Clown impersonation is not a crime – yet.
Continuation from Part 1…
16. Interview them: Adopt a keen and serious approach (with perhaps a well directed spotlight) would also add to the air of investigative interviewing.
17. Give them five reasons you worry about working with a recruitment consultant: Share your anxieties. If they’re good at what they do, they’ll be able to address your concerns. If not, you’ll have seen them off successfully.
18. Ask them to mime how they find candidates on the spot: Not only will this put them off, but it should prove an entertaining two minutes. Unless they get all Marcel Marceau about it. (See our future eGuide: 101 Ways to Fend Off A Mime Artist)
19. Ask for adjectives: Ask for them to list on the spot, the top five adjectives their clients use to describe their service.
20. Play at Candidates and Recruiters: When they tell you what they do, excitedly demand to play your favourite game Candidates and Recruiters where you get to role play, with you as the recruiter and them as the candidate.
21. Request that they go all Rolf Harris on you: Give them a piece of paper and suggest that they draw a quick sketch of their business model.
22. Do the car analysis: Ask them “If your recruitment agency was a kind of car, what car would it be?”. Either they’ll back off, or provide a revealing answer about their agency, whether they see it as a Morris Minor, a Skoda or an Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione Spider.
23. Test their interest: request that they tell you the five most important things they need to know about your business: This will reveal if they have any genuine insight into the way you work and the personality of the candidates you would be looking for.
24. Get your dancing shoes on: Explain that in order to gain a real understanding of the way you work, like all associates and suppliers, they’ll be expected to join the company Morris dance troupe.
