Without a doubt, finding and recruiting qualified, passive candidates is difficult to do. After all, the results of this latest Members’ Area poll tells you all about it.

So, how do you find and recruit qualified, passive candidates?

The answer is easy. If you’re a member of Top Echelon Network, you enlist the help of your trading partners!

Top Echelon Network is like a broken record in one aspect: every single week, Network recruiters praise their trading partners for finding excellent candidates, candidates that allowed them to fill their clients’ job orders and earn a placement fee.

In fact, one of the recruiters below specifically praised their trading partner for always coming through with “excellent candidates.” This is the value that Top Echelon Network offers to recruiters, and this is the value that it provides on a weekly basis.

If you’d like to tap into the resources and the value of the Network to a greater extent, contact Top Echelon Director of Network Operations Drea Codispoti, CPC/CERS at 330.455.1433, x156 or via email at drea@topechelon.com.

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Rowe Henderson

Greg Downs, CPC

“Greg Downs always comes through with excellent Environmental, Health, and Safety candidates! Thanks again!”

Submitted by Rowe Henderson of Rowe Henderson & Associates regarding his Network split placement with Greg Downs, CPC of Downs Associates

Position Title—SAFETY MANAGER

Fee Percentage—20%

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

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Bill Kubena

Steve Kohn

“Steve, thanks for the great Swiss CNC candidate. I appreciate you taking the time to learn more about the niche guys I look for. Your efforts are greatly appreciated!”

Submitted by Bill Kubena of Kubena & Associates regarding his Network split placement with Steve Kohn of Affinity Executive Search

Position Title—SWISS CNC MACHINIST

Fee Percentage—20%

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

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Ann Wyatt

Stacey Boyer

“#StaceySavedTheDay . . . Seriously, I could NOT have done this without Stacey! Thanks!”

Submitted by Ann Wyatt of Ann Wyatt Recruiting regarding her Network split placement with Stacey Boyer of Bienville Recruiting

Position Title—PRODUCTION PLANNER

Fee Percentage—Flat

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

At Top Echelon, we encourage Network recruiters to send possible questions for our weekly Members’ Area poll . . . and we have just such a question this week in The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog!

Since Industry & Manufacturing has been the number-one niche in Top Echelon Network pretty much since its inception, this question is especially pertinent.

The question, which we recently posted in the Members’ Area, is as follows:

Do you visit the facility of a new client before starting a search for them?

Results:

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

• Yes, every time — 3.8%
• Yes, most of the time — 13.1%
• Yes, every once in a while — 26.9%
• No, I’d rather get started on the search. — 15.0%
• No, it’s not practical for my niche. — 30.0%
• No, for some other reason. — 11.2%

Analysis:

It’s not surprising that a small percentage of poll participants (3.8%) visit the facility of a new client every time before starting a search for that client. After all, client visits are time-consuming—and by extension, costly.

However, 26.9% of recruiters indicated that they visit the facility of a new client “every once in a while” before starting a search, and 13.1% chose “Yes, most of the time” as their answer. As to be expected, nearly a third of respondents claimed that visiting the facility of a new client was not practical for their niche.

Another 11.2% stated that they don’t visit the facility of a new client “for some other reason.”

Conclusion:

“Do recruiters visit the facility of a new client before starting a search for them?” is NOT an easy question to answer. That’s because the answer is “Sometimes . . . depending on certain things . . . and according to their preferences.”

Here are the conclusions that we can draw from the results of this poll:

• Recruiters attach a certain degree of importance to visiting the facilities of their new clients, as evidenced by the percentage of them that do visit.
• The frequency with which they visit new clients varies, indicating that the importance level varies from recruiter to recruiter.
• Some recruiters either attach no importance to client visits, or even if they do, they don’t conduct them for other reasons, which may or may not have something to do with their chosen niche.

Some of the “rules” for the recruiting profession are not hard and fast. What works for one firm does not necessarily work for another, and client visits certainly fall into that category.

How about YOU? Do you visit the facility of a new client before starting a search?

As Matt Deutsch stated in a previous post in this issue of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog, the end of the year means many things. For recruiters, these things involve finishing this year strong and then getting ready for next year.

Recruiters accomplish this dual task in a number of different ways, but one of the ways in which Network recruiters can accomplish it is by attending a Regional Core Group meeting . . . and there’s going to be one next week!

The one of which I speak is the Ohio Regional Core Group meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, November 17, in Columbus. This regional core group has been one of the most successful core groups in the history of the Network, operating for the past several years, and I’m looking forward to another great meeting. There are already 40 recruiters registered for the event..

The details regarding this meeting are as follows:

Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Time: 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Eastern Time
Location: Catering by Design
Address: 6465 Busch Blvd., Columbus, OH 43229
Phone number: 614.436.1234
Cost: $40 per person

If you’d like to attend this core group meeting, simply send an email to drea@topechelon.com, and we’ll add the cost of the event to your Top Echelon invoice.

Remember, there are three main types of core groups in Top Echelon Network:

1. Traditional Core Groups—These are the ones you form yourself by building relationships with other Network recruiters.
2. Regional Core Groups—Those are the ones that involve recruiters meeting face-to-face based upon geographic location (like the Ohio meeting).
3. Virtual Core Groups—During these meetings, Network recruiters share hot job orders and candidates, information about the activity they’re seeing, and ideas for increased production on their desk and within their firms.

If you have questions about any of these groups (or would like to join any of these groups), please give me a call at 330.455.1433, x156.

You do NOT have to be a member of Top Echelon Network for a long time to make a lot of money in Top Echelon Network. And you certainly don’t have to be in the Network for a long time to split a very large placement fee.

Take, for instance, the Largest Split Fee of the Month for October.

Shelli Saunders of The Recruiting Pro joined the Network in February of 2014. Since then, she’s made six placements in Top Echelon, including the one that commanded the largest split fee in the Network last month.

That placement was also the first in the Network for Debbie Winkelbauer with Surf Search, which became a Network member firm in April of this year.

Tenure is not a prerequisite for splitting a placement fee totaling $47,500. All that’s needed is a desire to make split placements and a corresponding desire to build trading partner relationships.

If you have that desire and want to be a big biller in the Network, then I encourage you to to contact Top Echelon Director of Network Operations Drea Codispoti, CPC/CERS at 330.455.1433, x156 or via email at drea@topechelon.com.

Congratulations to Debbie and Shelli, as well as to everybody else who enjoyed a great month of October in Top Echelon Network! (For more information about the awards listed below, login to the Members’ Area and view the profiles and placement details of the winning recruiters involved.)

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Largest Split Fee of the Month:

Debbie Winkelbauer

Shelli Saunders

Debbie Winkelbauer of Surf Search and Shelli Saunders of The Recruiting Pro

The position for this split placement was a Primary Care Physician. Winkelbauer was the job order recruiter, and Saunders was the candidate recruiter.

The action that stimulated this split placement was listed as, “Regular communication with a Top Echelon Network member.”

The fee for this split placement was $47,500.

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Top Echelon determines the monthly and quarterly winners of its Network recruiting awards in four distinct categories, which are listed below:

1.) Recruiter of the Month
2.) Largest Split Fee of the Month
3.) Recruiter of the Quarter
4.) Largest Split Fee of the Quarter

The winners of these awards are only announced in The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog, usually (but not always) in the issue following the conclusion of each month and/or quarter.