Registration for the 2015 Top Echelon Network Fall Conference will be available starting on Monday, July 6.

As we announced in last week’s issue of The Pinnacle, Barb Bruno, CPC/CTS of Good as Gold Training will be the keynote speaker for the conference.

Barb has served as a keynote speaker for us many times through the years at both our National Convention and Fall Conference, and she’s received rave reviews each time that she’s presented for us.

Barb is well known for her no-nonsense advice for recruiters when it comes to running their desks and running their firm, dealing with both candidates and clients, and building wealth through recruiting by doing things the right way and not the way that seems the most convenient.

Her advice is not just valuable during good economic times, but it’s especially relevant during down times, when the fundamentals and basics of recruiting are needed the most.

Barb has also written numerous blog posts and conducted a free recruiter training webinar for us.

Click here to access Barb’s posts for the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog.

Click here to access Barb’s free recruiter training video: “Book 100% of the Candidates You Present.”

Barb would like to extend an invitation to attend this year’s Fall Conference . . .

Below are a few more facts about the Fall Conference:

• The dates of the conference are Tuesday, October 13, and Wednesday, October 14.
• The location is the Sheraton O’Hare Suites in Chicago.
• The cost of Early Bird Registration is $225.

The formula for success in Top Echelon Network in regards to the Fall Conference is simple: come to Chicago, meet your trading partners, meet new recruiters, and make more placements!

Remember, Early Bird Registration starts on July 6.  Take advantage of the Early Bird price and make plans to join us.

We at Top Echelon believe very strongly in the power of the MEGA Database Search Tool to help Network recruiters make more placements.  That’s why we’re excited about the changes and upgrades that we’ve recently made to the MEGA Database.

These changes have been designed to enhance its functionality and the process by which Network recruiters share information.  Our goal has been to help recruiters share that information more easily and more efficiently with better results.

Those changes are as follows:

1.) We will now display the Current Position Title and Home Location of each resume in the results.  Before, we only displayed a recruiter’s name and the number of resumes that matched the MEGA search criteria.

2.) We’re adding a link to all of your shared split jobs that will automatically search the entire MEGA Database for resumes that are “most like” your job (based on the description and job title).  However, you can still build your own Boolean search string, if you desire.

If your firm is currently opted in to the MEGA Database and you would like to opt out at this time, please contact me at 330.455.1433, x156.

Please note that these changes will be made live on Wednesday, June 24.  That means when you login to the Network software on that day, you will be able to use this new functionality.

On Tuesday, June 23, Product Development Manager Todd Bossler conducted a special Training Tuesday webinar regarding the upgrades made to the MEGA Database.

Click here to watch Todd’s webinar regarding the MEGA.

We’re excited about these new changes and the potential they hold to help Top Echelon Network recruiters make even more placements!

If you have any questions, please contact me at 330.455.1433, x156 or at drea@topechelon.com.

Every week, split placements are made by Top Echelon Network recruiters.  And those split placements are very similar to fingerprints.

Namely, no two split placements are exactly the same.

Sure, some might be similar, but they’re not exactly the same.  Even if the recruiters involved are the same, the circumstances are always different.

As a result, there’s a story behind every split placement in Top Echelon.  As you might imagine, it’s impossible to detail every one of those stories, but we highlight as many as we can.  In certain cases, we go in-depth to explore the intricacies of a particular placement.

In this week’s issue of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog, we have three more “split placement stories,” as told by the recruiters involved.  All of these stories, of course, have happy endings—a big, fat placement fee.

Like the placement fees enjoyed by the recruiters below.  If you have a split placement story that you’d like to share with the rest of the Network membership, send your information to marketing@topechelon.com, OR you can just include it with your completed placement form.

Enjoy this week’s stories!

— — —

Deb North

“I got lucky and saw that Wendy Johnson posted that she had hired Sara and that she had some extra bandwidth.  I’m excited that Sara is a part of TopHire.  They are definitely a top-notch and fun group of ladies (and Pete).  She originally sent me this candidate for another job, but because he was local, I marketed his skills and found another ‘home’ for him!  Thank you, TopHire, for sharing Sara, and thank you, Sara, for giving me some bandwidth!”

Submitted by Deb North of Deb North Consulting, LLC regarding her Network split placement with Sara Rich of Top Hire Recruitment

Position Title—SOLUTION ARCHITECT

Fee Percentage—20%

(Editor’s note: This is the first Network split placement that North and Rich have made together in Top Echelon.)

— — —

Sara Gallagher

Trey Cameron

“I have enjoyed working with Trey this past month.  His enthusiasm for recruiting is inspiring.  In the past month, we have three split placements totaling $48,100.  I look forward to each of Trey’s emails that has a ‘WOOT WOOT!’  Thanks, Trey, for providing us candidates, and I look forward to working with you again soon!  I am also looking forward to having a hat trick with another firm in the near future.”

Submitted by Sara Gallagher of Byrnes & Rupkey, Inc. regarding her Network split placement with Trey Cameron of the Cameron Craig Group

Position Title—QUALITY ENGINEER TRAINEE

Fee Percentage—20%

(Editor’s note: This is the third Network split placement that Gallagher and Cameron have made together in Top Echelon.)

— — —

Steve Kohn

“As always, Steve has been fantastic to work with.  He knows his people, he is always willing to help wherever he can, and he’s proactive.  He’s also a lot of fun to work with.  It’s about time we got one, the first of many to come!  Thanks, Steve!”

Submitted by Chris Shoulet of Top Dog Recruiting regarding her Network split placement with Steve Kohn of Affinity Executive Search

Position Title—ANALYTICS SALES ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Fee Percentage—20%

(Editor’s note: This is the first Network split placement that Shoulet and Kohn have made together in Top Echelon.)

We recently conducted a poll of Top Echelon Network recruiters by posting a question in the Members’ Area.

That question was as follows:

On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 being the highest), how would you assess your clients’ urgency to hire?

Results:

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

• 1 — 6.3%
• 2 — 23.2%
• 3 — 43.7%
• 4 — 20.4%
• 5— 6.3%

Analysis:

As might be expected, the percentage of recruiters who rated their clients a “1” or a “5,” the extremes of the spectrum, were the same (6.3%).

That was also the case for those recruiters who rated their clients either a “2” (23.2%) or a “4” (20.4%).

That, of course, leaves the rating of “3.”  That rating was the most popular one among those recruiters participating in the poll at 43.7%.

So does this mean that the poll results are naturally following the law of averages . . . or is it only a coincidence that the results fell into such neat categories?

Conclusion:

Ascertaining how urgent companies are about hiring is no easy task.  However, some conclusions can be drawn from the results of this poll:

• By and large, companies DO have a sense of urgency about hiring.  The combined percentage of recruiters who answered “3,” “4,” or “5” was 70.4%.
• However, their sense of urgency regarding filling open positions can’t be considered “red hot,” at least not at this point.  This may be more an indictment of The Great Recession than anything else, since that experience has made hiring managers overly cautious about hiring.
• If this level of urgency remains constant throughout the rest of the year—or becomes even greater—then recruiters should enjoy a stellar second half of 2015!

How about you and your clients?  How much urgency are they showing?