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Kathleen Kurke
Well known for her 30 year history of high dollar production and growth-oriented leadership, Kathleen has worked extensively with companies and individuals to leverage learning as a business success strategy. Clients ask Kathleen to work with them on increasing Production, Profitability and building high-performing recruiting teams in the Executive Search, Perm and Staffing industries. Having served as Chief Learning Advocate with Global Recruiters Network, Inc (GRN), Kathleen worked with the almost 200 franchised offices to implement a learning strategy that increased system-wide and individual office revenues by launching over 1000 hours of annual learning content. While National Practice Leader with StarbridgeGroup, Inc. Kathleen worked with training and consulting companies around the world to recruit and hire executive talent to convert their business goals into reality. Her tenure in the learning business has included highs and lows in her various roles as practitioner, search team leader, building and managing a 15 person search firm, as a franchise owner and a franchise consultant and learning leader. Kathleen now works with a variety of recruiting and human capital companies as a speaker, trainer, coach and business consultant. Kathleen began her professional career in 1980 when she traveled around the country teaching sales effectiveness to thousands of fund raising executives on behalf of a national non-profit organization. After several years, Kathleen shifted into sales, starting with opening new territories and moving up to Vice President of Sales for an educational software firm. Moving into recruiting provided Kathleen with a powerful way to leverage her sales and executive experiences, and her long history of helping executives build organizations and struggle with career decisions established her as a trusted advisor and coach. Kathleen has remained a leader in the executive search industry for the last 20 years of her recruiting career, and was selected in 1995 for membership in the Pinnacle Society, a recruiting industry honor society recognizing 75 of the top executive recruiters in North America. Kathleen was honored to serve as President of this prestigious organization for 4 consecutive years, and has now returned to the organization as an honored member Emeritus. Kathleen’s core expertise is in helping others learn and get things done. Working with others as coach and consultant, she is known for helping her clients build dreams, make plans and execute to create results. Often that means laying out a roadmap, identifying roadblocks and building a detour so the journey is productive. Kathleen Kurke specializes in Productivity and Profitability Coaching in the Recruiting Industry. If you or your team would like to make better choices on working Job Orders to increase your production and pro tability, reach out to Kathleen at kathleentkurke@gmail.com.

OUT WITH PERISTANCE. IN WITH CONSISTENCY.

  By Kathleen Kurke  |    Sunday November 12, 2018



Many of us were raised in this business hearing some version of “persistence pays off” ringing in our ears. Maybe it was “persistence shows them you’re serious” or “we must persevere” or “nothing can take the place of persistence”.

Persistence might look like calling the same person over and over. And, leaving the same voicemail message over and over. And not getting a call back.

Or, sending email after email after email. To no avail. 

Or, scrolling through profile after profile on LinkedIn passing each of the by because they’re not perfect. 

Or repeatedly sending resumes into the internal recruiter and never hearing back. 

You’re being persistent, but you are not seeing results. 

Einstein reminds us that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.

Persistently doing the same things over again without stopping to evaluate whether they’re working may not be your ticket to success.  In truth, it might be insane. 

When I’m coaching high performing Recruiters, I work with them to trade their persistence and upgrade to consistency. We start by defining the exact strategies and tactics that will advance them toward their goal, and connect regularly to refine execution, always focusing on doing the right things right, consistently. 

Upgrading your game to focus on consistency means:

Identify the right things to do.

Identifying how to do those right things right.

Do the right things right, consistently. 

Focus on the “right” things and execute on a planful, intentional and regular basis.

Marketing – EVERY DAY 

Make contact with decision makers in your niche to understand how their business challenges translate into hiring needs.

Initiate contact with 10 NEW contacts or decision makers EVERY DAY..

Execute multiple strategies to make contact and connect with decision makers, including candidate marketing, content marketing, email marketing, referrals and/or regular 

Ask about talent needs and pain points in every conversation, even if you didn’t make the call as a marketing call

Planning – EVERY DAY

Define the target you’re shooting for: Send-Outs

Know where and why you’re initiating every call:  to connect ‘companies with needs’ with ‘people with talent’

Act with a bias for action and create a next step before you leave each call

Block your day/week into “chunks”, scheduling and protecting time blocks for each category of important activity working in your business (marketing, recruiting) and working on your business (administrative, team management). 

Measure (Metrics) – EVERY DAY

Count what matters: Recruit Presentations, Marketing Presentations, Assignments, Submittals and Send Outs

Know your ratios

Metrics create the freedom of predictability

Trying something new for a specific amount of time, eg 100 calls or 100 emails or 2 weeks, and measure the results against your expectations. Setting expectation and counting results means you can make course corrections instead of major overhauls. y. 

Pearson’s Law: “That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.”

Persistent might get you a reputation, but consistent will get you results.

 


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