come back quickly and by adding on a few additional key words, I can tweak this search to produce results more in line with my current needs:

intitle:resume sap "project manager" "washington, d.c." -jobs -sample

And, of course, we have to run my favorite type of search string, an XRay.  Try this:

site:linkedin.com CCRN

Flip from Google to Yahoo to MSN to see the variety in your results.  LeapFish's clean display allows you to view many at once.  You can search the web, images, blogs and more from this interface and leverage all of your boolean to get some of the best and quickest results ever.

 

Give it a spin.  You won't be disappointed...

 

Editor's Note - Kelly Dingee is a Technical Writer/Sourcing Researcher for AIRS. Prior to joining AIRS, her experience includes sourcing for Thales Communications, Inc., and Internet recruitment for Acterna (now known as JDSU). Follow her on Twitter and get the lowdown on what's going on each day in sourcing - she's a Twitter machine...

What Do You Mean Our Employer Value Proposition (EVP) Doesn't Compare?!?!?"

Every once in a while, each of us (as External Recruiters, Internal Recruiters, or Sourcers) have interesting conversations worth sharing.  Some are informative, many are myth-busting, and a few are mind-boggling.  Here is an example of one with an organization that has doubled their staffing spend over the last 12 months by believing the hype and searching for a magic bullet.  Today, they have little to nothing to show for their 'investments' and are very close to exhausting their entire FY09 budget:

 

Them: "Josh, we've basically done everything we can.  We've had 3 contractors who came from 'Recruiting Excellence' award-winning companies join our staff and they struck out.  Their response in regards to lack of production was along the lines that at their other companies, they were used to 'handling volume' instead of having to directly source from the competition.  Although these contractors were from these award-winning companies, I realized that we weren't living in the same recruiting reality as them.  They spent the bulk of their day waiting on incoming resumes and filtering old ones so they could do a quick phone screen and submit the candidate to the hiring manager.  From there, we brought in a few well-known internet sourcing trainers, but to be honest, their stuff didn't do much beyond show us search results in Google.  In many cases, the resulting data was old . . . in others, it didn't mean we could do anything with it.  Then we brought in one of the larger recruiting training firms to help our recruiters, and while we learned a few things, we're still not hiring better candidates in the needed timeframes. As of late, we've invested in an advanced sourcing platform to lay on top of our existing job board investments . . . but a big part of me sees this as throwing good money after bad.  So here's the bottom-line: This year alone, our staffing spend has basically doubled . . . and we have nothing to show for it."

 

Me: "Wow, I can feel your pain.  This is a tough market.  It sounds like you were betting on speculative results that didn't pan out - somewhat like buying real estate in hopes the property value would appreciate . . . that is, before the bottom fell out.  From where I'm standing, you were looking to invest in training, channels, and technology with the hopes of big returns that simply didn't result.  Look, the truth is that most of the consistent award-winning recruiting organizations have massive budgets, strong employment brands, and their challenge is resume volume, not direct sourcing.  In terms of Internet Research, the reality is that there is a big difference between what the military calls 'information' versus 'intelligence'.  You can act on intel, but information alone holds little value.  For example, knowing who someone is doesn't mean you can recruit them.  As far as Sourcing Platforms that lay over job boards are concerned, the elephant in the room is that the results can only be as good as the resumes being put into the job board.  If they're poor, relative to your desired profiles, then don't expect big-time results.  Anyway, how can I help you?"

 

Them: "Well, as much as we hate the idea of paying executive search fees, we feel as if we have no other choice.  Sure, we tried BountyJobs, TalentHire, and RecruitAlliance, but all we received were the same candidates that our sourcing platform pulled off of Monster for us.  I mean, I don't blame the recruiting firms because we refuse to speak to them in the first place.  Put it like this: I liked the idea of offering way lower fees, but ultimately, about 1 in 15 resumes we received were actually worth taking a look at.  So, we've doubled our staffing spend from last year and have nothing to show for it outside of a social networking presence that has helped us with our entry-level roles, but not much else.  And since we've spent so much of our budget, we can't pay more than 20% on a direct-hire fee."

