Your Recruiting Machine on Steroids: Run Recruiting Like Your Sales Pipeline

In the best companies, sales pipeline is run like a well-oiled machine. What if you ran recruiting as a mirror image of how your company manages sales pipeline?

Sales pipeline, done right, is managed with clear accountability and timelines, tight metrics to assess every stage of the funnel, and strong urgency to close the deal. Having driven sales pipeline generation for more than a few years, the parallels are clear.

Track effectiveness at every stage of the funnel: The sales funnel for B-to-B tracks opportunities closely as they move from stage to stage, with targets, forecasts and dashboards to match. The recruiting funnel, too, should be driven by systematically assessing conversion rate and elapsed time from receiving a resume (a “lead”) to first screening to interview and so on, all the way up to “close”. And then, as in Sales, you can hold people accountable for outcomes. You can see where the gaps are, and you can understand what the best practices are.

Run inbound follow-up and outbound prospecting as separate and distinct entities. All inbound leads should be reviewed, assessed for viability and followed up with promptly. In Sales, it is proven that the faster the follow-up, the better the outcome. In Recruiting too, you want your company to be viewed as responsive, and you want to get to the good candidates first. How often have you heard “I have already accepted another offer…?”

It is equally important to proactively seek out potential candidates that look like a good fit. Always be prospecting for new opportunities, versus just being satisfied with what comes to your door. It is important to have separate goals and ideally separate recruiters for inbound versus outbound efforts.

Develop assets needed to drive credibility: Sales always demands content and events to help find opportunities, and to help these opportunities progress through the pipeline. Similarly, Recruiting also needs to work with the business to create assets and events that give prospective candidates a compelling view of the culture and career opportunities in the company. In today’s media-rich, social sharing environment, assets such as “Day in the Life” videos on the website, a strong Facebook presence, and positive GlassDoor ratings are all essential.

Close with urgency: Show the love. Close with urgency. In fact, approach every stage of the process with urgency. You need to show the desired candidate that there is a great fit, and that you are eager to move ahead. As in Sales, you need to show as much energy as possible to put an offer on the table that is mutually beneficial, and demonstrate that you are eager to close the deal.

Assess why you lost: In Sales, deals are scrutinized to see where, why, and how often you lose to the competition, to be able to respond these situations to win in future. If you find many of your candidates in the engineering organization are being lost to LinkedIn or Twitter, for example, then you need a plan to position competitively against them. Why are you a better option?

Sales rock-stars are recognized for closing lots of business; make sure you recognize and reward your recruiting rock-stars too. These are invaluable resources, and are in much demand. Build a culture that celebrates them and rewards them for these successes.

Managing your sales pipeline well makes your quarter and your year…managing your recruiting pipeline well makes your future.

Originally published on LinkedIn