World leading recruitment expert, Mike Walmsley, achieved outstanding feedback on LinkedIn when posting his 16 Golden recruitment rules, which we’ve collated for you in this single blog.
Whether you’re a seasoned recruiter or just starting your journey, these principles will equip you with the knowledge and strategies to build a winning team and improve your billing over the next 12 months.
Golden Recruitment Rule #1: Never assume.
Manager: “How many staff does she have?”
Recruiter: “She didn’t say.”
Manager: “You mean you didn’t ask?”
Recruiter: “On her LinkedIn profile it says she has 20 staff.”
Manager: “Did you ask her?”
Recruiter: “Err, no.”
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it’s lack of curiosity that can kill recruiters’ billings
Drill “never assume” into your staff.
It will serve you well.
Golden Recruitment Rule #2. Close for commitment to the next vacancy.
So many business development meetings end weekly. If you meet a PROSPECT client who is not currently hiring, and upon returning to your office you say:
“Good meeting, really got on well with her, built a good relationship”
You need to up your game. Most of my business development meetings ended with the prospect client (whom I’d never met before) saying to me one of these things:
- Yes, I’ll call you exclusively when I next hire.
- Yes, I’ll call you first when I next hire.
- Yes, I’ll call you alongside my current suppliers when I next hire.
- A vacancy, even though they were NOT hiring. (If we meet, I’ll share the technique with you, but it’s gold).
There is a skill to achieving the above. There’s also a skill and a systematic sales process involved in ensuring that most of the people you are close to stick to their word.
Golden Recruitment Rule #3. Referrals.
Referrals, referrals, referrals. referrals
The number of times I’ve sat next to a recruiter who finished a call without asking for a referral (!!!) – even though it was on a plate
Train, re-train, remind, praise, repeat
NOT “Do you have any friends looking for work?”
NOT “We have a referral scheme…”
Train your recruiters in the most effective way to secure candidate referrals.
And hold them accountable on a weekly basis.
Golden Recruitment Rule #4. Look through the eyes of the customer.
Let me give you an example.
You write an InMail – It looks great, and you send it.
Unfortunately, you get poor results.
In a parallel universe, a recruiter sends the InMail to a colleague or manager “as if they are the candidate.”
It’s not forwarded to them asking them to review, it’s sent ‘as if they are the candidate.’
Now, your colleague experiences what it’s like to receive that InMail – perhaps as they are walking down the street to buy lunch.
And you the recruiter, then receive the ‘food of champions.’
The food of champions = feedback.
Equally important, managers pick up crass messages (sometimes terrible) that would otherwise have been wasted.
Golden Recruitment Rule #5. ABH.
Always Be Hunting
‘Feast’ or ‘famine’ recruitment doesn’t happen when you adopt ABH.
Provided that you follow my golden recruitment rule number 2. above (close for commitment to the next vacancy from prospect clients who are not currently hiring)
And it’s easy. Even if you have multiple vacancies to work on and you feel that you have no time for business development.
Clue: there’s gold in the candidate conversations that you are having whilst selecting candidates for your live opportunities.
I’m not talking about interview leads by the way, something deeper.
Golden Recruitment Rule #6. Get out of the office.
I joined a recruitment company in the middle of a deep, dark recession and received some priceless advice from the founder director.
“Mike, I don’t want to see you in the office.”
He smiled as he delivered the words, and I knew exactly what he meant.
From that day on, I routinely met 20 clients per month.
Of course, I met clients in their offices.
But to fit in 20 per month, it was crucial to include breakfast meetings, sandwiches at lunchtime, drinks after work so that I still had plenty of time to work on roles whilst I was in the office.
I become a closing Demon at those meetings.
Most of my business development meetings resulted in prospect customers confirming that they would work with me exclusively, first or alongside the current suppliers the next time they hired
And many stuck to their word because of the systematic sales process that I followed up with.
Golden Recruitment Rule #7. Make every vacancy you take easier to fill.
When was the last time you spot-checked vacancies taken by your experienced recruiters?
I’ve done this on many occasions as a business consultant or NED and it’s an eye-opener.
”We don’t use template job orders Mike, that’s for rookies.”
And yet they failed to make the vacancy easier to fill.
They failed to get the client to point them in the right direction for target candidates.
They failed to ask questions that could uncover a stream of client referrals.
They failed to ask ‘fee defence’ questions that protect fees in the event that a new client tries to negotiate.
Treat golden recruitment rule number 7. with respect and you will make a lot more fees in the next 12 months.
Golden Recruitment Rule #8. Expect to succeed.
Look, I know there’s a lot of stuff on LinkedIn about positive mindset.
But every single phone call I have ever made, I expected to win.
Of course, I failed many times, but this was my mentality when I failed.
