QUESTION: I would love to have someone making initial recruit calls for me.  I am not looking for someone to close deals but make the dials and bring potential candidates to the point of agreement of hearing more.  I can take it from there.  Do you feel like I could find this type of person via Upwork on an as-needed basis? – Conrad, Boston, MA 

ANSWER: I have had a lot of clients ask this question. My experience with people that use researchers says the people you find on Upwork are great for finding the candidate contact information, but not the people you want talking to the candidate.  

My recommendation would be to see if I could find someone virtually that can work part-time, maybe 10 or 20 hours a week, and you train them on the art of recruiting. You have them sign nondisclosures and then you give them access to your database. Teach them the specific parts of the call, using the way you go after candidates that engages them, to the point where they are relatively interested, and they can set up an appointment with you.  

The mistake I see people when they do this, they train the recruiters to hyper screen and what happens is you end up eliminating the best candidates. As you know in this marketplace, you have got to find out what their vision for themselves is and how it is not being matched with their current assignment.  

A lot of times, by the way, when people are brand new, I did not tell them what they were working on. I just said they were recruiting for a senior sales role in the Chicago metro. I did not want a brand-new recruiter to get caught up in talking about the job. Their job was to uncover what they want as the next step in their career and what their motive was to consider a change now. That is the art of what we do on the candidate side.  

There are some good sources internationally. People out of the Philippines speak very, very good English.  I have seen some positive experience where you can do it virtually, as long as you can get them to work, which usually is not a problem, the hours of your marketplace. However, the best results I have seen in my clients are when they train someone domestically to make these calls from their home office.

Great question.

Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash