When you think about it, everything is a habit. This includes success. When you do the things you need to do to be successful—and you do them on a consistent basis—you’ve made success a habit.

The same holds true with your membership in Top Echelon’s recruiting network. There are certain things you can do to increase your chances of enjoying more success within the Network.

More than likely, activity has slowed down on your recruiting desk and within your agency. The Great Resignation is perhaps losing steam . . . or has stopped altogether. Consequently, clients are no longer handing out job orders and search assignments like candy.

If this has been the case for you, perhaps you’re now in “business development mode” at the end of the year, hoping to generate a degree of momentum heading into 2024. Lower activity, fewer search assignments, even fewer truly qualified candidates, and progressively longer hiring cycles—these are perfectly logical reasons to share all of your jobs with other Top Echelon Network recruiters!

Okay, I know for some of you, that might not be your first instinct, and I understand that. Split placements don’t constitute a large part of your business model, but they don’t have to. You can still reap the benefits of sharing all of your job orders.

Don’t believe us? Here’s what Top Echelon Network Top Producer Steve Kohn of Affinity Executive Search, Inc. has to say about sharing all of your jobs with the Network:

Steve Kohn

“The best recruiters fill about 1/4 of their searches. This means you LOSE 3/4 of the time, but you don’t know for sure which 3/4 it’s going to be. Otherwise you’d have fewer searches, but would fill all of them.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if once in a while, when you lose, you lose to yourself and get half the fee? Every single TE split is a situation where the job order recruiter FAILED to produce the winning candidate, and got paid, anyway.

“If you don’t post all of your searches to TE, you’ll make a lot less money. It’s just that simple.”

It doesn’t get any more simple and straightforward than that. And Steve knows what he’s talking about. He’s made 533 placements in Top Echelon Network with a career TE cash-in total of $4.8 million!

Share the wealth . . . literally

Below are four main reasons to share ALL of your jobs with the Network:

#1—Many of the Top Producers in the Network make it a habit to post all of their job orders.

You just heard from one of them. If they’re doing it and making a lot of money, then you can, too. That much evidence is compelling.

#2—You increase the chances that another recruiter is going to see your job order and help you fill it.

You’re 100% guaranteed to NOT receive Network help filling a position if you don’t share your jobs. This includes using the Network Candidates sourcing tool.

#3—The more you share, the more you network, the more you bill.

Everything affects everything else. The simple act of sharing a job order with other Top Echelon recruiters could set off a chain reaction of events. That chain reaction could eventually result in a single placement or multiple placements. But it starts with YOU.

#4—You can still run your business exactly the way you’ve always run it.

In fact, what will probably happen is that you’ll invest just a little more time in split placements. And your return on that investment can increase substantially.

Now that the year is nearly over, if you’re hoping to finish 2023 strong, then make sharing ALL of your agency’s job orders with Top Echelon’s split network a priority. In fact, just try it for the next few months and see what happens to your overall production.

If you’re not satisfied, then you can always go back to what you were doing before.

What do you have to lose?

A few weeks ago, I proclaimed that the fourth quarter of the year is a GREAT time to re-design your recruiting agency’s website. One of the reasons I proclaimed this—other than the fact it’s true—is that Top Echelon partnered with Recruiters Websites earlier this year.

As part of our relationship with Recruiters Websites, Top Echelon customers can receive a FREE audit and evaluation of their website, plus a quote for services.

These evaluations are a no-obligation way to assess where your website is and where you’d like it to go. Still not convinced? Well, I thought you might say that.

Below are five reasons why you should get your FREE website audit and evaluation from Recruiters Websites:

#1—18 months

A website design is considered to be outdated after just 18 months. How old is your current website? A year? Two years? Five years? More?

Time definitely flies when you’re having fun recruiting, and nowhere is that more true than with your website. You can probably “roll with it” if your site is two or three years old, but if it’s older than that . . . then it’s probably time for an upgrade.

#2—Five seconds

You only have FIVE seconds to make an impression on your website visitors (and compel them to take action). That means they have to be able to figure out exactly what you want them to do within five seconds of visiting your site.

Are your calls-to-action (CTAs) immediately identifiable and easy to understand? Or is the site confusing and will make visitors flee?

#3—Marketing and branding

A recruiting firm’s website now contributes more to that firm’s marketing and branding efforts than at any other time in the history of the profession. When candidates and clients want to find out more about you and your services, they visit your firm’s website (after checking you out on LinkedIn, perhaps).

What impression are you giving them? A positive one? Or do you appear to be stuck in the year 2006?

#4—Mobile, mobile, mobile!

More job seekers than EVER are looking for new opportunities on their tablet and/or smartphone. The trend is only going in one direction, and it’s not going to change anytime soon.

Next month, the same will hold true. And the month after that . . . and the month after that . . . and the month after that . . .

#5—Placements

You could make more placements if your agency’s website is working for you and NOT against you. There are many recruiters in Top Echelon’s split network who are making placements as a direct result of what their website is doing for them. You could join their ranks.

Placements are the name of the game in recruiting. Make sure your agency’s website is on your side.

As a gentle reminder, Recruiters Websites offers a full suite of services:

• Website design and development
• Marketing strategy
• Digital and traditional advertising
• Copywriting and editorial content
• Search engine optimization (SEO) and management
• API and application integrations

All of these services, of course, are designed to attract potential clients and candidates and are optimized for search engines to maximize your recruiting agency’s online presence. Just click the link before for a free audit and evaluation of your agency’s website, plus a quote for services:

I want my free audit, evaluation, and quote!

Remember to check The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog for announcements regarding more partnerships between Top Echelon and other top products and services in the recruiting and staffing industry!

Believe it or not, I’ve already discussed four “Networking Tips” for Top Echelon. My, how time flies.

That brings us to our next tip, which at first glance seems like a rather simple one. However, it can prove to be more difficult than it appears. That’s because it deals with your reputation.

But when it comes to enjoying success in Top Echelon’s recruiting network—and enjoying it more often—this is one tip that you absolutely cannot ignore.

If you take this tip to heart with everything you do in the Network, then you won’t have to go looking for success. Success will find YOU instead.

With that kind of buildup, Networking Tip #5 is below . . .

Build a positive reputation with your peers.

Our logic about your Network reputation:

Everybody wants to be a winner, and the shrewd will try to surround themselves with winners. You’re participating in one of the world’s largest network of independently-owned recruiting agencies.

Your co-members are trying to determine with whom they can work best. The relationships you form with Network members now are the building blocks for your future split placements.

If you develop the reputation of being a “mover and a shaker,” then your co-members will tend to pay more attention to your candidates and job orders than if they had never heard of you. This helps to perpetuate your positive reputation.

Below are some immediate steps that you can take to build your reputation:

#1—Make placements!

Nothing will do more for your reputation than making a large number of Network placements! Everything else is secondary.

#2—Be a “go getter.”

Make things happen!

Get your co-members’ candidates interviewed. Respond quickly to Network job orders with candidates who are right on target.

Post good, place-able candidates. Get your good job orders into the Network quickly. Go out of your way to help a co-member.

#3—Keep your nose clean.

Don’t jeopardize everything you’ve worked for by doing anything that could be construed as even the slightest bit unethical.

#4—Remember our biggest rule for success.

What is our biggest rule for success? It’s also simple: in everything you do, always give more than you take.

Now that we’ve discussed building a positive reputation with your peers in our split network, we’ll move on to Networking Tip #6 next.

If you have any questions, please contact me by calling 330.595.1742 or by sending an email to drea@topechelon.com.

There are a number of benefits associated with being part of a split recruiter network.

More placements are at the top of that list. However, how a recruiter makes those additional placements is just as important as making them.

Take, for instance, working a job order outside of your niche. Normally, if a client presented you with an open position that you don’t normally work, you probably would not be inclined to accept it.

Why? Because the chances that you could fill it on your own would be slim. And if you can’t fill it (or even present credible candidates), then you might lose luster in the eyes of the hiring manager.

However, a job order is a job order . . . is a job order. Membership in a split network like Top Echelon is an excellent way to fill those orders that fall “outside of your wheelhouse.”

There are Top Echelon Network members who make placements every year that they would NOT have made otherwise. That’s because they leverage the resources and knowledge of their trading partners to make those placements happen.

In fact, filling a job order outside of your niche is one of the ways that split placements promote business development.

After all, you’re making placements in a niche you might not know anything about. And once you make one placement with a trading partner, that opens the door to another . . . and another . . . and another. (You get the drift.)

However, filling job orders outside of your niche is just one way that split placements promote business development. The other four ways are as follows:

1. Filling job orders within your niche that you would not have filled otherwise
2. Filling job orders within your niche that you might have filled otherwise, but filling them more quickly
3. Sourcing candidates within your niche that you would have not sourced otherwise
4. Gleaning best practices, advice, and tips from other recruiters

So remember: the next time a client gives you a job order outside of your niche, take it!

Take that order and share it with your split recruiting partners and the rest of the Network, if necessary. Somebody can help you fill it.

If you don’t take that job order, then your client might give it to one of your competitors instead.

And why would you want THAT to happen?

With the New Year right around the corner, I would like to throw a few definitions at you that will lay the groundwork for this blog post about Network success.

Entropy: In any natural process, there exists an inherent tendency towards the dissipation of useful energy.

Natural Selection: Differential survival and reproduction among members of a population or species in nature, due to variation in the possession of adaptive genetic traits. Natural selection, the major driving force of evolution, is a process leading to greater adaptation of organisms to their environment.

Some things are inevitable. What we incorporate into our lives to better ourselves makes the difference in terms of whether or not we survive the bad times.

We often adopt tunnel vision because we’ve found a sweet, comfortable spot in our work or play or at home. This will make us subject to entropy itself. Eventually, our useful energy will dissipate because it is the natural law.

What does this mean, Drea?

It means that you must constantly find and implement ways to make your recruiting desk more impenetrable to failure and maintain strength.

With that in mind, below are five steps for thriving as members in Top Echelon’s recruiting network:

1. Have active data (jobs and candidates) shared with the Network.

2. Make your Recruiter Profile page reflect who you are and what you do.

3. Call other recruiters who work in your industry/specialization and build relationships with them.

4. Participate in the Virtual Core Groups, if they apply to you.

5. Set a goal to not only establish a relationship with several other Top Echelon Network members, but also to make split placements in Top Echelon. Nobody should have to tell you at this point what benefits goal setting can bring to you.

Obvious? Maybe. Sometimes the obvious is obscured by our tunnel vision. Implementing the things in our lives that will make us thrivers will also hone our instincts, and we can only hope that we are ready for whatever may come.

Finding these additional things to make you stronger and smarter will then turn surviving into thriving!

If you have any questions about this blog post or about your Top Echelon Network membership, please contact me. You can do so at 330.595.1742 or at drea@topechelon.com.