How to Get Inspired with Metrics

Sep 3, 2019 | Metrics for Running a Successful Recruiting Firm

QUESTION: Can you ever be a good recruiter if you are not metrics goal oriented? I rock when I am inspired, but numbers do not inspire me. – Anonymous 

ANSWER: There are a lot of recruiters that bill $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, $600,000, or $700,000 a year that do not know really what their metrics are.  I should not say a lot.  I know some.  But they are goal oriented. 

I do not know anyone, and I am not saying they do not exist, the reason I am pausing here is I am scanning my database of people I have really been inspired by in recruiting that are big billers, whether they are clients, friends, associates, people I grew up in the business with, and I think the one common thing is they were wickedly inspired by something.  

This inspiration is different for a lot of them.  I know two recruiters that are brothers.  They would engineer their entire business around golf and on Fridays they would take golf vacations with a few other owners that were similarly inspired.  Great family guys too.  

I do not know anybody that just did not want something.  If they are not goal oriented, there are a lot of easier ways to make a couple hundred grand, $150,000 in salary.  You can go to a company and whine about how they are changing the benefits programs.  

You said:  You rock when you are inspired, but numbers do not inspire you.  So my coaching question for you would be, what inspires you? When you define what inspires you, ask yourself, what can you do in the business to get you to that outcome?  That is a question I ask myself.  I did it when I was on a desk.  I did it running an office.  I do it now in our coaching/consulting/training company.

What are the things that I can do endlessly that I am fascinated and motivated by?  Calls like this is one of them. 

What are the things that I find a little bit irritating or just okay?  For those things, I find other people who are really talented in those areas and I hire them either as full-time or contracts or projects and I get them off my desk.  That means I am always evolving to do the things that I am really, really good at.

By the way, you can be excellent at some of those things that are irritating, but it is probably something you can train someone else to do.  It is a great wide open question, but I hope I gave you and everyone else some ideas.