Key to Success for Staffing Account Managers

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.



Else there is another way, pick-up the phone and talk to any of your existing technical consultant, read out the JD to him/her and take help in picking the right skill-set customer is looking for, out of the 10-20 jargons mentioned in the JD.

3. Speed matters, so as the quality: You might want to deliver the resumes faster than your competitors, but that shouldn't be the case always. Take your time and re-validate the resumes sent by your recruitment team based on your understanding. Recruitment team always wants to meet their target of no. of resumes submitted against each requirement, but it's ultimately you, who is going to face the client, if the quality of resumes is not good. So evaluate them based on the JD, availability, salary fitment and than pass it to the client. Do mention in the email body as what sort of screening you have done on that particular set of resumes. That's the slow but steady process to gain trust with the client, which will deliver fruitful results in long run.

4. Follow-up: Regular follow-ups with your recruitment team for the availability of the candidates, while their resumes are in process and with the client on the feedback will ensure that you don't loosen your grip on either of the end.

All above are generic steps to remember, however if kept in mind and followed rigorously, i am confident that it will help increase your success ratio. Wish you good luck!