Happy New Year!

Okay, now that’s out of the way, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. There will be some changes to The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog in 2019. You may have already noticed one of them, which is first on the list below:

There is a new email template for distribution of the newsletter.

There’s a good chance you encountered this template in your inbox. While the template has a new look, the functionality is the same. You have two options. First, you can click on the individual blog post links to view only that blog post. Second, you can click on the “READ ENTIRE ISSUE” button to, well, read the entire issue. (Or at the very least, view all of the posts in the current issue on a single web page. Although that will entail scrolling.)

Pinnacle changes: present and future

There will be four email templates overall for 2019.

The one that you saw this week is called, ironically enough, the weekly template. There is also a monthly template, a quarterly template, and a yearly template. We will organize and categorize the content within these templates and issues accordingly.

There will still be 52 issues in 2019, one per week. If there’s a monthly issue one week, then it will take the place of the weekly issue. There will NOT be four weekly issues and one monthly issue in a given month for a total of five issues for that month. Instead, there will be three weekly issues and one monthly issue. The breakdown is as follows:

• Twelve (12) monthly issues
• Four (4) quarterly issues
• One (1) yearly issue
• Thirty (35) weekly issues

Add that all up, and it comes to 52 total issues. Isn’t math grand?

There will also be a re-design of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog website.

The website is basically where The Pinnacle lives. It’s where we keep all of the blog posts, both past and present. And yes, before you ask, the re-design of the website will match the re-design of the email templates.

Our focus: more value for YOU

We’re strategically fine-tuning categories to provide more value.

We will still highlight split placements in The Pinnacle. However, we will no longer list ALL of them. After all, we already list the placements in the Members’ Area. But we will highlight recruiters making their first Network split. That’s a monumental occasion, after all!

In addition, we will still highlight anniversaries, but in a slightly different format. We’ll be a bit more selective, giving weight to those who have been part of our recruiter network for 20 years or more. Our emphasis is to both congratulate these agencies and also share with the membership what has made them so successful.

We’ll also still highlight newer Network agencies. But like the placements, we also list those in the Members’ Area. Instead, we’ll include them in our blog posts regarding first placements and also in success story and case study posts. Once again, we believe that presenting the information in this fashion will ultimately provide more value to you, our loyal readers.

And that, in a word, is the impetus behind these changes—value. We want to provide more of it through The Pinnacle. Sure, we’ll be sharing announcements like this one. However, we also want to provide information that will help your agency make more splits and generate more revenue.

We believe whole-heartedly in the split placement methodology. It works. It’s worked at Top Echelon for over 30 years. It should be working for your agency. If it’s not, we want to help it work for your agency.

That’s why I encourage you to contact Director of Operations Drea Codispoti, CPC/CERS. To do so, call 330.455.1433, x156 or send an email to drea@topechelon.com.

Wild swings in the Stock Market. Global financial uncertainty. A possible trade war with China. All reasons to be apprehensive about the New Year? Or are Top Echelon Network recruiters ready to deal with all of it?

Heck, yes! At least . . . according to members of Top Echelon’s recruiting network.

We recently conducted a poll in the Members’ Area, one designed to gauge recruiters’ preparation about 2019. Specifically, we wanted to gauge how confident they are about their preparation for the upcoming year.

The question that we posed in the Members’ Area is as follows:

At this exact moment, do you feel prepared for 2019 on your recruiting desk?

The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of split network recruiters that selected each one:

• I shall bring next year to its knees! — 39.4%
• “Prepared” might be a strong word. — 19.2%
• It depends on your definition of “prepared.” — 17.2%
• The seat of my pants is the only way to fly. — 13.1%
• Are you kidding? I’m still not prepared for 2018. — 11.1%

Plan to be prepared

Let’s start with the fact that nearly 40% of recruiters participating in this poll plan to “bring next year to its knees!” (30.4%). That’s nearly four out of every 10! It would indicate that these recruiters feel quite confident about their preparation for the upcoming year.

Another 19.2% of poll participants indicated that “prepared” might be a strong word. So while they’re not supremely confident about their preparation, they’re not exactly lacking confidence, either.

Then the feelings of preparation being to wane, starting with the 17.2% who chose “It depends on your definition of ‘prepared’” as their answer. Then there are the 13.1% who apparently believe that the seat of their pants is “the only way to fly.”

And, of course, there are those who do not feel optimistic about their preparation at all (11.1%). In fact, they still have their doubts about 2018!

At the end of 2018, we posted the same poll question in the Members’ Area. Of course, we changed the year involved. Last year, only 32.1% of members indicated that they would bring 2018 “to its knees.”

As you can see, over 7% more members are confident about their preparation this year, as compared to last year. Does that mean they actually ARE more prepared for 2019 than they were for 2018? That is a subjective question.

But one thing is for sure: more Top Echelon Network recruiters feel prepared for 2019 than 2018. And while some might say that feelings don’t make placements, the proper preparation certainly helps. The more prepared you are, the more prepared you feel.

And the more placements you’ll likely make.

It used to be that companies hired more contract candidates during a down economy and then resumed direct hiring when the economy improved. That’s no longer the case. Companies are continuing to hire contract workers, and experts predict this major paradigm shift will continue.