 

Me: "I wish I could help, but I can't.  Your recruiters are going to continue to struggle and until you fix the root cause of your real problem, you can spend and spend and spend and you won't see much more than an incremental improvement, if that.  In all honesty, your current strategy isn't much different than opening your window and throwing dollar bills out of it."

 

Them: "What do you mean?"

 

Me: "You're trying to sell a meatball sundae.  Strong candidates aren't going to leave their current position to join your firm for 15% less total compensation, a non-existent relocation package, and a $3k tuition reimbursement plan.  It's just not going to happen.  As much as I hate to turn down business, you're asking me to essentially recruit the bottom 10% of the market that is currently employed at your competition.  Put simply, your value proposition is the weakest in the market and as a result, the word on the street is that your company is looking to tread water instead of make some serious waves."

 

Them: "How do you know what our competitors are paying?  What do you mean our value prop doesn't compare?  Out of all the consultants and fancy solutions we've purchased over the last 12 months, nobody ever told us what you're saying.  It was as if I'd tell them our issues and they'd lay out a chinese menu of options on a pricing chart."

 

Me: "Yeah, that's Sales 101, right?  Find the Client's problem, magnify it, explain how your solutions will fix the pain, and then get the invoice signed.  My recommendation is to kill your meatball sundaes.  Reinvent your value prop to become more attractive to strong performers.  Stop paying for consultants and technology you don't need and actually fix what's wrong.  If you can do that, I'll help you turn your performance around by getting you some real movers, shakers, and difference makers.  Oh, and when you begin taking steps to fix the real issues and actually focus on getting great candidates hired, think about how a few points on the direct-hire fee matters very little at the end of the day.  The couple grand more you'll spend with my firm to get a great candidate hired instead of a good one is half a week's pay for a contractor at $100 per hour.  Except in my case, you actually make a guaranteed hire."

The Client called back 3 hours later to agree to the fee structure, but more importantly, requested assistance with a full vendor review.

Please...No More "Dear Recruiter" Emails...OK?

Want to stand out in a sea (tons) of resumes that flows every day across the desk of search consultants all over the country? Sending an impersonal e-mail, letter or worse - a blast of your resume to thousands of employers and search consultants is not the best plan or ideal strategy. Nope. It usually will not work. If that's your strategy, it's not very targeted and falls into the me-too category. More often than not, the person on the other end (of your less-than-well-thought-out-plan) will find the delete button faster than (you fill in the blank - but it will be fast). 

The information flow at my desk is overwhelming. Resume review, daily updates to search dashboards, uploading data to our ever expanding database, industry RSS feeds and on and on and on. I am sure I am not alone here. To get thru each day, you must make every second count. If the content does not stand out - I will not waste many cycles on it. OK - actually none.   

There is another extreme which is very targeted. How about the lady in CT who posted her photo on a billboard in an effort to rise above the noise in her search to find a job. It's estimated that she paid between $2,500 - $3,500 to place the ad for 30 days on a billboard located on busy I-95 near Bridgeport, CT. She was looking for a local company to hire her and that strategy, while interesting, is very expensive was actually highly focused in her geographical market. So far it seems to be paying off. She has several offers in play and I wish her the best. 

If you are trying to capture someone's attention (especially in this market), you have to make sure your message is directed to the right audience, ideal vertical market based on your skills, and your message needs to be much more personal than "Dear Recruiter". You don't need a billboard sign - but try to avoid having the reader automatically hit the delete button when they read your message.

My delete button is located on the top right portion of my keyboard. 

I seem to be using it a lot more these days:-(     

Editor's Note - Tim Tolan is a partner at Sanford Rose Associates and specializes in Executive Search in Healthcare IT.  He's a closer, and you really don't want to call him unless you're ready to bring out the bazooka to bag some big game...          

Build It and They Will Come (Kevin Costner/Field of Dreams): Twitterjobsearch

On a weekly, sometimes even daily basis, we have our "IT" site on Twitter.  Recruiters saw this phenomena really kick off with JobAngels at the end of January.  An idea spawned on Twitter by Mark Stelzner evolved into an organization with social media presence on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.  JobAngels has been covered by multiple news outlets, including the LA Times and CNN and has an incredible viral presence.  Maybe because the message was appealing.  Maybe because it's free. Maybe because the people behind the scenes had invested enough time in social media, in a fun sort of learning the ropes kind of way, to know how to really let this site shine in the spotlight.

