You sell potential
for a living.
Everybody in this industry can recite what the job is. Fill the order, keep the client, keep the talent. What almost nobody says out loud is that a recruiter spends all day making a judgment about what somebody is capable of, on thin evidence, under time pressure, and then goes home and applies a much harsher standard to themselves.
These formats are free, they fit a desk day, and nobody needs to have read the book first, including whoever is running it.
This is the one industry I have actually lived in. Chris Sund is a keynote speaker and bestselling author, and he is also President and COO of Uniti Med, GQR Healthcare, and Nebula. He built Uniti Med from a startup to one of the largest healthcare staffing firms in the country, growing revenue 12x in two years, and serves as Vice President of the NATHO Board of Directors. Everything below came out of running desks, not observing them.
What this is
not.
This is not recruiter training. There is nothing here about sourcing, boolean strings, submittal ratios, or how to handle a counteroffer, and there are people who teach all of that better than I would.
If the desk is not making calls, this will not fix that and neither will another dashboard. This works on the person underneath the activity, which is usually where a slump actually lives.
Everyone in this industry knows what first-year recruiter attrition looks like. Some of that is fit and some of it is people who were three months from getting good and decided they were not built for it. This is aimed squarely at the second group.
An hour before the phones get busy, a session at Monday standup, a cohort across ten weeks. Nobody has to leave the floor for a day.
No budget line, no vendor agreement, no license. Print it and run it. The material is free and stays free.
The concepts that land
hardest on a desk.
There are ten in the book. These four are the ones that get a recruiting floor quiet.
Train Your Inner Voice
A candidate no-shows on day one. A placement falls off in week three. A client you spent four months on goes to a competitor over a rate you were never told about. None of that is unusual and all of it lands personally.
Whatever comes after the words I am becomes the ceiling somebody works under, and in this industry it usually gets set during a bad month in year one. This is the session recruiters mention weeks later.
Read the concept →Time Is Your Edge
Everyone on a desk is busy and the difference between the top biller and the middle of the board is almost never hours. It is which hours, and what gets protected when the day starts coming apart at ten in the morning.
Not a time management session. It is about the specific trade a recruiter makes twenty times a day without noticing, between the thing that feels urgent and the thing that fills the desk in six weeks.
Read the concept →Finish What You Start
This industry rewards starting. New job order, new client, new vertical, new ATS. The half-finished things pile up quietly, and most desks that are not working are carrying four of them.
Run this with a team that has a lot of open loops and a lot of good intentions. It works on individuals and it usually surfaces something about how the branch operates.
Read the concept →Leave People Better
People come into recruiting for the money and stay for something else, and the something else is that you occasionally change the shape of somebody’s life. A nurse who gets the assignment that lets her move closer to her mother. A candidate nobody else would interview.
Success is what you bill. Significance is who is better because of you. Run this when the floor has started treating people as requisitions, which happens to every team eventually.
Read the concept →Four formats,
four calendars.
Same material, different levels of commitment. Start with whatever your people will realistically show up for.
The Lunch and Learn
All ten concepts at about five minutes each, with a full run of show and the exact question to ask for every one. Nothing to prepare beyond printing a page, and nobody needs to have read the book.
Works for: a Monday team meeting, a branch all-hands, an onboarding week session, or a breakout at an industry conference.
Open the Guide →The Book Club Guide
One session per concept, written so anyone in the group can run it rather than requiring a facilitator. Honest questions, one that asks more of the room, and a challenge to carry into the week.
Works for: a recruiter cohort meeting weekly, an account management team, a branch manager group across offices, or a leadership bench. Everyone needs a copy of the book.
Download the Guide →The Boot Camp
All ten condensed into a day. Each concept runs the same loop: short teach, silent reflection, table discussion, decision. The group leaves with a written plan instead of notes.
Works for: an annual kickoff, a President’s Club day, a leadership offsite, or the front end of a new recruiter training class.
Open the Guide →The 10-Week Program
The deep version, and the one built for the attrition problem. One concept a week across a new hire class, with real desk life in between, so people try something and report back.
Works for: a new recruiter class in months two through four, an emerging leader cohort, or a group of newly promoted team leads.
Open the Guide →Running it
on a floor.
Things Worth Knowing Before You Start
Do not run it during prime calling hours. Obvious, and it still happens. Early morning or late afternoon, and never the last three days of the month.
Time it to month two, not week one. Onboarding is already saturated and none of it sticks. The point where a new recruiter needs this is the first month the board goes quiet and they start privately wondering whether they are cut out for it.
Leaders sit in the room, not at the front. Every guide is written so the person running it participates too. A manager who says out loud which of these they are bad at changes what the desk is willing to admit, and this industry is not short of people performing certainty.
Do not run this instead of fixing the comp plan. If the split is the problem, or the desk has no support, people will hear a development session as a substitute for action. Fix what you can and be straight in the room about what you cannot.
On the Obvious Conflict
Chris runs staffing companies. If you compete directly with Uniti Med or GQR, that is a fair thing to raise before booking anything, and the honest answer is that it depends on the overlap. Say it up front and you will get a straight response either way. For everyone else in the industry, the operator background is the reason the room listens.
The highest level of success is helping others become more.
Or bring Chris
to the room.
Annual kickoffs, President’s Club, industry conferences, and leadership summits. Bulk copies can be paired with a keynote so people leave with the material rather than the memory of it.
Bring Chris In
The keynote, a facilitated day, or bulk copies for a kickoff or a conference.
Start a Conversation →Books for Sales Reps
Seven sales books with research or real operating behind them, honestly written up. Most of them are not mine.
See the List →The Comfort Ceiling Assessment
Twenty five questions across five areas. Runs on a phone in ten minutes and gives a room something concrete to talk about.
Take It →The Printables
Worksheets for all ten concepts, ready to print for every seat on the floor.
Print Them →
When I’ve got something worth sending.
Just a story or an idea I picked up that I think will help you.
Sometimes that’s twice in a month. Sometimes it’s not for a while.