Client deselection: The secret to success in 2024

The last year in recruitment has had a huge focus on finding new business, and this trend isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

Everyone is creating plans for finding new business and doing as much business development as possible and the pressure is on to bring in new clients and jobs. This is making recruiters feel like they have to take on any opportunity that comes their way. They will agree to unfavourable terms with clients and work jobs that are nearly impossible to fill because they feel like they have to otherwise their job is at risk.

This way of working has devastating consequences, and by working with a ‘bad’ client it will be a huge drain on your time.

As a recruiter you need to assess the return on investment of all your clients, candidates and vacancies.

Your main investment is time. Think about how many hours you spend on all of your vacancies and clients. Now work out how much money you have made from them. Work out your hourly rate. You could easily spend 20 hours in total on a vacancy from start to finish. This will include qualifying the vacancy, sourcing candidates, calling, emailing, gathering CV feedback, booking interviews, prepping for interviews, regular calls with the candidates to keep them warm, presenting the offer, onboarding, aftercare etc.

There are so many tasks that you need to do to ensure the process runs smoothly. If you are doing all of this and then you don’t get paid, then that is work that you have done and not been paid for. Lets break this down.

You have a client that you are only filling 1 in 5 roles with, then your hourly rate is going to be low. If your average fee is £5000 and you are doing 20 hours work per vacancy, then your hourly rate is £250. However, if you factor in the 4 roles you didn’t fill then your hourly rate drops to £50 per hour.

Now think about the clients that you seem to always have roles on with, yet never place. The financial strain that this causes doesn’t stop there. By working with ‘bad’ clients, you are damaging your reputation. Because your client has provided a poor experience for the candidate, it makes you look bad as you are representing them. This will mean that over time, candidates will be hesitant to work with you. In a climate where good candidates are hard to find, you want every bit of help you can get. If you have a bad reputation, then this is making your life even harder to fill roles. These lead to a recruiter’s motivation dropping.

All recruiters go through a tough patch, this affects your motivation, and it becomes harder and harder to push yourself to do what needs to be done to get back on track. When you keep working with ‘bad’ clients, you end up in a downward spiral and it often leads to burnout. So, what can you do about this?

Start by creating an ideal client avatar. If you could create your perfect client:

What would they look like?

What are your non-negotiables?

Start to compare your current clients to your avatar:

How do they match up?

Are any of them close?

If not, then it may be time to start moving away from them. Start spending more time with the clients that are matching your avatar. Put more time and resources into the clients that are giving you a return on your investment.

By cutting the clients that are a drain on your time for no return, you are able to spend more time with the ideal clients, or if you don’t have any, then you can spend the time finding them.

This is easy in theory, but hard to put in to practice, as it requires you to have the discipline and stubbornness to turn down clients and business that you shouldn’t be spending your time on. But trust me, it is worth it.

When you have a handful of clients that are giving you regular vacancies exclusively with good fees that are fillable and they are great to work with, you will look back and kick yourself for not doing it earlier.