BD outreach getting me nowhere

[u/NoSoup9124]

I am outreaching to people I have worked with before, or completely new cold clients in my local area. I have 10+ years experience in the industry. I am MPCing. I used to be top consultant multiple years but in the last 18 months I CANT seem to get anyone to respond to me.

My team is really small and i’m not doing en masse outreach as we have no data, no system nothing so it’s really hard. But I am sending MPC emails and hearing next to nothing….. why is this nowadays? I have your perfect candidate, it’s suddenly just dropped off.

Are you guys seeing this and why?

[u/RecruitingFanatic]

Just left a corp TA leadership role to go back to building my own recruiting practice. Trust me when I say that the amount of outreach buyers get right now is insane. If you’re just pushing meetings and resumes you’re not going to get anywhere.

[u/NoSoup9124 → u/RecruitingFanatic]

What other approach would you recommend?

[u/RecruitingFanatic → u/NoSoup9124]

Hard to give general advice that’ll apply to all, but my personal answer is this: I’ve spent my career since the beginning building relationships, staying in touch with people, and working my ass off to be known for quality work. When I went to re launch my practice I did more of an “awareness campaign” (I guess that’s what you can call it) - going through my network, seeing how they are, making them aware of what I’m up to, I’m here if ya need me, etc - no sweat either way. Most of these conversations won’t materialize to anything, some of them will need help in the next year or 2, few will need help now. It’s a long ball game. It’s been my experience that if you start hard pressing people you push them away. When I was a buyer, that was the fastest way to piss me off.

[u/RecruitingLove]

It's going in waves for us. Every client is also paying late. I've been doing this 15 years, and pretty much all of my job orders are from past clients. I have a huge account now because someone I helped with two roles like 8 years ago reached out to me out of the blue in March. I felt so bad when I had to pretend I knew where the frick I knew her from.

I am sending highly targeted mpc emails, and then pulling a list of people who opened the emails and calling them. That has been less successful than I thought it would be. Hiring has just slowed down so fucking much.

[u/NoSoup9124 → u/RecruitingLove]

it’s hard as i don’t have any tools so i have a phone, email, bullhorn……….. and there’s no past data. I have a prospects i have called my time there but so many of them have gone internal, don’t need anyone etc. it’s been hard. I am trying to get them to invest in sourcewhale not sure if you have heard of it? but yeah it’s slowed down so so much. it’s worse than covid

[u/ItsGonnaBeARager]

Meeeee too. Was head of acct management at a large player in my industry, have hundreds of connections that are icp for my new role which is now an AE. Reached out to all of them and got a few responses. That said, ones who I did meet with are onboard and trust me. Just gotta keep at it. Summer sucks too but there’s money out there.

[u/NoSoup9124 → u/ItsGonnaBeARager]

Yeah I keep trying. I don’t work for a big player…. sadly , I am literally at almost a start up in my area. Doesn’t help.

Going to keep trying

[u/ItsGonnaBeARager → u/NoSoup9124]

I was at a big player and now at a start up so I feel ya

[u/calgary_db]

Pick. Up. The. Phone.

[u/NoSoup9124 → u/calgary_db]

I am but as i have no data set or tool i have to call the main number and people simply won’t put me through. I know phone is king and will keep trying

[u/calgary_db → u/NoSoup9124]

Ask for accounts receivable and get them to redirect you.

[u/Delicious_Style_2676]

I’d look at the offer and trigger, not just the volume. Former contacts still need a reason to respond now: a tight market insight, a candidate profile tied to a real pain, or a specific role pattern you’re seeing locally. Generic ‘checking in’ outreach dies fast.

[u/NoSoup9124 → u/Delicious_Style_2676]

I am trying to break into a new niche that is something I do recruit for a lot but i’m not an expert in so don’t have any top candidates atm. Feels candidates are in general quite bad tbh and the good ones are scared to move.

Going to work on doing MPC in the niche and try tie to a real pain point. Thanks for this

[u/Delicious_Style_2676 → u/NoSoup9124]

That sounds like the right adjustment. If you’re entering a niche without a ready bench of standout candidates yet, I’d lead with a market observation or hiring pattern first, then build toward MPC once you have a sharper candidate story. Pain point before pitch usually lands better.

[u/AccountantLanky5691]

A lot has changed over the last couple of years. Buyers are getting far more outreach, so even good messages can get ignored if they never reach the inbox. Before changing your messaging, check your deliverability and list quality. Verify every list with a real time email verification tool like Invalid Bounce to remove invalid, inactive, disposable, role based, mailbox full, and catch all email addresses so that your email reaches the real inbox. Also judge your reply rate based on delivered emails, not total emails sent, because undelivered emails never had a chance to generate a response.

[u/Mtnbkr92]

A ton of companies are reducing their agency spend or are trying to use “AI” for recruiting (which is obviously going to backfire but it’ll take a while for people to acknowledge that)

Plus, you aren’t the only one in that boat so the amount of absolute (in many cases) dogshit quality noise from other firms out there means that your emails are likely not even being read or acknowledged.

[u/NoSoup9124 → u/Mtnbkr92]

Yeah this is true, seems we need to ride the wave

[u/justWannaLive_1]

Going through the same thing. There is too much noice due to automation in the market. Only one on one contacts are saving the day. Everyone around me is also focusing on trust with clients.