You can take advantage of this shift by taking contract job orders from your clients. Some direct hire recruiters are apprehensive about taking contract job orders because they don’t know if they can find qualified candidates to work on contract. However, there has also been a huge shift in the mindset of workers.

Many candidates now prefer to work on a contract basis. In addition to traditional sourcing, recruiters are finding contract candidates through a number of tools for recruiters available through Top Echelon. Let’s see how Top Echelon recruiting network members can use these tools.

Contract candidates through the Network

Of course, your membership in Top Echelon Network is one of the main tools you have at your disposal. You can use your membership to find candidates for your contract job orders. By getting highly qualified candidates from recruiter split boards, you can avoid adding staff and overhead to your business.

What follows is an example. Let’s say you find the contract candidates that your client wants to hire. You can then utilize Top Echelon’s Contract Staffing Services as the provider of recruitment back-office solutions for those candidates.

TEC takes care of processing payroll and invoicing. We’ll also pay the recruiter profit to both you and your split partners. As a result, you don’t have to worry about tedious, time-consuming paperwork. You just work with your split partners to source the candidates, make the placements, and cash the checks.

Contract candidates through your website

Let’s say you’re a Network member and you have a Top Echelon Job Board Integration for your recruiting website. If that’s the case, then you can post open direct hire and contract positions on your firm’s site and also advertise them on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

This attracts more candidates, who can then apply for jobs and upload their resumes right on your website. Therefore, the contract candidates will come to YOU.

As a bonus, you can also add the Job Board’s free contract staffing page. This page informs prospective clients about your firm’s ability to do direct, contract, and contract-to-direct hire placements.

Contract candidates via an applicant tracking system

Network member Jim Brown of Galileo Search chose the Big Biller ATS recruiting software. He did so because it’s flexible and adapts to the unique way his firm conducts business. As America’s leading Acute Care Infection Prevention and Hospital Epidemiology search and staffing firm, Gailileo Search is very data driven with an extremely robust database of candidates.

The Big Biller recruiting software has extensive data capture, data management, marketing capabilities, and recruiting CRM. As a result, the members of the Galileo Search team are able to find the candidates they need for their clients’ contract job orders.

This saves time, allowing them to present more candidates, fill more orders, and make more placements. Brown also likes the “Ballpark Rate Sheet” feature. This feature allows his team to easily request a Rate Sheet from Top Echelon Contracting for that specific job order.

“This is a great feature that quickly provides the estimated hourly Company Bill Rate, Contractor Pay Rate, and Recruiter Income for a contract placement,” said Brown. “More importantly, it eliminates the margin for error when verbally communicating information for quotes. It easily associates the incoming written quote from Top Echelon Contracting to the actual client/job order to further reduce misinterpretation. This is especially helpful when requesting multiple quotes simultaneously.”

Get contract candidates and make placements!

The evidence is overwhelming. Companies need contractors, and your firm could benefit if you’re willing to accept contract job orders. Once you have the job order and contract candidate, your work is almost finished. The only other thing you need is a back-office to handle the financial and administrative details, so you can focus on the next placement.

That can easily be outsourced to a company like Top Echelon Contracting. As the “Recruiter’s Back-Office Solution,” TEC has been helping recruiters make contract placements since 1992.

— — —

Top Echelon handles all of the administrative, financial, and legal issues associated with making contract placements. Download your FREE Quick-Start Guide to Contract Staffing.

A big part of experiencing success is the ability to form habits. Good habits, mind you, but habits just the same. Habits form every day, every week, and every month.

I realize that your TE membership is just one part of your recruiting desk. You don’t work within the Network during 100% of your day. But you can still experience a LOT of success in our split network.

You just have to do the right things consistently. In other words, you must form the correct habits.

Success . . . one week at a time

For the past few years, we at Top Echelon have compiled a rather impressive library of training videos for Network recruiters.

These videos are recorded versions of live training webinars (our Training Tuesday sessions). We’ve designed them to help you enjoy more success. In other words, we’ve designed them to help you make more split placements.

These videos, which we’ve placed in the Top Echelon Help Center, are “evergreen.” What does that mean? It means we’ve filled them with information that is timeless in terms of what it takes to be successful in Top Echelon’s recruiter network.

So please enjoy this week’s featured Network training video!

Network Webinar Video: “The 3 Things You Should Do in TE Every Week”

Description: Want to enjoy more success in Top Echelon’s recruiting network? Think that it takes a tremendous amount of time, energy, and effort to do so? That’s not the case! In this special Network webinar, Top Echelon Uber Geek Todd Bossler shares “The 3 Things You Should Do in TE Every Week.” Todd outlines a simple step-by-step blueprint for leveraging the resources of the Network on a weekly basis so you can move one step closer to making more placements and generating more revenue.

Video Length: 23 minutes, 1 second

Watch this FREE Network training video!

Remember, if you have questions about this Network training video, your Top Echelon Network membership, or about how you can enjoy more success in the Network, I encourage you to contact me.

You can do so by calling 330.455.1433, x156 or by sending an email to drea@topechelon.com.