SURVEY QUESTION:

With the third quarter of the year rapidly coming to an end and the fourth quarter on the horizon (and right behind it, 2014!), this is a good time for recruiters to analyze the activity in their niche.

The activity in a recruiter’s niche is one of the factors influencing whether or not that recruiter finishes the year strong and carries a sizeable amount of momentum into the next year.  It also might determine how much that recruiter works between now and the end of the year.

If they’re enjoying a good year, some recruiters take off nearly the entire month of December, at least in terms of sourcing and hard-core recruiting.

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

That question was as follows:

How would you describe the activity in your niche right now?

SURVEY RESULTS:

The choice of answers that were provided is listed below, along with the percentage of recruiters who selected each answer:

• Red hot! — 16.9%
• Heating up fast! — 31.2%
• Eh, lukewarm — 44.2%
• Not that hot — 6.5%
• Pretty much ice cold — 1.3%

SURVEY ANALYSIS:

Okay, first the good news: 16.9% of survey participants indicated that the activity level in their niche is “Red hot!” and another 31.2% answered “Heating up fast!”  Put those together, and you’ve got nearly half of recruiters enjoying a heightened level of activity.

However, another 44.2% chose “Eh, lukewarm” as their answer, and another 6.5% indicated that their niche is “Not that hot.”  Thankfully, only 1.3% of respondents are of the opinion that their niche is “Pretty much ice cold.”

So as you can see, the answers are all over the place, which pretty much reflects what’s happening in the economy overall—some areas are hot, some are lukewarm, and some are not.

FEEDBACK:

How would you characterize the activity in your niche right now?  With one of the choices listed above, or do you have your own way to describe that activity?  Will you be taking the whole month of December off this year . . . or can you just not afford to do that?

SURVEY QUESTION:

Every once in a while, we hear from a recruiter who made a split placement in the Network they weren’t expecting.  It just kind of “came out of nowhere,” so to speak.

Well, it started happening with such frequency that we decided to find out how frequently it actually happens.  And the way we did so was with—you guessed it—a survey.  (Because we love surveys, and for the most part, they love us back.)

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

That question was as follows:

How many times have you made a placement in the Network that you didn’t expect to make?

SURVEY RESULTS:

The choice of answers that were provided is listed below, along with the percentage of recruiters who selected each answer:

• Never — 51.1%
• Two or three times — 38.3%
• Three or four times — 6.4%
• Five or six times — 2.1%
• More than six times — 2.1%

SURVEY ANALYSIS:

Okay, just over half of the survey participants have “never” made a Network placement that they weren’t expecting.  Of course, that could mean they’ve made a bunch of Network placements that they WERE expecting . . .  which isn’t bad, all things considered.

However, that also means nearly half of the survey participants have made Network placements that they weren’t expecting.  But wait, there’s more: those recruiters have made more than one such placement, anywhere from two to more than six.

In retrospect, it probably would have been a good idea to offer “one placement” as a choice for our survey, but we could “Monday morning survey quarterback” ourselves all day long.

FEEDBACK:

Have YOU every made a split placement in Top Echelon Network that you weren’t expecting, one that came out of the blue and hit you in the face with a placement check?

If so, we’d love to hear about it.  (Not only do we love surveys, but we also love stories that have a happy ending.)

As promised, we have a NEW short survey for Network recruiters this week.  Last week, our survey was presented as the “Desk Assessment Survey.”

This week, we have the “Membership Assessment Survey.”

This one, as you might have guessed, is more geared toward your Top Echelon Network Membership.  We want to know your likes, as well as your dislikes.  However, once again, this is just a two-question survey.

While the two questions are open-ended questions (as opposed to multiple choice), the survey should still only take two to three minutes to complete.  In fact, it could quite possibly take even less time than that.

Below are the two questions that comprise the “Membership Assessment Survey”:

1. What do you like the most about your Top Echelon Network Membership?  This can be ANY aspect of your Membership, but ideally, it’s the aspect that you believe provides you (and your firm) with the most value.

2. What do you like least about your Top Echelon Network Membership?  This can be ANY aspect of your Membership, but ideally, it’s the aspect that you believe provides the least amount of value to you (and your firm).

As before, there will be a text box in which you can type your answers to these two questions.  Your answers can as long or as short as you would like them to be.  Some recruiters have written only a few words, while other recruiters have written paragraphs.

Click here to take our ‘Membership Assessment’ survey!

If you have any questions about this survey or about your Top Echelon Network Membership, you can contact me at 330.455.1433, x156 or via email at drea@topechelon.com.

At Top Echelon Network, we want to help you make more placements.  While we ARE a split placement Network, we want to help you make both split and non-split placements.

With that in mind, we encourage you to take our “Desk Assessment Survey.”  We sent out an email last week to every Network recruiter with a link to the survey.

While participation in the survey has been healthy to this point, there’s a chance you didn’t see the email in your inbox (or you—gasp!—ignored it).

In any case, keep in mind this is just a two-question survey that should take you no more than two or three minutes to complete.  Below are the two questions:

1. Throughout the placement process, there are a number of steps that lead to a completed placement.  To improve your effectiveness within the process, what specific areas could you use help with to improve your productivity, and ultimately, your billings?  These areas may include (but are not limited to) client development, marketing, sourcing, recruiting, administration, management, advertising, etc.  You can list as many as you’d like, and please be as specific as possible.

2. Are there specific areas within the placement process in which you excel and possess an expertise?  They may include (but are not limited to) client development, marketing, sourcing, managing recruiters, running an agency, advertising, etc.  You can list as many as you’d like, and please be as specific as possible.

As you might imagine, there will be a text box in which you can type your answers to these two questions.  Of course, your answers can as long or as short as you would like them to be.  So far, some recruiters have written only a few words, while other recruiters have written paragraphs.

Click here to take our ‘Desk Assessment’ survey!

We’ll be presenting more short surveys in the future, all of which will be designed to help serve you better as customers—in other words, designed to help you make more placements!

If you have any questions or comments, you can contact me at 330.455.1433, x156 or via email at drea@topechelon.com.