Click here for Part I, Part II & Part IV

From your first job……to your best job

Jeff Martin is the president and CEO of University Recruiters. Based in Maple Lawn, Maryland, University Recruiters is a global recruiting and job placement agency that champions the needs of young professionals and recent graduates. The company assists candidates throughout the job-seeking process, refining resumes, preparing candidates for interviews, and offering tools to help individuals define and pursue their long-term career goals. Prior to University Recruiters, Jeff served as Director of Recruiting for NewDay USA for 12 years.

Q. Why did you decide to go into recruiting specifically?

JEFF MARTIN: They say recruiting is the purest form of sales, right? I have to go sell the company to trust me with your people and then I have to go sell an individual to trust me that where I’m going to put you is the right place. It’s fun for me, to be honest with you. It’s my passion. As you always hear—No BS—if you do what you love, the business will follow. I am just very lucky that my passion is staffing and recruiting. I got lucky. I love golf—if I followed that I probably wouldn’t be making any money, but I love it.

Q. How does the University Recruiters model work?

The other side of that is bringing the individuals in, so when we get the client on board, now we have to go out and sell the individuals. We have a different approach. The biggest thing that we do differently, especially here in Maryland, is we put eyeballs on every single candidate. We do this for a couple of reasons. One is that over the phone, a lot of people can be good. That same person—it doesn’t change who they are or what their resume is—but when they get up to you, they get nervous. When they show up they’re not prepared.

The first thing that we do is, when we bring you in, we don’t box you in. We really want to sit down and find out: “What do you really want to do?” Because here’s what I know: I can sell you to do anything—I probably can—and so can my recruiters. And that’s not me—that’s any good recruiter. But I want to sell you to a company that you want to be at, and I also want to sell you to a company that wants you. There are all of those things mixed in, so when we sit down, the first thing I say is: “Look, there’s no right or wrong answer. If you leave here, I’m going to at least teach you a couple of things you’ll learn when you get out into the real world, and we’ll be Facebook friends or whatever. What I am not going to do is shove you into a job. So, just be straight with me: What do you want to do?” It’s amazing, when you ask that question without pressure, the things you hear.

The next thing that we do is then we talk about that. We’re really honest and frank with people. Every other young guy who comes of school wants to work for a sporting thing. I can sit here and BS you like a lot of other people will—and of course, the schools can’t tell you this—but we’d better have a second option. We go through that, and that’s just one example. We don’t feel bad about it. You see their faces a lot of times, like, “you just killed my dream.” I went to school for four years, and that’s not what I’m doing. I’m just trying to set, in reality, what’s going on in the real world.

The worst thing that can happen to someone is that they just keep searching and searching and searching, and years go by. I see this all the time. It’s a year, but they’re waiting tables, they’re making money, but that next generation of people coming out or coming up now are the ones taking the jobs and getting the jobs.

We have a conversation: “I’m your friend. What do you want to do? Tell me what it is.” Then, we open up our book of business, and we say, “Through personality and where I think you may do well, and the people I know at these businesses”—I tell them where I think they should go. “You don’t have to listen to me. As an expert, I’m telling you here is where I think you will flourish.” We walk them through everything.

A lot of recruiters would do this, but we get into the pay, and “How far are you going to be driving?” Because I don’t want to set up an interview if you aren’t going in. My interviews are not interviews. They’re formalities. You want to go in and blow it away and get the job, and that’s one thing that we really do. We spend a lot of time not just selling a company the bells and whistles—everyone can do that—but what’s really going to be asked from you that the interviewer may not even tell you because they want to get you in the door?

Placing hundreds of people in places, I’ve heard the good and bad, so let’s go over the bad, let’s talk about it. What we’ve noticed is it’s an hour-and-a-half process. When they leave there, they’re clear, they’re focused and they’re energized. When they go to the interview, all I say is, “I’m giving you the ball on the one-yard line. It’s time to get in the end zone.” We have fun doing it. There are a lot of times that it is what it is, that people leave and we don’t have an opportunity for them—I shake their hand; I say, “It was nice to meet you. I’m not going to waste your time or my client’s time.”

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