Stephanie Moss

Right now, you've got a commute that is 30 minutes and it gives you the freedom to drop the kids off at daycare in the morning and your partner picks them up in the afternoon and it works out great. If you take this new job, you're going to have to rearrange because the commute's in an opposite direction, dot, dot, dot, dot. We don't offer to solve that challenge for them.

Instead, you say, OK, tell me more about this commute. How would you see if this really was the right fit for you right now? How would you handle that? And you get them to talk through some things. If it's about challenges of an organization. I was talking with somebody earlier today and they really like the hiring manager.

However, they know the organization is really challenged and they're talking through like, gosh, I would love to go work for this person. I think they're awesome. But the organization as a whole is really challenged for numerous reasons. So again, they haven't asked for help. My help.

I'm just guiding a conversation and they haven't told me they don't want the job, but these are reasons they may not take it. So how would you handle that? Tell me when you think about that. You love to hire your manager, but you're concerned about the organization. How do you process that? And just listen, listen, listen. Then we can start talking about seeking agreement.

And this is where if we've done our part, we are often invited, which is best case scenario, invited to share our thoughts.

and suggestions and an invitation often sounds like i don't know stephanie i mean you know my wife could take me in the morning i could leave early and just go in the other direction and fight the traffic going back i don't know i mean do you think the client would let me come in 15 minutes late every day so i could do that do you think they let me work from home and that i don't know stephanie what do you think or hey what have folks done in the past but anytime they turn it around and start asking you for your input that's the invitation if we don't get an invitation

we can ask for it. Hey, John, I can see you're really struggling with this. May I offer up a couple of suggestions that I've seen folks similar in your situation do? May I offer up a couple of thoughts? If you're in a biz dev call, hey, it really sounds like you've had great success in the past on your own. However,

If you needed to do a search and you didn't find the talent within 60 to 90 days, that would put you in a little bit of a compromise scenario. May I offer a suggestion for how we could handle that? And by the way, a simple suggestion would be, let me call you in 45 days. Let me just see where you're at. How would that sound?

Would you be willing to take my call in 45 days for me to see how you're doing? God willing, you're doing great. You just don't need me right now. No problem. No foul. We'll talk again in the future. But most of the time they go, yeah, that would be great. And now you have an agreement on where we go, what we do next. Go back to the recruiting scenario.

Hey, let me give you a couple things to think about. You offer some suggestions, and then you set a follow-up call. Hey, I know I've given you a couple things to think about. Before we move forward, let me have you noodle through that. Let's connect again tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon, and let's talk through really what makes sense, if anything, in terms of a next step.

This is how we work the LACES model. Again, keep in mind it is based on very active, intentional, and patient listening. This is how we start handling conversation resistance. And by the way, if you've been in the search business and made more than five phone calls, you know unless you're getting five voicemails in any given conversation, There is going to be some resistance.

One of the things, whether you're five years or five minutes in recruiting, I encourage you to do is script out what are your most common objections. If you're recruiting and your most common objection is, hey, I'm just not looking right now. What's a good response for that? How do we get folks to relax and still want to talk to us?

We here at Thinking Ahead take such a long-term approach to how we do search that Even if they're not currently looking to make a move, they're still, from my perspective, and I believe there's tremendous value in talking with me for another eight to 10 minutes. You just never know in this wonky world what's going to happen. So great.

If you're not looking right now, most of the people I talk to aren't. No problem. Here we still spend, I promise, no more than eight to 10 minutes just getting to know each other professionally. That way we know how to stay in touch for the future. And if anything happens, we know each other and we're comfortable working together. Are you okay with that?

In my entire career, I have only had two people ever ask me to never call them again. And by the way, one of them, I now talk to on a regular basis because after about five years, they reached out to me and said, okay, I got to be talking to you. Sorry, I was dense. Of course, I was very forgiving. But I'll never forget because it's not very many people.

Most folks may say, hey, I don't have the time right now, but I'd welcome. Let's set up a time. But again, what we're trying to do is to put people at ease and continue the conversation. Now, with that being said, let's talk about the when. When do we handle objections? There are three key times when we handle objections. The first time or the first option is before they even come up.

The second time is after it gets mentioned. And then the third time is never. And we'll talk about that too. So let's start with this.

If you know on a regular basis that you're going to get certain objections in a recruiting mode, if you know that you're representing an organization whose reputation has recently been challenged, or if you know the position's in an undesirable location, or if you know the hiring manager is a pill to work for, or there's always something. No place is perfect. No opportunity is perfect.

But it doesn't usually take us very long to figure out why somebody right off the bat might have some concern. It could also just be general, like they don't work with search firms or we don't have the budget to pay or I don't have a need. I don't need a firm right now. I don't need to talk to you. These are common objections that we know we're going to get.

So let's try handling them on the front end. One of my favorite ways to do that is in business development calls. It's just to come right out of the gates. When I'm talking to a decision maker, whether they're in HR or talent acquisition or they're hiring on the line or for the department, I like just to open with that. And again, this is assuming it's a pretty cold call.