So is TwitterJobSearch the new "IT" site?  Some might think so.  The editor here at Fistful needed someone to check it out and I dutifully volunteered. Definitely getting the right person for the job - I am a TwitAddict and am always game to check out a free service that helps shoot jobs out to jobseekers.  So let's talk about Twitterjobsearch - my initial impressions? It's an aggregator, scanning Twitter for job posts.  But it appears to be more than that if you dig further into the site, they'll actually load your jobs, for free onto TwitterJobSearch.  Check this link here. Oddly enough, this tidbit of information isn't quickly noticed on the TwitterJobSearch site, but I found it weeding through their Twitter homepage.

Is it worth pursuing?  Maybe.  It's free.  And what recruiter isn't trying to save on their advertising budget these days?  TwitterJobSearch has accrued 30,000 plus jobs, which is great.  And they've organized the site so that seekers can come in and create a search or browse by group.  I would love to know the thoughts of HR job seekers and if they can find their category.

But here's my real question...does TwitterJobSearch have the attention of JobSeekers?  Where are they promoting their site?  Have they initiated a cross platform social media campaign to draw in users from other sites?  Where's the word getting out to the average job seeker, not just the social media junkies?   Posting for free is great, but if no one is looking at our jobs, what good will it do?  I am a huge advocate of a multi-prong strategy when filling requisitions, and I think the same thought process applies here. These are the same types of questions I've asked job boards in the past, when they've called and wanted me to sign into job posting/resume search agreements.  How are you getting the jobseekers there?  It's valid and recruiters need to know.  

I'm going to give some equal time here, many more are running onto this Field of Dreams.  There are several sites jumping into this fray of job push services.  You can also consider @jobshouts, @greatplacejobs @twithire @microjobs and @tweetmyjobs.  Did you get a hire using any of the services mentioned?  Let us know and let 'em shine.

Editor's Note - Kelly Dingee is a Technical Writer/Sourcing Researcher for AIRS. Prior to joining AIRS, her experience includes sourcing for Thales Communications, Inc., and Internet recruitment for Acterna (now known as JDSU). Follow her on Twitter and get the lowdown on what's going on each day in sourcing - she's a Twitter machine...

Maximizing Your Recruiting Time Online With Google Reader...

I spend a lot of time online.  At least 40 hours per week and that's probably a low estimate.  I spend so much time online I intentionally have an archaic cell phone so I am unable to surf when I'm outside the house.  When I go on vacation, the laptops and the crappy cell phones are forbidden, and it's almost like detox for the first 24 hours.

But, when I am online, I try to maximize my time, whether I'm researching or sourcing.  And you should too.  I would love to skip around and stop here and there and read and try out new strings and more, but focus is key to getting our jobs done and not falling down the proverbial rabbit hole.  So, I am a big advocate of using a Reader.  I'm partial to Google  And I've written about this a bit before here.

Once you get your Reader started, you need to organize it, just don't slap your blogs, strings and more into it.  Take the time to set up some folders.  Mine are set up to cover general business blogs, recruiting, hr, sourcing, search strings, tweet feeds and more.  When I add blogs or Google Alerts, I file them right away so everything's tidy and ready to go.  Most of my folder titles are self-explanatory, but let me talk about a couple.  I do have search strings in my Reader.  There are sourcing jobs in my career that have been particularly challenging, and I still have those strings that "worked" and I check 'em out every once in a while.   Some may be wondering what my "tweet feeds" are.  I create these feeds with the help of search.twitter.com, for some of my prolific Twitter friends.  This way I can check their tweets out whenever and, with a quick scan, see if there's great articles I missed them tweeting about that I need to follow up on.

With my Reader set up this way, I can make time every day to check on all my topics or, what I usually do is focus in on a particular area, scan the article titles and move on from there.  If I were someone with limited funds and time in the recruiting arena, I would definitely set up a Reader and make use of Google Alerts to track my search strings - it would give me back a nice chunk of time in each day to explore other sourcing strategies or better yet, focus on additional projects.

Need suggestions on blogs to read regularly? I think that's a separate article, or catch me on the Tweet Side and I'll share some with you.

