Using a comprehensive Candidate Data Sheet (CDS) will allow you to thoroughly screen a candidate to ensure that there is a strong match with the criteria your client initially stated they needed. It is essential to understand your candidate’s primary duties and responsibilities in their current role, you need to comprehend their background and what specific benefits they bring to your client organization, and you need to understand precisely their reasons and motivations behind being receptive to making a change. Remember that clients pay recruiters to identify, attract, evaluate, and then land what we call “fee worthy” candidates. Not every unemployed candidate who needs a job is fee-worthy, not every candidate who even says they want to talk to your client is fee-worthy, and remember that your value will be determined by your ability to land the best.
Documents
Example – Candidate Data Sheet
Solid Candidate Data Sheets Overview
This clip from the NLE Foundation Program covers the primary objectives behind taking the time to walk through a comprehensive CDS with a prospect and getting to know the unique needs, qualifications, and aspirations of each individual candidate represented.
When are the best times of day to engage in a CDS conversation? This NLE Foundation clip shares multiple examples of how to strategically time your CDS phone calls.
Big Biller Travis Peters shares how to expertly execute a Candidate Data Sheet conversation with candidates.
Industry trainer and Big Biller Carol Wenom discusses how a CDS can be used to help with candidate control throughout your process.
Gathering personal information is an absolute necessity when it comes to fully understanding the motivating factors and influences behind your candidate; use this section of the CDS to open the door for an in-depth dialogue about what is important to this candidate’s life, family, and personal situation.
Gathering Personal Information
Relocation
When it comes down to relocation, there is a substantial amount of information to collect above and beyond answers to “will you relocate?” and “where would you go?” These clips from the NLE Foundation Program and the NLRT DVD Series will expand on the numerous facets of relocating a candidate.
Relocation
Details of Compensation
There are a lot of pieces that need to be put together to complete the big puzzle of a candidate’s compensation package. It’s the piece that you forget, or skip, that can come back to hurt you – use this section of the CDS to make sure that does not happen!
Details of Compensation
Understanding Roles & Responsibilities
Discussing employment history should be more than just finding out where someone worked, the dates they were there and what role they performed. These clips show how gathering details such as accomplishments, benefits to the organization and understanding the cultures in which they have worked are key to your success for better candidate evaluations.
Understanding Roles & Responsibilities
Determining Motivating Factors
Uncovering a candidate’s motivation for change takes consistent questioning about their current work environment. These NLE and NLRT clips not only provide multiple lines of questioning, but also ties the responses to reminders you can give the candidate at the offer stage about why they embarked on this possible career change to begin with.
Determining Motivating Factors
Timeframe & Interview Activity
In recruiting, timing is everything. The timeframe of when your candidate could make a move, what other opportunities are being considered, what personal obligations are in place, and a variety of other factors need to be explored extensively prior to taking next steps in the interviewing process.
Timeframe & Interview Activity
Establishing Mutual Expectations
There are a lot of pitfalls that a recruiter might accept as just being a normal cost of doing business, but by covering Mutual Expectations thoroughly, we might actually avoid pitfalls before they have the chance to begin.
Establishing Mutual Expectations
