If I walked into the office tomorrow morning and every job on my recruitment desk had disappeared…

• No vacancies.
• No interviews.
• No pipeline.

Where would I start?

The answer might surprise you because I wouldn’t start by cold calling.

I wouldn’t jump on LinkedIn trying to connect with 200 hiring managers.

And I definitely wouldn’t spend the day stressing about how bad the market is.

I’d go back to the same process that’s built my desk for nearly two decades.

Not because it’s revolutionary recruitment or some new process no one has ever used before – but because it works.

1. I’d stop chasing strangers.

This is where I think a lot of recruiters get business development wrong.

The minute things slow down, they convince themselves they need brand new clients.

But why? Why do we always think new?

You’ve probably spent years building relationships with people who already know who you are.

• Clients you’ve recruited for.
• Candidates you’ve placed.
• Hiring managers who’ve changed companies.
• People you’ve had coffee with.
• People you’ve helped without ever making a fee.

Why would you ignore all of that just to start from zero?

Before I made one cold call, I’d work my way through every relationship I’d already earned.

Not selling.

Just reconnecting.

The best business development usually starts with, “How’ve you been?” not “Can I help with your recruitment?”

I once was talking with a client about their recent vasectomy within 5 minutes of starting the conversation. Maybe not the most conventional ice breaker – but it’s human.

2. Your CRM is probably worth more than you think

Most recruiters are obsessed with finding new prospects.

I’m more interested in rediscovering old ones.

Go back three years.

• Who’s changed companies?
• Who’s been promoted?
• Who interviewed with you but didn’t get the job?
• Who became a client somewhere else?
• Who did you almost place?

Recruiters spend thousands of hours building databases then completely forget what’s in them.

I’d rather spend an afternoon properly mining my CRM than a week randomly prospecting.

There’s usually more opportunity for your recruitment desk sitting in your database than sitting on LinkedIn.

3. I’d stop trying to sell recruitment.

One of the easiest business development conversations I’ve ever had didn’t start with a sales pitch.

It started with curiosity.

I had the profile of a great candidate. Someone I knew market would find truly exceptional.

Someone companies would genuinely want to know.

So I rang every client that I knew would be interested in their skillset and did a good old, traditional candidate float.

With this particular person I unlocked 6 roles. 3 pre-existing and 3 that they’d create for this profile.

That gave me a starting point – where I knew that if I found more people like this one, I would be making placements.

Now obviously this doesn’t work all the time.

Sometimes nothing happens.

Sometimes they’re interested.

But more often than you’d think, the conversation finished with the client saying,

“Actually… while I’ve got you…”

And we’d be off talking about something completely different.

That’s the mistake recruiters make.

BD isn’t always about “selling”.

It’s not.

It’s about creating conversations.

About creating curiosity around which candidates might be around.

About what the client would love to find in an ideal world.

4. I’d spend less time behind my computer.

Recruitment has become incredibly digital.

Which is great in many, many ways.

Until you forget it’s still a relationship business.

We all know that there is a certain magic that happens when you meet a client face-to-face. But knowing it & making time to do it are two very different things.

If you’re dry on business 1000% I’d be making time to meet clients an absolute priority.

If it’s still a growing relationship, bring a value-add with you like a quarterly salary benchmark for their market, trends or whatever but find a reason to meet.

Every time I have sat with a client in person, it has unlocked business.

It has also unlocked future responsiveness as it’s much harder to dismiss someone once you’ve looked them in the eye.

5. I’d become obsessed with movements

I’d spend my day looking for movement.

• Who’s hiring repeatedly?
• Who’s just won a major project?
• Who’s expanding into another city?
• Who’s just promoted someone?
• Who’s advertising the same role for the third time?
• Who just took a new role? (backfill their old one)

Business development gets a whole lot easier when you’re talking to companies that are already telling the market they’ve got a hiring problem.

The clues are everywhere.

Business development isn’t actually the hard part.

This might be the biggest lesson I’ve learnt.

Recruiters tell me all the time they hate business development.

I don’t think they do.

I think they hate not knowing where to start.

That uncertainty leads to procrastination. Procrastination leads to inconsistency. Inconsistency leads to unpredictable billing results.

But truthfully, if you have good, repeatable processes, you shouldn’t need to get to this point.

A lot of what I’ve written above should just become part of your weekly process.

If you’re someone that seems to boom & bust on your BD & job pipeline, I’d be taking a look at what you do every week and seeing where your process falls over.

Let’s go.

Brett