If you’re frequently asking for recruiting referrals from your agents and other network contacts, you may find that some of your referral sources can’t think of anyone on the spot.
Your simple request:
Do you know anyone I should be talking to about joining your team?
You may be met with a blank stare or a brush-off comment.
I can’t think of anyone but if someone comes to mind, I’ll let you know.
It may not be that they don’t want to help you, but many people get a little brain paralysis when they’re asked to pull information like this out of the air.
To initiate some additional thoughts, you may want to take the extra step of showing your referral contact a copy of your recruiting warm list (print it out and have it handy).
I get it—it’s hard to think of agents on the fly. Do you happen to know anyone on this list? These are some of the agents I’m trying to connect with.
Your referral source will rarely know someone on the list, but just seeing some agent names and companies often jogs their memory, and it keeps the conversation going.
Getting referrals is a subtle art that the best hiring managers learn to master.
The relationships and referrals are sitting dormant in most people. It’s your job to bring them to the surface.
