Job Orders: Better, Faster, Smarter
Article by Bill Radin, President
Books, Tapes and Training for Recruiters
©2002-2005 Innovative Consulting, Inc.

Note: Bill Radin is a top-producing recruiter whose innovative books, tapes and training seminars have helped thousands of recruiting professionals and search consultants achieve peak performance and career satisfaction. Bill’s best-selling books and audio programs include The Recruiter’s Almanac, Recruiting and the Art of Control and How to Market & Sell Your Recruiting Services. Bill can be reached at (800) 837-7224 or visited online at Books, Tapes and Seminars for Recruiters by Bill Radin.

There’s both an art and a science to writing job orders. The science involves information: getting a description of the position, the selling points of the job, the company’s sense of urgency, and an idea of where to look for candidates.

The art has to do with gathering all this information quickly while building a rapport with the hiring manager and nailing down a fee agreement.

In theory, each new job order would read like a Michelin travel guide: a detailed roadmap of the position, the work environment, the manager, the company, the industry, the salary, the reporting relationships, and so on.

But in reality, it’s unrealistic—and impractical—to get a huge amount of detail, especially in your first conversation with a new client. I’ve found that even the most patient employers tend to get fidgety after about 20 or 30 minutes.

So, my approach is to keep the job order—and the worksheet I use to gather information—simple. I try to hit the major points and get the most data possible in the least amount of time. That way, I can get a snapshot of the employer’s needs, evaluate the quality of the assignment, and in the process, prepare a list of follow-up questions to ask later.

If you work from your job order checklist too literally, the sheer volume of questions might make it sound as if you’re putting the employer on trial. To keep things short and sweet, a typical first-round sequence of questions may sound something like this:

“Mr. Employer, to better understand the job and my ability to help you, let me take you through a very brief series of questions. Are you ready? Good.

“First, tell me why the job is open. What problem do you want the person to solve? Isn’t there anyone on staff who can do this? I mean, what would happen if you couldn’t find the right person for the job?

“You say you’ve been trying to fill the position for several weeks. How many people have you interviewed? Where did you find them? And you never reached the point of making an offer? How come?

“What sort of compensation package did you have in mind? Is that what you’re paying other people in a similar capacity? And you’re finding qualified candidates in that price range?

“If you don’t mind, I want to play devil’s advocate for a moment. Why would someone quit a perfectly good job and go to work for your company?

“So, let me see if I understand the situation. If I found a qualified candidate and we scheduled an interview for next week, and there was mutual interest, you could make a competitive offer and have that person start in about two to three weeks.

“Great. Now let me take care of a little business. I charge a placement fee for my service, which will be due once the candidate I refer accepts your offer of employment. We’ll discuss the exact amount of the fee in a moment, but once we agree to the terms, I’m going to send you an agreement to sign and fax back before I can begin the search. Do you have the authority to sign an agreement and pay a fee? Excellent.”

See how it’s done? You hit the major points first to qualify the job order. Once the job’s been qualified, you can go back and fill in the blanks, with additional information about the company, the specifics on the technical skills or experience needed, what the short and long term results would be if the person did a superlative job, who the person reports to or supervises, how much travel is involved, what the hiring process is, and all that good stuff.

An artful job order interview not only allows for a more objective evaluation of the company’s needs; it also puts the employer at ease by starting a conversation—not an interrogation.

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