I thought of sharing my experience as what makes you a successful Staffing Account Manager. Most of us will/have encountered the scenario while working in a staffing organization that the career/salary growth is limited. You keep working as a recruiter, then get promoted as Sr. recruiter than possibly a lead/manager(If you stay for long), than what next....???
Well organization will expect you to participate in the revenue generation 'directly' rather than keep supporting development/account manager in order to pay you more.
So, that's the 'change', which not everyone is comfortable about. There is definitely a difference between making a call to a candidate and a call to client. As a recruiter, you are only managing the expectations of one-end, the candidate, and possibly you can fight with another end, which is your account manager. But having put yourself in the shoes of account manager, you can no more 'fight', you need to meet expectations of both the ends, that's the change. Unless you do so, you can't 'generate revenue', means no success. So let's put a bulleted list of success mantra, which might make things easier for you while accommodating yourself in the 'change':
1. Make yourself available: First key point of success while you are in customer service industry: Make yourself available. Customers doesn't like (a) if your cellphone is not reachable most of the time (b) if you change your contact number frequently (c) If you don't acknowledge the receipt of email instantly, you might not give them answer asap, but acknowledge that you received the communication and it's in your to-do list now.
2. Understand requirement correctly: That's the technical job, again not everyone is comfortable understanding the tech jargons. So how to interpret as what customer wants. There is a way to it, Ask questions, do not hesitate. Customer would be happy to help you because they feel you are trying to ensure quality by the way of narrowing down your search of quality resumes instead of bombarding them with bulk resumes, which will kill their precious time and reduce productivity.