Editor's Note - Kelly Dingee is a Technical Writer/Sourcing Researcher for AIRS. Prior to joining AIRS, her experience includes sourcing for Thales Communications, Inc., and Internet recruitment for Acterna (now known as JDSU). Follow her on Twitter and get the lowdown on what's going on each day in sourcing - she's a Twitter machine...

Twitter As A Second Language...

I had the delightful experience of getting to speak to the Staffing Alliance of Maryland Employers (aka ProjectSAME) in mid-February.  I've taken in some of their programs many times over the last 15 years that I've been involved in HR in the Montgomery County corridor- it's a great group.  Never overlook the local groups - especially here in D.C., we had attendees from all kinds of companies, and I have to admit I even got a chill knowing the NSA was present.  (That is so cool...)

We chatted social media - one of my favorite things in the world to talk about - and one of my favorite moments of the day was when I started in on Twitter.  Over the years as a sourcer, I have had moments when I'm describing what I do, or how to source, and I've seen non-sourcing counterparts literally have their eyes roll back in their heads because it was just too much info at once.  I have always figured it was some kind of karma for the number of times I did the same with the engineering managers I use to work with.

But, as I'm talking about Twitter and stressing how it can be used to build brand, peer community, talent community, and of course to find people, I realize my group is looking at me funny.  And no, I didn't spill anything and I wore my smart blue shirt as one of my Tweeple suggested.  At first I thought it was because I had said something about getting all of your information across in 140 characters.  But I started to realize I was using words like Tweet, Twittered, Tweeple, Follow, DM, "@ replies" and more, and that's what threw everyone!  After being enmeshed in Twitterville for more than a year, I did have a second language!

So if you're new to Twitter and need to get the lingo, I thought I'd track down some links for you.  Mashable is one of my favorite sites for keeping up on social media, not just Twitter.  Back in November, 2008, they created a nice list of Twitter specific terms that you can quickly view here.  Mashable also references Twittonary, another great site that allows you to type in any Twitter related site or scan their subsections to get apprised of all the various terms related to Twitter.  And, bonus, you can follow Twittonary on Twitter!

Want to get even further into Twitter? Check out this FanWiki. And remember, the next time you're chatting up a twitter newbie (aka "twebie"), give them reference materials, they're going to need a whole new language for the land of tweets.

Editor's Note - Kelly Dingee is a Technical Writer/Sourcing Researcher for AIRS. Prior to joining AIRS, her experience includes sourcing for Thales Communications, Inc., and Internet recruitment for Acterna (now known as JDSU). Follow her on Twitter and get the lowdown on what's going on each day in sourcing - she's a Twitter machine...

Don't Forget to Pick a Big Company That Does Things Well and Bleed Them Dry...

I joked with Jessica Lee a few weeks back via this Tweet regarding the LinkedIn "companies" function, thanking her for reminding me that the "companies" feature of LinkedIn provides a great mechanism to target talent within companies YOU KNOW - have candidates who would rock it at your company if you chose to find them and pursue them. 

Makes sense right?  I think sometimes I forget to go back to the well with companies that have given me great talent.  Why not go back there time after time and spend networking time and resources to develop that pipeline?

Harry Joiner agrees, and uses Dell as a great example of a recurring pipeline of candidates for his e-Commerce search business:

"Over the last five years, I have made a small fortune pulling executives out of Dell Computer.

Why Dell?  Because a long time ago, Michael Dell was smart enough to tie every Dell employee's bonus to Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) -- the single metric that mattered most to Dell's customers, and therefore, to its stock holders.  By aligning his employee's behavior to the expectations of his customers and stock holders, Mr. Dell created a perpetual motion machine fueled by the self-interests of every single stakeholder.  That's not a bad thing.  That's a great thing!

According to Mr. Dell's book Direct from Dell [which I strongly endorse] ...

ROIC became a focusing device.  We introduced it in 1995 with a company-wide push to educate everyone about the benefits of a positive ROIC, with articles in the company newsletter, posters, talks by managers, and "Messages from Michael" devoted to the topic.

We explained specifically how everyone could contribute: by reducing cycle times, eliminating scrap and waste, selling more, forecasting accurately, scaling operating expenses, increasing inventory turns, collecting accounts receivables efficiently, and doing things right the first time.  And we make it the core of our incentive program for all employees.

