Rule of three
This is the first in a series on negotiation in recruitment, inspired by a recent listen.
To kick things off, let’s look at the rule of three.
I’ve found throughout my career that engagement and commitment come from tackling the same issue in three ways.
Whether it’s a presentation -
“Say what you’re going to say; say it; summarise it.”
Something we’ve been trained to do even in watching the news, as they attempt to get us to stick around… “later this evening”.
Or in candidate discussions, something I developed when I noticed the problem with selling too hard.
More on that later.
In his insightful (audio)book on negotiation, Chris Voss talks about the psychology of negotiating, influencing and manipulation of antagonists.
His negotiations skills came from hostage situations, yet he adapts this brilliantly to the corporate context. Because people are people.
It feels like my early-career attempts to do the same with candidates.
But candidates aren't antagonists.
In an employer candidate discussion, they should be deuteragonists - everyone wins in a successful job offer.
If you accept candidates can be the dual protagonists, then every candidate must be, including the readers that walk away without you ever knowing.
Because you don’t know at initial stage who the winning candidate is going to be. Especially those you can’t yet know about.
And everyone is a hero of their own story.
A second difference is, that while Chris states everyone wins in his negotiations, those wins are imbalanced - he aims to get more of what he wants while leaving the other feeling they got a good outcome.
The third difference is that Chris’ negotiations lead to a final decision, ideally to his advantage. Yet candidates can decide to do one thing, committedly, then change their mind for what can be impenetrable reasons, for changes in circumstance, or just because they want to.
Regrettably, there is a fourth point which ruins the form of this article. Our negotiations with candidate should also be a double assessment of fit - are they right for the role, and is the role right for them? In this way, a no can be a great outcome for everyone - ‘that's wrong’ riffing off the book's words, because you find out concrete reasons why it was never going to work out as early as possible.
I came to a pivotal moment in my career some years ago, in doing some recruitment for Anglian Water.
The recruitment manager said to me - “you have a problem with your candidates sticking.”
While my immediate inclination, as someone doing their best, is that it’s the candidates at fault, she was entirely correct.
How could it be that candidates seemed enthused by a role I presented to them, yet decided not to go for an interview?
It’s simply this - in conversation, it’s easy to get excited and think what a great opportunity!
Yet with time to reflect, the impassable objections can come up.
Objections that are sometimes easy to ascertain early on, while others are initially philosophical and then utterly practical the closer to offer/start/end of probation you get.
From this, over many years, I came to three adjustments in my candidate engagement.
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that an initial part of a first call should be about them and them only, so as not to bias the call to the vacancy. In doing so you can link the vacancy to their aspirations while identifying hard objections (the ones which mean they should withdraw for good reason). Candidates often want to hear about the vacancy first, but it’s in everyone’s best interest that I hear their side beforehand.
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that sending an application immediately after that call, can result in the situation with Anglian Water. Therefore at least one follow-up should occur. Perhaps a rare situation, yet a problem which has a solution. The immediacy of flinging CVs over at speed is a consequence of first-past-the-post recruitment and one reason I’ve moved away from the transactional contingency approach.
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that combining these with formal competency interviews can be intrusive on a candidate’s time. How could I implement a follow-up to gain commitment and qualify? The answer became my assessment-over-time interviewing technique:
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a call as described in point 1
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a follow-up call to discuss questions and concerns - to ensure proceeding to the next step is the right decision
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a third call, if it is of interest, to make sure I represent them in the right way
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Perhaps those three points in the third point might seem like overkill, but this can happen over a couple of days, and isn’t so rigid we can’t adjust things on the fly.
I’ve found three byproducts of this:
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I build trust naturally for the right reasons. By making a safe place to express concerns, in confidence, these concerns are often raised. And if a role isn’t right - well we’ve saved everyone a lot of time. Equally, it’s hard to fake during what candidates may feel are the ‘in-between’ moments - you can get a sense of what they are genuinely all about
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this approach contributes to better hiring accuracy and retention. I can’t prove it at scale, because I’m a low volume recruiter, but it is the candidate mirror of my client work, and over the past few years I’ve filled every vacancy (that wasn’t cancelled by economic shenanigans), with an average retention of 3.8 years. But more importantly with feedback my placements are often future leaders, and exceed expectation.
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this contributes, along other measures, with fewer issues - ghosting, poor/no shows, ‘losing’ people to counteroffers are rare issues for me.
You can apply this rule of three to any part of recruitment.
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Offer an interview; confirm the interview; check-in before the interview
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Verbal offer; confirm when paperwork will go out; check paperwork ok
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Pre-boarding; onboarding; induction
Chris Voss talks about his Rule of 3, to get counterparts to agree three times in conversation. Through calibrated questions, summaries and labels.
It works very well in the scenarios he describes.
But while employers love their ransom lists and the demands they buy from their candidates, candidates have their own non-negotiables too.
This gives an intermediary a unique opportunity to intervene, in the right way, in their negotiations.
Gaining commitment too early on can backfire, so instead we have to help them negotiate their deal with us, in service of the outcomes we want.
Besides, as an employer, if you ‘win’ a negotiation with a candidate and they come aboard cheap, well they may well vote with their feet if a better offer comes up.
Starting my business in 2011, I had an opportunity to build my philosophy of recruitment, in what I now describe as an outside-in approach.
I’ve made a 126-gallon load of mistakes, and continue to do so, but the results for employers, and candidates, are excellent, and I continue to learn and develop my thinking.
In this series, I’ll look at different aspects of negotiation from outside-in process, to owning candidate resentment, to problem-solving.
I'll look at my process in recruitment, alluding to some of Voss’s principles, so you could treat his book as a companion piece of sorts.
You can adjust my notions in line with Voss' negotiation style, adopt it as your own or... well this has always been called Your Mileage May Vary.
Thanks for reading.
Greg
p.s. I’m bitterly disappointed that World Pi Day hasn’t coincided with British Pie Week.
p.p.s. sorry, I forgot to summarise at the end… rule of 3, recruitment vs Voss, coming soon, etc etc