“You are not getting away with that, with Mike Walmsley.”
And then I doubled down in order to subsequently win that client.
When a prospect client gets rid of you, have the mentality that the only reason they’re getting rid of you is because they don’t YET know how good you are.
Golden Recruitment Rule #9. Three dimensional interviewing.
That’s my name for this ‘secret’.
Although it’s not just the secret when interviewing, it’s any conversation with any candidate.
If you’re struggling to source candidates or win business, THIS is the secret.
Clue: there are 40 ways to find candidates without the web.
Clue: there are at least 10 simple questions you can ask candidates that will lead you to new business.
Warning: 100% professionalism and thorough interviewing is key or it will not work.
Golden Recruitment Rule #10. If it goes wrong, it’s MY fault.
Don’t get angry with candidates.
If they ghost you. Or let you down.
Instead, learn from it. And ask yourself what you did – or did NOT do – that contributed to the problem.
I made placements as a DIRECT result of listening and understanding rather than getting angry.
Example: A candidate left his job with my new, flagship client on day 3.
Keeping calm enabled me to get a referral from him who re-filled the job.
And I subsequently also got business from his new company.
Golden Recruitment Rule #11. Focus gets things done.
As a NED, I often use the phrase, “focus gets things done.”
To help directors improve accountability and avoid duplicated effort.
As a recruiter I had supreme focus, relentlessly hunting out deals.
I lived in ‘a bubble’.
No time for chit-chat, just focused upon my daily activity targets (which I set for myself).
Focus is one of the secrets of working with greater intent and getting more done.
Example: Call those 20 candidates NOW and do nothing else.
Take breaks when you need to, but you’ll definitely achieve more by working with single-minded, high-intensity focus.
Golden Recruitment Rule #12. Consistency.
I’ve coached many peak performers in recruitment and overwhelmingly I hear this:
“I’m doing some of the things that you say, just not as consistently as I should.”
Or, when I ask: “When was the last time you did? XYZ?”
The answer is usually:
“Not as often as I should do.”
Consistency in recruitment improves because of five main things:
- Knowledge of the best techniques.
- Measurement of how often you use the best techniques (and learning from that).
- Templates – e.g. a template job order or verbal reference template that contains the best questions you can possibly think of.
- Role-play to refine techniques to your personality and delivery style.
- Focus.
Spectacular success: A £300,000 biller in the UK transformed his performance to ultimately bill £1.8 million GP in a single year.
How did he do it? He CONSISTENTLY applied a key business development technique that I taught him. Essentially, he, “put it in his DNA”.
Golden Recruitment Rule #13. Secure interviews verbally whenever possible.
A CV is an opportunity for your client to reject your best candidate.
So, get on the phone.
Get on a Zoom or teams meeting.
Meet the client face-to-face.
Discuss the candidate and why you selected them.
Close for a VERBAL INTERVIEW.
In my business, verbal interviews were highly prized.
1 point for an interview secured by CV sent.
1.5 points for an interview secured verbally.
Golden Recruitment Rule #14. Get something in return.
I reviewed a recorded recruiter/client teams meeting recently.
When the client asked for a discount, the reply was cringeworthy.
“We don’t normally discount, but on this occasion, I can make an exception.”
Negotiation is a trainable skill.
At the very least, if you decide to decide to discount get something in return.
Examples:
Exclusivity on the role.
Exclusivity on the next vacancy.
Introductions to other clients in their network.
There are more, of course.
I call them “trade-ables’.
If you’d like to improve negotiation in your business and make more fee income for the same effort, book a time in my diary here
Golden Recruitment Rule #15. Master the use of AI.
Yes, I know, this is a little off-piste for my Golden rules.
But I’m shocked at how many recruiters think of AI as ‘ChatGPT’.
AI has transformed the way that I work.
Image creation, voice technology, vision technology (Yes, Google can see you now – https://aistudio.google.com/prompts/new_chat ) and more.
I hardly ever Google things nowadays – why would I when the results are faster, more precise and less “sitting on the fence” than when I use Perplexity.
If you want to survive and thrive, it’s a non-negotiable for 2025.
Golden Recruitment Rule #16. Train your managers how to interview recruiters.
99% of recruitment companies don’t train managers how to recruit recruiters.
It’s a skill in itself that goes beyond assessing the candidate.
Let me give you a few examples:
Name gathering.
– Asking insightful questions to ultimately position your company ahead of competitors.
– Structured competency based interview (yes you can do that for recruiters).
– Clear handover interview notes with prompts for the second interviewer to probe into potential weaknesses.
– Peer referencing (and 20 other techniques to source top recruiters).
– Tracking systems for good candidates that you didn’t secure first time around.
To access 75 recruiter and manager courses within an LMS tailored to your business, book an appointment here.