We decided to to reward employees around a matrix of ROIC and growth and higher performance directly attributed to higher ROIC -- which came back in the form of higher compensation.

BOTTOM LINE:  Dell executives know how to create value for ALL company stakeholders -- both internally and externally, up and down the value chain -- and that's what today's employment market will pay for.  That's what it needs now more than ever!  You can stick a Dell executive in just about any company and they will find a way to organize their teams and activities around those things which create value.  Clients LOVE this trait, and I have the check stubs to prove it."

That serves as a nice reminder from Harry not to over complicate recruiting, especially as it relates to the networking you're doing to build your pipeline.  Brands matter, and you may as well pump the pipeline at established brands you know your hiring managers have loved in the past, because it's the efficient play moving forward.

And Jessica, don't worry - I can't place people in D.C.

The Passive Candidate Flips You Off In the First Five Seconds - What Do You Do?

Let's say you're cold calling passive candidates, and you ultimately run into the dark side - the candidate who has no time for you and interrupts your initial stage banter with the following:

"What's the job, company and pay?  Just tell me that because I don't have time to talk to you..."

If you recruit for a living, you know that's a pretty tame version, because I can't accurately depict the LOATHING that some folks who pick up the phone (the potential candidate) will have for you (the unwashed heathen, otherwise known as the cold calling recruiter).

So, how do you handle it when you're 7 seconds into your opening, and the candidate interrupts you and says "dude, tell me the pay and I'll tell you if you can afford me..."?  After all, you've worked hard to make your stage banter early in the call sound like a cross between Kid Rock and Tony Robbins.  How could they NOT want to talk to you?

Lou Adler sees it this way over at ERE:

"What’s the compensation?" When someone asks, don’t tell! Say, “Before I tell you that, I’d like you to think about the best jobs you’ve ever held, those that gave you the most personal satisfaction. Were the reasons they were the best due to the amount of money you were making or due to the work you were doing?” (PAUSE and wait for an answer.) “Now, if the job I’m representing offered you a chance to maximize your personal satisfaction plus offered a competitive compensation, wouldn’t it make sense to at least discuss it for 5-10 minutes?” ...

"First, tell me about the job." You must never tell the person about the job, even the actual title, until you have conducted a quick work history review. Start the conversation by asking your prospect if she’d be open to discuss an opportunity if it were clearly superior to what she’s doing now. Most people will say yes, then immediately say “Great. Could you please give me a quick overview of your background, and I’ll then give you a quick overview of the job.”

As you might expect, many readers think that sounds like a sleazy telemarketing pitch.  Ask a Manager reacts to that like a lot of candidates would:

"I don't know about you, but if a recruiter called me out of the blue and subjected me to this sort of game-playing, I'd be off the phone in seconds. I'm happy to talk to recruiters who respect my time and don't try to manipulate their way past "no," but make me feel like you're an aggressive salesman and we're done. And to demand that I recite my job history for you, when you called me? That just tells me you didn't do your homework."

Me?  I think Lou's got the right idea, but I think each recruiter has to live within the construct of who they are.  Be genuine, and the candidate will sense that and be more open.  If you've got the moxie and stage banter to pull off Lou's advice, maybe you've got the ability to be successful with that approach over 100 calls.  You just have to accept that a lot of people are going to think you're a telemarketer.  If you close 2X the business of the other recruiters, you've won at the end of the day.

That being said, Lou's advice in this scenario can't be a one size fits all.  My style would be to give them the information they want, then follow closely with a reason that I thought they would be a good fit, based on the resume I had in my hand, then try to get them talking about what they might be looking for so I can figure out their pain points.  If your style can't handle the Adler machismo, you've got to blend your personality with the hooks that Lou is providing to maximize yourself over 100 calls.

The last thing I'll say?  When you are cold calling, sometimes you have to get jacked up and take on an alter ego that is not your own, to get through the candidate cynicism and rejection.  I'm reminded of the following scene from Boiler Room (email subscribers, click through for the video - WARNING - language alert).  I'm thinking this is a young Lou Adler eating a bowl of cereal when he gets a telemarketing call.

Sometimes you have to stand up to get in character.  Be genuine, but don't be afraid to push and sell it, my FOT brothers and sisters....