I shared last week that hiring managers are being inundated with a plethora of unsolicited candidates for one reason or another. With the advent of a reduction in force and disappointment in bonuses, it’s no surprise that managers are being inundated with applications. However, as I shared last week, our opportunistic approach will be extremely advantageous to you, the candidate in demand. In this week’s blog, I am going to share the entire opportunistic process.
The Initial Chat
After a candidate has reached out to us, or I have identified a “person of interest,” we have an initial fifteen-minute conversation. During that initial chat, we will both share our thoughts on you (the candidate). I will ask your reasons for taking the call and try to get a quick flavor of who you are, your potential book of clients, and the industries that you cover. The main thing I am trying to ascertain for an opportunistic approach is: does it make sense for you to schedule a 45-minute drill down with me? During this initial conversation, if I and you (the candidate) believe it makes sense, then we schedule the full drill down. To be transparent, if I do not think I can help you today or in the future I will not recommend the drill down.
The Drill Down & Recommendations
The drill down will consist of our asking many questions about you, your motivation, your clients, and the platform you need to succeed. The purpose of all these questions in an opportunistic approach, as anyone who has gone through this process with me, is that we both learn a lot more about you. You also will learn a lot more about your professional self. At the conclusion of this 45-minute dialogue, one of three things will happen. The first is I recommend that you stay exactly where you are. This usually occurs about 30% of the time. Another 20% will decide after the call that even if I say, “There does not seem to be a reason I see,” they still want to have me look for them passively. In other words, if something comes up at any time reach out to them. For the remaining 5O%, I will recommend that we actively start to create that next opportunity for them. For this particular group, I will then make recommendations of firms that I believe could be a good fit, and of course, I share why.
Recommended Firms, Sharing Information & More
Once we start this process, I will share everything about a recommended firm. This includes my in-depth knowledge of both the hiring process as well as the hiring manager. Since we have very strong long-term relationships, we are confident that any information we share with a hiring manager remains confidential, and they will never use any of the information that a candidate shares during the interview process to their advantage. This is incredibly important for me to stress for an opportunistic approach. I trust my clients as we have contracts already in place and have worked together; therefore, I am exceedingly confident in this last statement. After that first interview, we will then ask you and the hiring manager only one question and that is: do you want to learn more? Next week we will continue our process beginning with the recap of your first meeting.
Conclusion
If you would like to discuss your options, please reach out for a confidential conversation at 760-477-1284 or email at [email protected]. He can also be reached on LinkedIn. Harlan publishes a blog every Thursday here. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter here, which is a compilation of our weekly blogs, so you never miss one. You can find our listing in the “supplier and services” section of the Red Book under the title of “executive recruiting.”
About Harlan Friedman, JD & Founding Member, H. Friedman Search LLC. Harlan is a thirty-year veteran Public Finance Banker turned recruiter who specializes in the placement of all levels Public Finance Bankers, Healthcare Bankers, Municipal Advisors, Compliance Officers, Issuers, and Bond Counsels.